Reading Twilight, 1992, by Anna Deveare Smith, reminded me of a lesson we had in my Middle Eastern Culture class a few weeks ago. We were discussed the Bedouin tribes who laid the foundation for Middle Eastern civilization, and their importance to survival in the harsh Arabian desert. The tribes, made up of families who had been grouped together for centuries, were fiercely protective of their members, resources, and designated territory; to avoid being robbed, murdered, or dying of thirst or starvaton in the inhospitable desert, belonging to a tribe was integral. Safety in numbers was key to survival: safety in numbers was the only safety. At first thought, this historical fact may seem completely unrelated to Twlilight, 1992, but a striking commonality exists between the Arabian Bedouins and the people of Los Angeles post-Rodney King Riots; the omnipotence of a tribe mentality in everyday life. In Twilight, the isolation between socioeconomic and racial factions was a consistently emphasized theme, from the distant horror of middle-class white residents at rioting to the barely-noticed suffering of Korean immigrants in predominantly black neighborhoods. The influence and progression of these deep social and economic divisions indicted the instinct behind them; human nature is to accept an immutable place in an isolated racial or socio-economic group made up of people with shared backgrounds (mainly experiences), and in adversity, to look within that group for protection, support, and understanding, disregarding the merits of communication with people with other backgrounds and perspectives.
While several interviews In Twilight, 1992 illustrate the insularity of socio-economic and racial groups, the words of Stanley Shienbaum resonated as indicative of irreconcirable division. When Sheinbaum, the former Police Commissioner, recounts his experiences speaking with gang member who had organized and participated in truce meetings, his description of his police colleagues’ reactions is stunning: “And at the end, uh, I knew I hadn’t won when they said, “So which side are you on?” (Page 15) Sheinbaum’s experiences act as testament to the “us vs. them” schism between the police and gang members, even when trying to accomplish a mutual goal. The truce meetings between gangs recognize of the problems of violence and take a sizeable step in eliminating it, and law enforcement is supposed to share this goal. With their combined resources, it would be much easier to make a positive difference in struggling communities, but the historical, and social divide between police officers and gang members prevents such unification.
The Monologue of Anonymous Man #2, a Hollywood agent, again emphasizes the distance between different racial and socioeconomic groups is again. He talks of his feelings about the riots: "It’s just so awful out there, it was so heartbreaking … the devastation that went on, the people reduced to burning down their own neighborhoods. Burning down our neighborhoods I could see. But burning down their own- that was more dramatic to me.”(page 141) The man expresses his empathy, but shows the distance between the communities which were reacting or experiencing the reaction to the Rodney King verdict directly and those that on the sidelines to see it happen. The man says “Burning down our neighborhoods I could see.” In doing so, he creates a dichotomy, again between the “us” and “them”, and while he expresses his sadness at the violence of the riots, he subtly asserts his allegiance to his own faction of upper-class white people by continuing to group himself together with them as one.
While these are just a few examples, isolation between different socioeconomic or racial groups is continually brought up throughout Twilight, 1992, demonstrating the natural instinct to group with people with whom one shares many biographical commonalities and to remain loyal to this group and their collective perspective when confronted with conflict or hardship.
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