Young LA Residents Debate Race in America (1992)

<v Sarah Chee>concentrating on your own suffering and your own victimization. <v Sarah Chee>Try to understand. And accountability is not just about individuals, it's about the <v Sarah Chee>government. Because the people in the government are the people who are racist, and they <v Sarah Chee>have the power to- to implement systems, implement programs that will <v Sarah Chee>directly affect people and that will directly affect the people that they are racist- the <v Sarah Chee>rac- the racist attitudes are against. <v Hugh Hewitt>Rubin, John Hong has a comment. <v John Hong>I agree with her. Uh but we shouldn't totally, you know, deply- uh apply <v John Hong>on the government to, you know, fix everything. <v John Hong>Government has something to do with it, but it all come back to us. <v John Hong>And, you know, the- all the looting and all the riots, you <v John Hong>know, it's lack of communication. Nobody talks. <v Patt Morrison>Thomas Hong. <v Thomas Hong>Yeah, I'm from UCLA and um I- our parents own the shop in, you know, Manchester <v Thomas Hong>and Broadway, so it was one of the first stores to get, you know, burned down and looted. <v Thomas Hong>And what this gentleman said that, of course, the government has some something, some <v Thomas Hong>sort of a role in this, but you're talking about personal individual, you're talking <v Thomas Hong>about what the media has always portrayed, you know, the looters as hoodlums, people who

<v Thomas Hong>have no morals whatsoever. But my my rage, you know, this show is about rage, my rage <v Thomas Hong>isn't, you know, toward that- those looters, towards the people who are, you know, the <v Thomas Hong>victims of this community. It's towards accountability which is lacking in our <v Thomas Hong>government. Our government has accountability to citizens. <v Thomas Hong>If the citizens are desperate enough to actually go out there and start looting, start <v Thomas Hong>burning, then whose fault is that? <v Ruben Martinez>OK. I sense there's a lot of anger, a lot of tension here. <v Ruben Martinez>People are angry at what? You're talking about accountability among elected officials, <v Ruben Martinez>perhaps, police, who else? Who are people angry at? <v Annalisa Lajeunesse>I basically think it- we need to get off the race issue because the media has- <v Annalisa Lajeunesse>has said so much, like blacks and whites and Hispanics, we need to get over all <v Annalisa Lajeunesse>the different races. It's more of social and economic problems. <v Annalisa Lajeunesse>It's not just the race. <v Speaker>I have to dis- the- the total economic and social problems in America <v Speaker>is because of race. It's not because of anything else. <v Speaker>It's because of the race of the people who are socially and economically depressed.

<v Annalisa Lajeunesse>I know. But we also- we have to stop blaming other people. <v Annalisa Lajeunesse>We have to stop blaming the government for things, because if you notice, <v Annalisa Lajeunesse>we- all we want is, I mean, even our culture or our- if <v Annalisa Lajeunesse>you want to start getting into, oh, like minorities or whatever, we have to <v Annalisa Lajeunesse>stop getting over...never mind. <v Speaker>Who controls the social programs though? <v Ruben Martinez>OK, let me ask- let me ask- let me- let me- let me frame the question here. <v Ruben Martinez>Everybody sitting together here, they use the term multicultural to talk about Los <v Ruben Martinez>Angeles, right? Well, we have a little multicultural group here. <v Ruben Martinez>Everybody's getting along more or less. Right? <v Ruben Martinez>But obviously, things, when we go back out on the street, it's not like that anymore. <v Ruben Martinez>Why does it break down like that? Where is the anger coming from? <v Michael Thomas>Years of oppression. You have years of being bound, kept back, and then you go, <v Michael Thomas>it's not a racial thing. It's not a racial thing. But it really is a racial thing. <v Michael Thomas>I mean, if you can't get a job or you've been trying to get a job, in some ways the <v Michael Thomas>system is set up to keep you back each step you take. <v Michael Thomas>But if you take three steps forward-. <v Ruben Martinez>Okay, let's- let's get some other- let's get- <v Hugh Hewitt>Rodney Prince over here, Ruben.

<v Rodney Prince>The government has actively participated in passive racism for hundreds and hundreds of <v Rodney Prince>years. It's a conspiratory silencing and it goes on and we- we've- all this time, <v Rodney Prince>we've perpetuated it and we've let it go on and it's- it's erupted. <v Rodney Prince>And this is what this is all about. It is about race. <v Hugh Hewitt>Back row. <v Ruben Martinez>Back in the back row. William Pedranti, where are you from, William? <v William Pedranti>Uh I'm a student at USC. Uh I would disagree with that. <v William Pedranti>I don't doubt that for hundreds of years that there has- or in the past there's been <v William Pedranti>racism of all boundaries going black, white, Korean, Asian, Chinese, all over the world. <v William Pedranti>And I don't- I don't doubt it exists, but I think that if we keep looking back at what <v William Pedranti>happened and- and- <v Ruben Martinez>So what are you feeling right now with all these voices that you're hearing, what is your <v Ruben Martinez>response, emotional response to it? Do you feel like you're being cornered here? <v William Pedranti>Well, yeah, I do. I think that when a lot of people immediately assume- they say racism, <v William Pedranti>that we've been held oppressed, I think they look at the majority of the people in this <v William Pedranti>country, ethnicities are like mine, Caucasian, and they immediately assume that we're <v William Pedranti>being oppressed. And if there's true racism going on, if there's whites and there's this <v William Pedranti>conspiracy of true racism going on, in essence, whites, if- if we- if <v William Pedranti>we're- if all whites or a majority of conspiracy controlling government are white <v William Pedranti>supremacists, then they would be against blacks, Koreans, Chinese, Jewish, I mean, it

<v William Pedranti>just goes down the line. How come there's so many successful Jewish? <v William Pedranti>How come the Koreans can start their own stores and turn out to be really successful? <v William Pedranti>How come- how come- hold on. <v Ruben Martinez>Okay. Okay. Okay. Wait a second. Wait a second. Wait a second. <v Hugh Hewitt>Right behind you, Ruben. <v Ruben Martinez>Peter Kim, standing right here. <v Peter Kim>Okay, I'd like to comment on that. The government has suppressed the minorities. <v Peter Kim>Okay. They have made us stay where we are, our lower class. <v Peter Kim>I mean, we're poor. I mean, we can't move up the ladder. <v Peter Kim>Maybe some of us can, but most of us can't. <v Peter Kim>We're suppressed in neighborhoods that are low economy, you know, they haven't let us <v Peter Kim>move up the metropolitan ladder.