Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992

In her play, Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992, Anna Deavere Smith clearly represents the side and opinion against the police. She portrays the outrage, pain, and anguish felt by the minority community after the beating of Rodney King, while rarely giving any support or evidence that the police acted in a reasonable way in accordance with L.A.P.D. policies. In many of the readings of this class, such as Lou Cannon’s book Official Negligence, the men and women of Los Angeles who were in uproar over the acquittal of all four police officers and proceeded to riot in the streets were portrayed as animals. However, it was interesting to see in Anna Deavere Smith’s work, a different side of the argument in which the police officers were the ones who are constantly depicted as selfish, cruel, law breaking men and women with badges of authority. She asks a question that many others don’t, “Why do police have so much power?” (39). In her chapter entitled “Lightning and No Rain,” Smith describes a situation where the men and women of the minority community stand up to the unruly police. Throughout the confrontation, it is clear that Smith is arguing on the side of the L.A. communities, crying out for justice and for freedom from the racial oppression of the police.

One aspect of Smith’s illustration of 1992 Los Angeles, and of the riots in general, that I have never really understood is why do people automatically turn to the looting and destruction of stores and personal and private property in such a time of rage? In my mind, the storeowners and individuals whose property is being damaged had nothing to do with the decision to acquit the four officers. I find it very intriguing that this plethora of furious people finds it appropriate and relieving to loot businesses and defame public and private property in order to express their emotions. The reaction seems to have no basis, and I think that it only creates more problems than it solves for them. All the looting will do is have more people arrested and stir up more chaos in an already out of control situation.

My favorite part of Smith’s Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992, is the language that she employs to help drive her message home. Smith’s argument in her book, a commentary on the chaotic, unruly, and blatantly racist nature of the Los Angeles police, is enforced by her ability to personalize the reader and viewer with her characters. By personalizing the characters, she makes the reader/viewer relate to the experiences that the speaker is going through. Personally, I felt a connection with the trials and tribulations that the individuals’ accounts described, and I feel that this is a clear product of Smith’s language. She accomplishes this task in two ways. First, Smith utilizes extremely short, choppy sentences, which almost make it seem as if you (the reader) are in the room with the speaker listening to him talk in person. It helps her to add emphasis to key words that help demonstrate the fear that these people live in because of the police. For example:

Other guys in Watts changed.
Our life totally changed
from happy people
To hurting people.
I mean hurting people,
I mean hurting,
pain (35).

With this style of writing, everything that Smith writes is a surprise. As a reader, I felt constantly on the edge of my seat because her short, choppy sentences help to mimic the atmosphere of anxiety and tension that those in Los Angeles felt in 1992. Second, Smith does not construct her sentences in a traditional, formal way. Instead, writes very conversationally, even adding words such as “uh” and “um” to help illustrate the delivery of her characters’ stories. This helps the reader and viewer relate to the individuals that she utilizes in her writing to display her message and give it true, forceful meaning.

Finally, one of the most interesting and provocative lines of her story, for me at least, came at the end. She asks the question, “What is truth?” While this may seem like a simply answer, in actuality it isn’t, especially when it involves the acquittal or conviction of the four police officers in the Rodney King case. She ponders, “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?” (243). I don’t personally have an answer to this question, but it raises an extremely intriguing point. Even with the video, we don’t know the truth of what happened that night in March, and probably never will. On top of that, Smith raises the idea that our society must find these men guilty in order to enable ourselves to sleep at night. She is asking whether the Federal Trial would have ever considered acquitting these men. Instead of the facts of the case, Smith wonders if the jury was simply ruling in favor of upholding American and Universal society’s moral standards and values.