A Black and White Answer to Question of Blame

I don’t know how I missed it.

Of course, it was Rodney King’s fault all along.

If he had initially done what Stacey Koon and Larry Powell told him to do, the two cops wouldn’t have had to brutalize him and assault the U.S. Constitution. And for that reason, federal Judge John G. Davies figured, the two officers should be cut some slack on their prison sentences, which he set at a mere 2 1/2 years.

Actually, I guess I had known almost instinctively that it was King’s fault from the first time I saw the videotape. As I watched L.A.’s finest using King’s body for batting practice, I said to myself: “Now why did that black man make those nice white police officers pull out their batons and beat him like that? Doesn’t he realize how much anguish and suffering he’s causing them?”

I knew it was his fault. Just like I knew it was my fault when I was standing on the corner of Fairfax and 3rd avenues 10 years ago with a police officer’s gun pointed at me. I was mounting my motorcycle and preparing to take off after making a withdrawal from the Ready Teller when the patrolman pulled up. Stand away from the bike, he said. He then pulled his gun and approached cautiously.

But, you see, it was my fault. Here I was, a black man on a motorcycle, dressed in a three-piece suit. In all fairness to the officer, I could have been concealing a shotgun. I hadn’t led anybody on a high-speed chase as King had, but apparently my actions had instigated this officer to draw his weapon.

I also knew it was my fault the night I got stopped at 103rd and Central three months later. I was heading home in my little burgundy econobox when the blue light flashed in the rearview mirror.

“Out of the car. Up on the curb. Hands behind your head.”

I looked like a suspect who had committed some kind of crime, the officer explained brusquely. I guess they could spot the resemblance at midnight through the rear window of my moving car. It was my fault. I had no business looking like that suspect.

And then there was the night a few months later when I stood handcuffed on the corner of Slauson and Crenshaw, again dressed in suit and tie after a day of writing stories for The Times. While one officer patted me down and ran my name through the computer, his partner shined his flashlight through the windows of my car into the eyes of my already frightened sons, Tracy, then 12, and Ohaji, who was 8.

Eventually, they sent me on my way, no ticket, no explanation, no apology, no nothing. But I knew it was my fault. I think it had something to do with the skin I’m in. My youngest son, however, failed to get the message.

Ten years later, when he began driving, he just couldn’t understand why in one month alone he had been stopped five times, or why officers kept asking him what gang he belonged to or was he carrying drugs.

Now, a lot of African-Americans and other minorities don’t understand this blame business. Millionaire civil rights attorney Johnnie Cochran didn’t think it was his fault when he was stopped and forced to spread-eagle over the hood of his car on Sunset Boulevard. But then he shouldn’t have been driving that damned Rolls-Royce.

Hall of Fame baseball player Joe Morgan didn’t think it was his fault when Los Angeles police officers roughed him up at the airport because they thought he was a drug courier. Maybe Joe shouldn’t wear such expensive watches and ought not to fly first class.

And then there are those residents of Dalton Avenue who didn’t understand it was their fault that police demolished their homes in a misdirected drug raid. Hey, they lived in a bad neighborhood. What did they expect?

Criminal attorney Allen Webster, who just stepped down last week as president of the National Bar Assn., understands.

“We’re the victims, but it’s always our fault,” Webster explained. “As you reflect on other experiences--poverty, education, unemployment--it’s always our fault. I think it’s part and parcel of the mentality that white America has toward black America. We caused all these things to happen.

“We’re the reason why we’re poor, we’re the reason why we have drug problems, we’re the reason why we can’t get a decent education, we’re the reason why we have high unemployment. It’s never racism. It’s never public policy. It’s never the results of decades of neglect and discrimination.

“If overwhelmingly blacks are turned down for home loans or business loans, it’s our own fault. When it’s pointed out that minorities are absent from higher level positions at companies and corporations, the response is they can’t find ‘qualified’ people. It’s our own fault.”

Lawmen Koon and Powell banked on that public perception to get them off. The federal jury didn’t buy it, but apparently Judge Davies did. It was really Rodney King’s fault all along.