Race, Justice Meet at Intersection of Rodney King and Trayvon Martin - USATODAY.com
Twenty years after the riots here that left dozens of people dead, neighborhoods in charred ruins and the nation soul-searching over the role race plays in the criminal justice system, Rodney King’s plaintive “Can we all get along?” still resonates.
The King beating, seen in a grainy videotape of four white officers waling on an unarmed black man, became a symbol of injustice for a nation with a 300-year history of racial strife — so powerful that on April 29, 1992, when the officers were acquitted of state charges of assault and excessive force, inner-city Los Angeles erupted.
Now, the calls for fairness are heard 2,500 miles away in Sanford, Fla., in the chants of “Justice for Trayvon” as the nation wrestles with the death of Trayvon Martin. The unarmed black teen was shot and killed by a white Hispanic neighborhood watch volunteer who thought the youth looked suspicious. The shooter, George Zimmerman, claimed self-defense. Authorities did not charge him until widespread public attention and nationwide rallies called for his arrest. He has pleaded not guilty.
Both cases, 20 years apart, intensify the persistent debate over how fairly black men are treated by police and the courts. Activists, scholars and some of those involved in the cases say the incidents occurred because of a stereotype of black men as violent aggressors.
“It’s about bullying a black man,” says King, 47, who is traveling the country to promote his memoir, The Riot Within: My Journey from Rebellion to Redemption. “This time, a young man was bullied to death. I’m still alive; Trayvon Martin is not here.”
There are differences between the cases, of course. King, then 25, was speeding and driving drunk when police stopped him. Trayvon, 17, was walking home from a store when Zimmerman, 28, confronted him.
Still, the presumption exists that if a black man is involved in an incident, he must be the wrongdoer, says Michelle Jacobs, a law professor at the University of Florida who studies the effect of race in prosecutions.
“It happened with Rodney King, and it’s why it took Trayvon’s parents and national protests before his parents could get a legitimate investigation of their son’s death,” she says.
Jacobs says the anger and frustration that fueled the Los Angeles riots still exists in minority communities, where people fear they will not be treated fairly by police and the courts.
But the chances that anger will break out into riots might be diminished today.
“Politically, things are different,” says activist Al Sharpton, who has been holding rallies with Trayvon’s parents over their son’s death. He notes that much has changed in 20 years, including the election of the first black president and the appointment of the first black attorney general.