Too bad pools don’t flush.
This promotes the stereotype that victims of beatings can’t swim.
King was a deeply flawed guy - I don’t know of anyone who would deny that. But - at the height of the riots, he went on television and made a very public, very emotional call for calm. “Can’t we all get along?” By all accounts, the man was genuinely appalled by the violence, and did what he could to end it. That can’t have seemed the safest possible option; would have been easy enough to do nothing at all.
I don’t think I’d have liked Rodney King. But along with all the wretched parts of his character, he did seem to care about acting decently, and he did some good work in that regard. He’s dead, and thus past caring, but I’ve a measure of respect for the man; he was a better person a week ago than he was twenty years ago, and a better person twenty years ago than anyone would have expected. Some people are shit; for all the genuinely shifty stuff King did, I would not call him that.
Please stop quoting ducati’s entire post. Three times is enough.
Rosa Parks made a statement, based on her actions, regarding civil rights. She became a civil rights icon, and for good reason.
Rodney King was made into an icon based on what happened to him.
The beatings he endured were savage, and were videotaped. Even for someone resisting arrest, I think the beatings were too much.
The police trials and the subsequent riots were a result of a media frenzy. Riots only happen when people are motivated, and the media did that as best they could. Live coverage with helicopters, live news events, it spread like wildfire. Innocent people died during that, and there is no excuse for that.
The only thing that died today was a scumbag felon that liked to do whatever the fuck he wanted, damn the circumstances. He was no Ghandi or Parks, or Theresa, he was a shitball criminal.
What happened to him is another thread entirely. He was always a menace to society.
Is there any independent corroboration that ducati’s lengthy post of King’s actions is accurate? I find pieces of it all over the Web, but haven’t spotted any “official” source.
I’m glad you cleared that up. That will certainly give pause to all the people in this thread who have been comparing him to those people.
Oh, wait, nobody has been doing that.
I had the same feeling of disgust as MeanOldLady reading this thread.
I think one of the measures of how civilized a society is, is how the least powerful, and indeed, the least… well-behaved?.. are treated.
Despite his many transgressions I think it’s a callous, inhumane thing to deliver the parting shot “fuck him” or those variants. I believe in the power of repentance and forgiveness. Perhaps Rodney King had, or was in the process of making amends for his mistakes in the past. I don’t know, and it’s likely that none of us on this board know that, either.
The early 1990s demonstrated to me in vivid detail that there are very different experiences for Black and White people in the criminal justice system, if I had been even slightly inclined to believe that justice is blind. In fact, Mr. Excellent’s point of how King, in his own way, made an appeal for peace. He didn’t have to do that, and I remember he was mocked in many quarters for doing so. However, a day after his appeal, the riots were essentially over. I’m not saying he ended the riots single handedly, but it likely had an impact.
Upon reading his Wikipedia entry, it seems apparent that King had a lifelong struggle with chemical dependency, which had terrible consequences throughout his life.
Well, the increasing availability of video cameras suggests to me that if it hadn’t been King, footage of some other whale-a-thon would have outraged the public and such. I’m not particularly sympathetic to King, but the LAPD needed a good chain-yank.
They have not. Nor has anyone called him a martyr, but we need to see this as it is.
A habitual criminal died today. Many habitual criminals died today, but this one gained public attention.
Tell me how his death is different from any of the others?
That’s what I think. King was a nobody and a petty criminal, but the assault on him by the cops and the exposure of the evil that was within the LAPD and those in authority made up for whatever little evils he ever did. King needed to exist for the system to be cleaned up
You really are very good at setting people straight about arguments that they have never made.
Kudos to you!
I’m a little surprised that his death has served as a catalyst for some much vitriol. No, King wasn’t a good person. So far as criminals go he wasn’t even a particularly bad one. I see no reason to cheer his death and I honestly hope he didn’t suffer very much.
No he did not. Some random, most likely minority or down and out white person needed to cross the LAPD at the right time and place to get videod and cause a scandal in order to get it cleaned up.
I’ll give King credit that once he started the shit storm (by being a shit head) he did have one moment of “doing the right thing” a short time later by his appeal to the public. The LAPD was probably a bunch of shit heads. But it wasn’t a requirement that a general low life criminal/fuckup was NEEDED to show them to be such. And even if it was, the fuckupedness of the LAPD doesn’t somehow absolve his fuckeupedness.
If Tony Soprano hires a guy to burn a building and then realizes there are OMG orphans in there and then goes in to save them I ain’t give ole Tony any medals.
Another person who’s awesome at rebutting arguments that no-one has made.
This from someone who posted this:
"Hanging, drawing, and quartering was too good for this man! Put him in the brazen bull, i say. "
Yeah people MADE that arguement too didnt they?
Or did you mean fabulous?
Doesn’t CA have a three strikes law?
Its not as black and white as one would expect.
You’re equally good at ignoring pertinent questions, and snipping statements to meet your needs.
Shame on you.