Many of Smith’s interview subjects harbor resentment for wrongs committed against them, either by an unjust system or by individuals who have turned to violence to air their frustrations against this unjust system. Mrs. Young Soon Han, whose South-Central convenience store was destroyed during the riots, struggles with her feelings of anger toward members of the Black community who participated in the riots that destroyed her store and livelihood. Mrs. Han sees the destruction of her store as indicative of how the U.S. has denied Korean Americans the rights and protections it affords its more privileged citizens. She feels bitterness toward Black people, feeling that the riots gave LA’s Black community justice, which remains inaccessible to Korean Americans. Similarly, Paul Parker, chairperson for the Free the LA Four Plus Defense Committee, expresses resentment toward Korean shop owners like Mrs. Han. He uses anti-Semitic language to justify Black protestors’ decision to burn down Korean-owned businesses in South-Central: “The Koreans was like the Jews in the day,” he states, “and we put them in check.” In airing their grievances, both Parker and Han evoke an “us versus them” narrative in which they believe that their respective communities suffer because another community is allowed to flourish. What both parties fail to see, however, is that in blaming another oppressed community, they misdirect blame away from the true source of their oppression: the powerful institutions, such as the corrupt police forces and indifferent or out-of-touch lawmakers, who keep both communities at the periphery of society and silence their voices. In Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992, Smith shows how an “us versus them” narrative pits oppressed communities against each other, distracting them from recognizing and challenging the systems responsible for keeping them impoverished and disenfranchised.
Related Themes from Other Texts
Individuals vs. Institutions ThemeTracker
Individuals vs. Institutions Quotes in Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992
I realized I had an enemy
and that enemy was those nice white teachers.
Why do I have to be on a side?
Who’s They?
These police officers are just like you and I.
Take that damn uniform off of ‘em,
they the same as you and I.
Why do they have so much power?
Why does the system work for them?
Where can we go
to get the justice that they have?
“You took upper-body-control holds away from us.
Now we’re really gonna show you what you’re gonna get,
with lawsuits and all the other things that are associated with it.”
“No.”
I said, “We have to stay here
and watch
because this is wrong.”
I mean, the jurors as a group, we tossed around:
was this a setup of some sort?
We just feel like we were pawns that were thrown away by the
system.
At least in a courtroom setting
that magic comes in.
You want to believe the officers
because they are there to help you,
the law-abiding citizen,
because most jurors have not had contacts
with police—
if they have
it’s a traffic ticket
or they did a sloppy job
investigating their burglary
but not enough that it sours them on the police.
As far as I’m concerned,
nobody is better than me,
I’m not better than anybody else.
People are people.
Black, white, green, or purple, I don’t care,
but what’s happening in South Central now,
I think they’re taking advantage.
Anything is never a problem ‘til the black man gets his hands on it.
It was good for the NRA
to have fully automatic weapons,
but when the Afro-American people got hold of ‘em,
it was a crime!
This Reginald Denny thing is a joke.
It’s joke.
That’s just a delusion to the real
problem.
If she didn’t caught it in her arm,
me and her would be dead.
See?
So it’s like
open your eyes,
watch what is goin’ on.
Who the hell does he think he is?
Oh, but that was another story.
they lootin’ over here,
but soon they loot this store he went to,
oh, he was all pissed.
No one can hurt us at the Beverly Hills Hotel
‘cause it was like a fortress.
riot
is the voice of the unheard.
Because Denny is white,
that’s the bottom line.
If Denny was Latino,
Indian, or black,
they wouldn’t give a damn
they would not give a damn.
We spoke out on April 29.
Hoo (real pleasure),
it was flavorful,
it was juicy.
It was, uh,
it was good for the soul.
This is the city we are living in.
It’s our house.
We all live in the same house…
Right, start a fire in the basement
and, you know,
nobody’s gonna be left on the top floor.
It's one house.
And shutting the door in your room,
it doesn’t matter.
After a couple of days
I stopped wearing the collar
and I realize that if there’s any protection I needed
it was just whatever love I had in my heart to share with people that
proved to be enough,
the love that God has taught me to share.
That is what came out in the end for me.
you believed
that it actually could change,
and of course
here we are a year later.
(seven-second pause)
didn’t change.
All
the
language
was there,
and all the big gestures
were there[.]
and the moral power of those institutions have to be brought to bear
in the public institutions, which in many places are not fair.
To put it mildly.
Right? And the application of the law
before which we are all in theory equal.
Is it the truth of Koon and Powell being guilty
or is it the truth of the society
that has to find them
guilty in order to protect itself?
In a way I was happy for them
and I felt glad for them.
At leasteh they got something back, you know.
Just let’s forget Korean victims or other victims
who are destroyed by them.
They have fought
for their rights
(One hit simultaneous with the word “rights”)
over to centuries
(One hit simultaneous with “centuries”)
and I have a lot of sympathy and understanding for them.
I am a dark individual,
and with me stuck in limbo,
I see darkness as myself.
I see the light as knowledge and the wisdom of the world and
understanding others,
in order for me to be a, to be a true human being,
I can’t forever dwell in darkness,
I can’t forever dwell in the idea,
of just identifying with people like me and understanding me and mine.
