Are conditions ripe again today?

August 11th marked the 40th anniversary of the 1965 Watts Rebellion, or “riot,” as the Los Angeles Times referred to it in reporting on a commemoration held here last week.

WW front page Aug. 26, 1965.

Conservatives and liberals in the media emphasize the violence and “looting” over and over again, and sparingly talk about the poverty preceding the rebellion. Rarely, if at all, is police brutality mentioned, nor the systematic economic oppression here in South L.A.

And what about war? In 1965, as again today, a U.S. war was hurting working and poor people at home and threatening the quality of life, especially in oppressed communities. And, like today, the corporate media and both conservative and liberal politicians refused to call for an immediate end to the Vietnam War, thus allowing its damage to compound year after year, especially for the most oppressed.

The L.A. Times, in reporting on the commemoration in Watts, was quick to point out individual cases of violence perpetrated by “rioters,” yet failed to mention the killings and brutality committed by the police.

In fact, the Watts Rebellion was prompted by an act of violence by the LAPD. The Aug. 26, 1965, issue of Workers World newspaper carried a report from a community activist titled: “Report of Rebellion—Straight from the L.A. Battlefield.” It gave a close and personal view of the events.

“Wednesday afternoon (Aug. 11): Two blood brothers got in their car and started to drive off. They were stopped within a block by a C.H.P. (Calif ornia Highway Patrol man). The driver had left his license at home; some kids on the block ran back to the brothers’ house, told their mother what had happened. She walked down to the scene and everything was cool. The C.H.P. was okay and was getting ready to let the brothers go back home when up drove some Los Angeles Police Department cops acting like Gestapo troops.

“They threw one kid over the hood of their car very roughly (you know, spread eagle). Up to this point the mother was on the side of the cops, but when this happened to her son naturally she objected. Then they turned on her. When one of the cops kicked her, it was on. Brothers started coming off rooftops and out of holes in the ground to get in on it….”

That type of humiliation and brutality by police was commonplace leading up to the rebellion; in this case it occurred once too often.

Not only was community violence small compared to police violence, but the economic destruction by the “looters” was minute compared to big business’s attacks on the standard of living of Watts residents. At that time, according to the census count, they suffered the highest unemployment of all L.A. residents and the worst education and educational opportunities, as well as the highest rate of inadequate housing in all L.A. County.

Their communities had systematically been looted by the system and its wars.

Are the conditions that facilitated rebellion ripe now?

Repression, racism, poverty

In terms of police violence, here are some incidents in recent years:

* Maria Peña and her father, Jose Peña, were killed for no reason by the LAPD in Watts.

* L.A. sheriffs shot 150 rounds at an unarmed man in a Compton residential area; stray bullets flew into people’s homes.

* 13-year-old Devin Brown, who was unarmed, was killed by an L.A. cop.

* Margaret Mitchell, a mentally ill homeless woman, was killed by L.A. police.

* Tyisha Miller was shot to death by L.A. police while sitting in her own car waiting for help to fix a flat tire.

The most recent rebellion in L.A. was caused by the police beating of Rodney King, which was caught on videotape.

Many more cases of police brutality happen on a daily basis in Watts but don’t get videotaped.

What about economic racism against the community of Watts? The Greater Los Angeles United Way and Urban League have filed a report regarding the state of Black people in Los Angeles in 2005. Here are some of the findings:

Forty-four percent of Black high school students fail to graduate with their class in four years. Black people have the highest rate of homelessness and make up an estimated 30 percent or more of the county’s homeless population. They have the highest overall death rate and receive longer prison sentences than other groups.

In terms of household income, Blacks have the lowest median household income—$31,905, as compared to $53,978 for whites. In terms of racist violence, although Blacks account for just 10 percent of the county’s population, 56 percent of racial hate crimes target Blacks.

Like the editors of the L.A. Times, many liberals spend a lot of time blaming youth and crime within Watts for the lion’s share of its problems. Even within Watts, some who have bought into this Reaganite logic blame welfare, which they say has made residents weak. What is pre-supposed in this blame is that changing the situation in Watts depends on whether Black people can change their destructive behavior. What they need to do, say these folks, is get political power by registering and voting.

Once again, what liberals and apologists for this system who use these patronizing and racist arguments refuse to see are the facts that belie any of their solutions.

In the report mentioned before, the Urban League and United Way analyzed what they called “civic engagement.” Black people in Los Angeles received the highest score of all ethnic groupings measured, including whites. Thus, regarding representation in the county’s top elective offices, Black people went up from just 1 percent in 1960 to 14 percent in 2004. In addition, Black people rated highest in voting, military service and “citizenship.”

So, blaming Black people in Watts for voter apathy or lack of initiative in getting involved in legislative battles and politics is very misplaced.

One thing to note, however, is that these reports relied on census data, which does not take into account much of the immigrant population. This could worsen some of the results for Asian and Latin@ populations in L.A.

What caused the Watts Rebellion?
Pol itical and economic repression—which breeds state violence, more police and more brutality.

But, more importantly, what caused the Watts Rebellion was the courage of African people here in the U.S. to fight back against repression. Since the rebellion, the people of Watts have been able to win some demands for hospitals and better educational opportunities that give at least temporary relief from the worst symptoms of this oppressive system. It is an inspiration to the world to “riot” against U.S. imperialist oppression, from Watts to Iraq.