Zoot Suits vs '92 LA

The 1992 LA riots was not a new concept for urban unrest - more specifically, racial unrest. LA had experienced racial inequality in the 1943 Zoot Suit riots as well. The only difference is that instead of the target being black people, it was Mexican Americans. But the groundwork had been laid the same, in which minorities had been attacked due to their race, and riots had sprouted from a certain incident of violence between whites and minorities. It seems this region has had a common theme of civil unrest and it's always due to race. If one compares the two riots, there's a similarity in the subconscious sentiment of white people, and it's that by simply viewing a POC they come to an automatic conclusion of danger, seeing the person as a "thug" or "delinquent". With Rodney King, they beat him although he was a simple unarmed black man. And in the Zoot Suit riots, "white" men had begun fighting Mexican teenagers, seeing them as dangerous by judging them for the outfit that had been trending among their crowd. A slight difference had been that the victim of the initial incident had been a Caucasian man, which lead to the rest of the sailors and workers like him to march the streets and attack the people that would have similar identification to those that beat the sailor. This is very similar to how after the beating of Rodney King, blacks marched the streets in rebellion to police [brutality]. Only this time, the roles of minorities vs majorities had been reversed.

History in a sense repeated itself, with a few twists, between the Zoot Suit riots and the '92 LA riots. All in all they consisted of races targeting other races because of violent circumstances. However I believe that the initial sparks of the riots were different, as in Rodney King's case he was beaten solely due to his race by civil authorities whereas the Zoot Suit riots started because of a mutual brawl between white servicemen and Mexican American teens, and just happened to result in a subjected beating of one serviceman in particular. Additionally, it seems history will continue to cycle this type of violence as riots have continued to occur in the last couple of decades. Unrest between races is something so far spread it's difficult to foresee a peaceful conclusion. Collective human nature seems to be unable to judge beyond the surface.

Resource: https://www.history.com/topics/zoot-suit-riots 

- Amber Grizzle