Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Police Brutality, Corruption, and Systemic Racism
Healing, Progress, and Collective Consciousness
Justice, Perspective, and Ambiguity
Individuals vs. Institutions
Action vs. Symbolic Gesture
Summary
Analysis
Smith interviews Judith Tur, a ground reporter for LA News Service. They’re sitting in the Santa Monica Airport. Tur is a petite, attractive woman in her 50s. She shows Smith the video of the Reginald Denny beating that John and Marika Tur filmed from their helicopter. The video depicts a man being beaten by a group of men during the 1992 Los Angeles riots. Tur calls the men “clowns.” In the video, women nearby are taking photos of the attack. People pass by and don’t help the fallen man. Finally, a Black man who Tur thinks is named Larry Tarvo approaches and helps the man.
After Rodney King, Reginald Denny was the most well-known figure associated with the riots. His racially motivated attack by four Black men (later nicknamed the LA 4) made headlines in an effort to discredit the riots and vilify the rioters. Judith’s resentment of the rioters seems more personal than other accounts Smith has presented thus far. She adopts an incensed tone and is quick to resort to name-calling, deeming Denny’s attackers “clowns,” for instance.
Themes
Reginald Denny enters the frame now. Tur gets angry as the video plays. She calls points out a passerby who videotapes Denny’s assault without stopping to help, calling the man an “animal” who “don’t deserve / to live.” She continues her tirade, claiming that “this is not [her] United States anymore.” A man shoots at Denny, but he misses. The footage disgusts Tur, who claims she’s no better than anyone else and that “people are people. / Black, white, green, or purple.” However, Tur claims, the rioters are “taking advantage” of the situation and ought to “go out and work for a living,” since everyone has had hardships in life. Tur suggests they take her experience as an example: she left her husband, who was addicted to gambling, at 42 and worked in a market as a cashier, earning minimum wage. She would never have dreamed of going on welfare or stealing to make ends meet.
Tur displays visceral hatred for the rioters. Referring to (Black) rioters as “animal[s]” who “don’t deserve / to live” is dehumanizing. Tur’s assertion that “this is not [her] United States anymore” reflects her position of privilege. Tur's outrage disregards the violence and injustice that had impacted marginalized communities long before she deemed the U.S. to no longer reflect her personal values. This implies that Tur was fine with “her” America allowing certain races and classes of people to suffer injustices. It’s not the violence and collapse of social order that angers Tur—it’s that the violence and social order is starting to impact people who are white, like she is. Tur claims not to be racist, insisting that “people are people,” regardless of skin color. Yet she’s incredibly quick to make derogatory, stereotypical comments about the predominantly Black rioters who are “taking advantage” of the verdict and ought to “go out and work for a living.” Tur evokes the idea that every person has an equal chance in life, and that just because she made it through a divorce in one piece, every other person in the world should be capable of overcoming adversity, too. Tur’s logic blatantly ignores the underlying structural forces that make it more difficult for Black people to receive equal treatment in LA, and in America more broadly.
Themes
Tur explains that while she used to hate guns, she doesn’t anymore. And if anyone threatens her life, she’ll shoot them without hesitation. She says she and other white people are angry that “they’re going back fifty years instead of being pushed ahead.”
Tur’s claim that “[white people are] going back fifty years instead of being pushed ahead” overtly reveals her belief that white people have the right to succeed and be “pushed ahead” in society at the expense of Black people and other minorities. The reason the riots upset her is because they have inverted Tur’s preferred social order, putting Black people in a position to seek justice at the expense of white suffering.
Themes
