[UA] Thoughts on LA riots of 1992?

[Stimson, Aaron]

I'd lean towards an Ascension.

Perhaps the Trod-Upon Black Man or the Looter, or something of that sort.
Maybe not.  Here's my reasoning:

I didn't live in LA at the time.  I lived in a city in the agricultural San
Joaquin Valley, called Fresno.  When the news hit about the verdict in the
Rodney King trial, and the subsequent rioting, we all took it to be an
LA-related thing.  Then the riots spread.

That's one thing the national news didn't go into much.  Riots sprang up in
Sacramento, San Jose, San Francisco, and Fresno, among other places.  Except
our riots didn't happen right away. 

I'm a white man, was a white boy at the time.  Actually, I'm technically a
Native South American Indian Hispanic son of an immigrant, but I look like a
beefy tamed Viking, so basically I'm a white man.  The high school I went to
was all the way across city, in the middle of a black and mexican-american
ghetto, very poor and very rich in gang activity.  I'd grown up in
California, arguably on of the most racially diverse states in the union,
and with my own background, never really thought about racism.  I had
friends in all sorts of ethnic groups.  So, the day after the Rodney King
verdict, as I was walking to my first period class I was stunned to see a
large number of very angry black students pour out from behind a school
building and attack a white boy walking in front of me.  They beat him black
and blue in front of me, cussing him out, insulting him for his skin color,
and it's only fortune that I wasn't the target.  In fact, he was walking
with someone, and I was not, which means I was the better target.  He
actually suffered a dislocated shoulder, as well as extensive bruising, I
think.  Lucky he didn't break anything.

Needless to say, I was stunned.  He had done nothing.  Absolutely nothing.
Later that evening we heard a news story that people were rioting in a
downtown open air mall.  But that broke up in about an hour.  The next day I
stayed out of school.

My girlfriend and I spent the day picking out outfits for the prom, and we
got back to my house in the late afternoon, and had dinner with my family.
Turning on the news, we discovered that the rioting that had been going on
in LA, and that had failed the previous day, was now in full swing in
Fresno.  People had broken into chain stores and gun shops, stolen weapons,
and were roaming the streets, shooting at anything that moved.  That night
my girlfriend slept in our living room, as the only way she could get home
was blocked off by trigger happy rioters.

The cops cleaned it all up.  Within a week the whole state had quieted down,
and twice the normal number of cops were on patrol all the time.  But
there's something about urban chaos that shakes your belief that the way of
life we live is permanent.  It's not.  The compact of civility we make when
we live in a city only covers up the inherent conflicts within our
communities.  It doesn't make them go away.

Oh, did I mention:  most of those rioters from the second day were just
opportunists.  And most of them were white.


Ok, personal story aside, that kind of mass mentality spreading is either
something that's simmering below the surface all the time, OR

It's the kind of thing that comes from a Major Spell or an Ascension.

I lean towards ascension.  The chaos lasted for about a week, openly, which
suggests to me an IC member just learning how to handle their newfound
duties.  It also suggests to me a power struggle in the OU, but that might
not be related to the initial spark.  So here's my idea:

Paul Freeman has had a hard life.  He's constantly been pushed around,
insulted, and threatened because of the level of mellenin in his skin.
People keep telling him that this is an age of understanding and growing
equality for black men, but he hasn't seen it.  Not at all.

Paul Freeman's tried living the life he wanted.  Talented, intelligent, he
wanted to go into journalism, but all the best colleges (mostly private)
rejected him, citing no specific reason, although Paul suspected his address
was as much a factor as anything else.  After city college, and professors
that graded him low for no good reason, he got a job as a gopher with Times.
Years later he was still a gopher, and any promise of a better job was
denied him.  With a family to support now, and bills to pay, Paul Freeman
went to his employer to see if this year he could finally move up to cub
reporter.  And was fired.

In the parking lot his car broke down.  He tried to get on the bus, but a
crazy man started calling him names and raving, and the driver asked Paul to
get off so the rest of them could ride in peace.  Then a number of skinhead
punks jumped him, pulling him into an alleyway, and began to beat on him.
In the middle of the fight he gave up, and making that final step as a
Godwalker, he ascended.  Needless to say, the punks have an interesting
story to tell.

Orienting himself in his newfound power, Paul looked around  at the
potentialities around him, and THINGS MADE SENSE.  Knowledge came to him and
with it understanding of his role and his abilities.  And Paul, for the
first time, had the opportunity to make a difference, and to get back at
those who had kept him down.  Looking for the largest potentiality around
him, he found the right string, and pulled it.

The jury declared the police in the Rodney King beating innocent.

That's my idea, anyway.  I'm sure most people are going to see it completely
differently.  Oh, and the rest of the OU, generally unaware of Paul Freeman,
find themselves with an excellent opportunity to change the internal
structure of the LA underground.  So players in my 1992 LA during the riots
would face fluctuating probabilities, a clutch of black worshiping
skinheads, a city gone crazy, and an OU that's taking advantage of the
madness to indulge in vendetta, theft, and murder on a grand scale.  
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