Oakland, 2009-2010
Less than 20 years after the 1992 uprising in Los Angeles, California was once again the center of racial conflict in the United States. However, this time Oakland, not Los Angeles was the center of attention. In 2009, an Oakland police officer shot unarmed Oscar Grant III, while he was handcuffed and lying on the ground. The shooting of Grant was caught on camera by several witnesses, an example of which can be seen here: WARNING GRAPHIC CONTENT. Like the LAPD officers in 1992, officer Johannes Mehserle received minimal punishment for the death of Grant. Also, like in 1965 and 1992, California once again erupted in violence. Initial protests began in early January after the news and footage of Grant's death spread across the country. Even more outbursts of violence erupted in 2010 after Mehserle was only convicted of involuntary manslaughter and sentenced to one year in prison. While the events surrounding the death of Oscar Grant were not as destructive or widespread as the events before them, the eruptions of violence represent the same frustrations with the inequality of the United States Justice System
Several mainstream News Reports on the violence in Oakland, including the one above from CNN, in many ways echo the ways in the Los Angeles and Watts Uprisings were portrayed by the media. Protests were characterized as "senseless" and "unnecessary" acts of violence and vandalism. The underlying issues are largely ignored by the people reporting on the events.
Ferguson, 2014
On August 9, 2014, less than five years after the protests surrounding Oscar Grant's death, white police officer Darren Wilson shot unarmed Michael Brown. As news of the circumstances Brown's death spread, tensions came to a breaking point in Ferguson and violence erupted. Protests became even more violent in end of November after a grand jury decided not to indict Wilson for the murder of Brown.The scale of the violence is reminiscent of the 1992 LA Uprising.
Like the uprisings from previous years, several news reports on the current crisis in Ferguson ignores the legitimacy of the rioters. This attempt to discredit the cause is done through denying that there are fundamental problems in the United States Justice system. Fox News, widely known for its conservative voice, is one of the leading news agencies that denies that the current violence in Ferguson is due to a systemic problem with relations between Black Americans and white police officers. This article (full article found HERE) stipulates that without statistics, the increase in evidence of killings committed by police could be "simply a series of coincidences generating a deafening buzz in news reports and social media."
Unlike the riots of 1965 and 1992, the participants in the Uprisings in the New Millennium are not dependent on news agencies to document and relay what is happening. With the advancement in camera technology and the increasing use of social media, the participants and witnesses are able to document the crises around them just as well, if not better, than major news agencies. This trend is leading to the release and distribution of more and more unedited documentation of police brutality and the reactions to it.