Los Angeles Riots

Over the last year, a disturbing seepage of power has occurred in City Hall. Confronted with the gravest civic crisis since the Depression, a weak, increasingly re clusive mayor and a shrewd but spineless City Council have abdicated power to a new proconsular elite of corporate lawyers, law-enforcement leaders and millionaire executives.

One of my favorite pieces of writing to emerge from the 1992 Los Angeles riots is a poem by a writer named Nicole Sampogna, called "Another L.A. " In it, the poet traces the odd dislocation of living on the Westside while so much of the city burns. "They send us home early, again," she begins, "supposedly for curfew sake, / but I know it's to beat the traffic. " And then: "over there the smoke rises, / horns blare, streets scream, / shoot, loot, / bash windows, bash heads, / lights out / knocked out / by a black & white with a baton.