2024-12-22T19:29:48-05:00 https://archinect.com/news/article/46819436/the-embers-of-april-1992-by-mike-davis Orhan Ayyüce 2012-04-30T13:32:00-04:00 >2022-03-16T09:10:02-04:00 <img src="https://archinect.gumlet.io/uploads/hp/hpdulotm8susuhc1.jpg?fit=crop&auto=compress%2Cformat&enlarge=true&w=1200" border="0" /><em><p>When the hotel workers released a short film a few months later that vividly made the connection between poverty and the uprising, there was a memorable freak-out in the Convention Bureau and City Hall. Instead of a comprehensive investigation that documented events, took public testimony and probed underlying causes, the Christopher Commission was coaxed to finish its superficial report on reforming the LAPD. No one wanted to hear the voices from our own intifada.</p></em><br /><br /><p> Mike Davis reflects on 1992 Rodney King "uprising" deceivingly known as L.A. Riots. He refers it as "our own intifada." I agree with him since witnessing first hand the black smoke covering the city few hours after the events start to unfold.</p> <p> &nbsp;It was the most socially important event I witnessed in my life and in my 37 years in this city, even though I have seen military coups, born on a nation wide curfew and lived through memories of empty streets with occasional military truck or a tank rolling by. But as an adult, it was something else to see machine gun holding National Guard soldiers behind the post modern columns of Pioneer Market in Echo Park and seeing Los Angeles turning dark under the soot clouds in the middle of the day. At one point, there were 4000 fires going. Something was wrong, unjust and very telling in megalopolis.&nbsp;</p>