Rodney King (photo from Wikipedia)

Twenty years ago this week, riots swept through Los Angeles.  Rioters looted stores and then burned them to the ground.  Photographers and journalists attempted to capture the mêlée, but some were physically assaulted in the process. South Central and South East Los Angeles were on fire. The vitriol and violence emerged hours after several white police officers were acquitted by an all-white jury in the infamous Rodney King beating case.  A year before, Rodney King’s name left an indelible mark on our collective conscious as did the video tape of his brutal beating at the hands of baton-wielding officers.

Indeed there was a sad double consciousness for some blacks—pain and empathy for King while at the same time his beating provided some political expediency…

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