UNDERSTANDING THE RIOTS / PART 3 : WITNESS TO RAGE : ‘The wounds suffered in South-Central were self-inflicted.’

A year ago, I moved to Orange County to get away from the existence in Los Angeles.

To sum it all up in one word, Los Angeles seems dirty. It is overpowering.

On the day the riot began, I had a 2:00 appointment on the fringes of downtown L.A. It was cancelled.

It took me about four hours to get back here from LAX after I did that. We had a 40-mile gridlock on the freeway. I listened to events on the car radio. I thought I would take PCH and get off the freeway, but then I remembered there’s an area of Long Beach that’s not too savory. So, I felt that perhaps I would be better off on the freeway.

It was useless to even try to get into Los Angeles, and with the curfew and with the crowds on the freeway. So I confined my efforts to the Orange County and San Diego areas.

I stayed out of L.A. completely.

I think that the wounds suffered in South-Central were self-inflicted.

I have sympathy for the black community, but not as much as I, in my heart, feel I should have. The tools of redemption have been there for 20 years--education and the other factors that would make it different. But there just seems to be an antipathy toward self-help.