1. 29 years ago today, grainy footage from a home video camera captured four Los Angeles Police Department officers violently beating Rodney King during a traffic stop. This became a sentinel event in race and policing. One that repeats every 21-23 years. A thread:
2. The footage was startling for how long and severely the officers beat King. Though “driving while Black” was already circulating in the culture, it was the King video that shocked the conscience of those who might have doubted the magnitude of racial disparities in policing.
3. Because the video was so clear, there was outrage that a jury could not convict any of the officers. The resulting uprising by Black and Latinx communities in Los Angeles lasted 6 days with the national guard, US Army, and Marines providing aid to turn the outrage peaceful.
4. Many in the media called it the worst days of racial unrest in the country’s history. Those who did were historically illiterate.
Those who think it won’t happen again may be as well.
Those who think it won’t happen again may be as well.
5. 23 years after the Rodney King beating in LA, we witnessed first Ferguson, then New York, Oakland, Baltimore, and others starting in 2014. 23 years BEFORE the Rodney King beating were the uprisings in Chicago and Newark. A few years after Watts.
7. Like clockwork, every 21-23 years we do this in the United States. Like clockwork, the tensions between police and Black and Brown communities boils over and there are days of violence and fear.
8. With a similar cadence, the U.S government creates a commission to study the problem. Obama did it after Ferguson. Clinton did it after King. LBJ did it after the unrest following Martin Luther King’s assassination.
9. And with the same cadence, we forget. Or, at least, some of us do. The federal reports have said largely the same things. Every time. But without sustained attention on the problems, the progress is not enough to prevent the next uprising.
10. That means, if we don’t do differently now, woe be to us in 2037. I’ve got the year marked on my calendar. Trying to do my part to get us ready for the next set of videos, audio, or new media that assaults our values and leads to community violence.
11. Many of the police chiefs I work with do too. Among the biggest reasons that chiefs want to work with @PolicingEquity is that they are “tired of watching this cycle repeat itself.” They know it’s coming. And, for sure, their communities do as well.
12. Still, despite being able to predict it—every 20 or so years—March 3rd hits, and we are counting down to the next Rodney King. The next Michael Brown, Jr. The next uprising. The next presidential commission. The next slow forgetting.
13. Rodney King died on June 17, 2012, at 47 years old. The tolls his lifestyle and the stresses of racism took on him did not allow him to see the uprising that came after his. But for all of us who have, I pray we do the work to see a 21-23 year period pass without another.
