Reflections on Twilight Los Angeles

By

Halford H. Fairchild
The Claremont Colleges

Author Notes

This essay satisfies a portion of the teaching requirements of Freshman Seminar 5:  Eyes on the Prize:  Civil Rights Struggles in the U.S.  Pitzer College, The Claremont Colleges, Fall 2002.  The author may be reached at HalFairchild@aol.com.  The paper was written and revised on September 9, 2002.
 
 

The Real Deal

Halford Fairchild   College Professor
(Fairchild is middle-aged, slightly plump, good natured and racially mixed with African American and Asian American.  We sit in his cluttered office at Pitzer College.  He is wearing a brightly colored soccer shirt.  The interview was conducted in Fall 2002 and focused on his reflections of my book, Twilight Los Angeles.)


Yeah, I read your book.
Liked it.
Ya did good, girlfriend.

(He looks at me with obvious amorous intentions.)
(I look away, thinking him to be a bit forward.)
I also saw your performance at the Mark Taper.
Magnificent.
Very entertaining.
(I blush—best I could—and
give him a slightly fetching smile.
I wonder if he’s married, and if so,
does he play around?)
And you got, at least a little,
into the real deal of the conflagration.
Some people called it a riot.
Some people called it a rebellion.
Some people called it a revolution.
I call it a conflagration.  A great burning.
And that it was!
I woulda been pissed off
if you didn’t include
some of the systemic features
that led to the burning – overly aggressive policing,
intergenerational poverty and despair, unemployment.
(A pause for four beats.)
But Zinzun knew about police violence first hand.
Theresa Allison, the sister
who rose from the ashes to form
Mothers Reclaiming Our Children,
told of the pain and the hurt of our people.

Gil Garcetti told the truth
about how police officers’ uniforms are like a
magical aura in the courtroom.

And thank you
for including
the passages from the incomparable
Maxine Waters.
That sister
knows what the real deal is.
It is about the chronic denial
of opportunity
in the inner cities.
Not just in L.A.,
but everywhere
in this supposedly great land.
I really liked,
and will have to remember,
her statement,
“…r i o t   is the voice of the unheard.”
Listen to Maxine.  And worry.
Because the people….

(a pregnant pause of 3 seconds),
the masses
(said with great emphasis)
are still unheard.
Riots are waiting.
(A student interrupts us. Fairchild tells him to get lost.)
Clueless was Judith Tur, the reporter.
Yeah, right, she says that the people
who beat Reginald Denny
were animals.  She said,
“These people don’t deserve to live.”
But four Black people saw the Denny
(another brief pause)
incident, and saved his life.
(he says 'incident' as if it is a euphemism)
Why didn’t any of the two dozen LAPD officers
save Rodney King?
And so that is why we burn.
Burn baby burn!
(He lets out a raucous laugh.)
Reginald Denny, the poster boy of
White victimhood, had a clue.
But why did Johnny Cochran,
Jesse Jackson,
and Arsenio Hall, of all people,
have to go and pay their respects
when he was in the hospital?

All them rich White folks
hiding in the Beverly Hills hotel
don’t have a clue.
Like Peter Sellars said,
we all live in the same burning house.
So, yeah.
Be scared.  All y’all White folks.
Not you, Anna baby.

(He gives me a rather lecherous look.)
You know
what I mean.
I’m talkin’ about the real deal.
You busy tonight?
(Sudden fade to black with music by Marvin Gaye, “ What’s goin’ on?”)