Twenty Years after Rodney King, The Same Questions Are Being Asked

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Labor and community organizers and scholars from all over town gathered for a conference today at USC. The conference, "From the Ashes: The 1992 Civil Unrest and the Rise of Social Movement Organizing", was less about what happened then and more about what can be done now and in the future to make L.A. better. And the organizers do feel there's a lot that needs to get better: anti-labor rhetoric and regulations, an increasing divide between the rich and poor, increased use of domestic surveillance in the wake of 9/11 -- these were all big concerns at the conference.

With the deaths of Kendrec McDade and Trayvon Martin in the news, concerns about the nexus of race, law enforecement, and violence are also high on the list. Eric Mann, a veteran organizer currently with the Labor/Community Strategy Center and one of the keynote speakers addressed the violence:

"There is no black man, apparently, who is not suspicious in US society...and there are so
many people in this room who could tell you heartbreaking stories of living while black...

Also speaking was Danny Park, a Korean-American labor organizer with the Korean Immigrant Workers' Association. He was in L.A. when the riots flared, and said the riots made many Korean-Americans reassess their communications within the community and with outside groups.

"It was a huge wake-up call for everyone and I think that really did start a lot of organizing
effort and building -- a re-building effort..."

How all that effort adds up depends a lot on younger people like Kevin Cosney, who attended the conference. Cosney's 25 and was growing up in the suburb of Simi Valley when the trials of the policemen charged with the beating Rodney King were held. Cosney recalled the vivid contrast between the controlled quiet of Simi Valley and the wildness that flamed up in L.A.

"I remember seeing the city where I was at just kind of a lock-down... and then turning on the
TV and seeing the other side of the coin..."

Although he was only five years old at the time, Cosney was struck by images of what he describes as "violence on bodies of color." He said life as a black man hasn't been free of that violence.

In one relatively small incident, he said, he just happened to be in the company of someone the police thought they were interested in.

"[We were] coming out of a movie theater, and my friend fit a description. I'm like, 'Um, we
just got out of a movie', and then [one cop] said, 'I'm not talking to you!', and that's when I
got thrown up against the car."

It's incidents like that that made him want to work for California Calls, a community activist group. And it's why he attended the conference.

"There's been times where I've felt anger. But I also understand that anger doesn't
change anything. So it's how do you funnel that anger into something...and I think that's
where the passion I have for the work that I do comes from."

That's what the conference wants to achieve, to keep these kinds of conversations going, and to convert the anger, and the memory of the riots, into positive change.

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