UNDERSTANDING THE RIOTS / PART 3 : WITNESS TO RAGE : MAKING SENSE : ‘I don’t think that we appreciated the intensity of nihilistic despair.’

I was teaching at UCI. I called up a graduate student to arrange a Ph.D. oral exam, and she was sobbing with rage because she had just heard the verdict. She told me what it was and how she felt like going and blowing up the police headquarters.

I stayed on campus until 7:00. Then, as I was driving home on the freeway, I turned on the radio to hear the traffic reports, as I usually do. They were saying, “Do not get off the Harbor Freeway.” I immediately remembered the Watts riots, which began along the Harbor Freeway. I knew something bad was happening. I knew it was going to be like the Watts riots.

As a historian and someone active in the civil rights movement, I’d studied the Watts riots. I remember how things worked. So, I was eager to get home. By the time I got home, they were saying, “Don’t get off the Santa Monica Freeway between Vermont and Hoover.” I take the Santa Monica Freeway west of there, and get off at Overland. We live off Pico, near the Westside Pavilion.

I finally got home, where my wife was waiting, and we turned on the TV. Some friends of ours--recent arrivals, who live near Koreatown--called. They wondered how much danger they were in? I said very confidently that, during the Watts riots, there was no disturbances north of the Santa Monica Freeway. It shows how the lessons of the past aren’t necessarily a guide to the present.

Thursday morning was quiet and I planned to go back to school. Eventually, though, my wife talked me out of going. In fact, I never would have gotten home on Thursday night if I had gone to Orange County that morning. Following the events on television, I became more and more depressed and despairing. I think I had the most depressing feeling that I ever have had about the long-term political consequences of this. I felt that the law and order response would destroy any chance of a progressive social policy for the next 10 years.

At 5:00, I went out walking around my neighborhood, just to see what was going on. Everything was locked up, except the McDonald’s and the gas station. I saw a young black guy, a teen-ager, walking down Pico carrying a plastic gallon jug with amber liquid in it. He and I were the only people on the street. I immediately thought, “This guy is going to set fire to the Westside Pavilion.”

I passed him at the intersection and looked down, and I saw that it was an unopened gallon of Gatorade. I felt horrible. This is one of the bad things that happen to normally sympathetic, progressive, liberal white people. They begin to look at any black youth as an arsonist. I felt ashamed of myself.

I went home. The curfew started. We just kept the TV running. That night, I felt a more intense despair than I can ever remember feeling.

It was clear that we were witnessing a historical event and that Watts was going to be dwarfed by this. I don’t think we appreciated the extent and intensity of black rage--of this nihilistic despair.

I say this not only as an historian, but also as someone who has chosen to live in L.A. and commute to Orange County, partly because I appreciate the cultural diversity and cultural richness of L.A. It’s worked pretty well for the past 20 years. I’ve never been afraid to go into any part of L.A. Central. Now we’re in a situation of fear, distrust, suspicion, though I really thought the cleanup effort was a wonderful and very impressive gesture.

As I drove back into Orange County to go to work on Monday, I couldn’t help but think bitter thoughts that the property values are going up in Irvine and down in L.A. I think that is a terrible thing, but I certainly don’t want to be part of it. Rebuilding L.A. is the most important task facing America this year.

I spend all my time thinking about, talking about, and trying to figure out what to do to make L.A. a decent and livable city where black people get treated with a little more justice than they have been in the past.

But when you study the history of race relations in America, it is hard to be optimistic that L.A. will recover from this. If you look at what happened after Detroit, if you look at what happened to Newark, if you look at what happened to the South Bronx, the task is immense.

In some ways it might be better if Peter Ueberroth weren’t aware of the historical odds--that neglect and injustice are such powerful forces in America. The best that I can come up with in the present situation is a version of pessimism of the intellect and optimism of the will. But even the optimism is pretty shaky today.