-------- Original Message -------- Subject: [SIXTIES-L] Twilight Bey speaks about the L.A. gang truce and uprisings Date: Fri, 06 Jan 2006 14:00:33 -0800 From: the moderator <resist at best.com> Reply-To: SIXTIES-L at topica.com To: <Recipient list suppressed>
Twilight Bey speaks about the L.A. gang truce and uprisings
http://www.sfbayview.com/120705/twilightbeyspeaks120705.shtml
by Davey D 12/7/05
In light of the Tookie Williams case, we decided to pull out an old interview we did with former gang member Twilight Bey who speaks about the ins and outs of gang life and culture and the way outside forces like the police impact day to day life. Twilight was the inspiration for Anna Deavere Smith's award winning play and documentary on the 1992 L.A. riots, "Twilight: Los Angeles."
This is probably one of the realest and most insightful interviews you will ever hear. It first aired April 29, 2002, on the 10th anniversary of the L.A. riots. Below is a transcript of that interview.
The L.A. uprising, 10 years later
Davey D: Ten years ago, the city of Los Angeles erupted in reaction to the acquittal of four white police officers who were on trial for the beating of Rodney King. More than 50 fires burned throughout L.A. as all sorts of people looted stores. Numerous people were killed and hundreds were injured. The National Guard was called in. A state of emergency was declared and all sorts of drama unfolded.
One of the underplayed stories surrounding the L.A. uprisings was the resulting gang truce. First, it was between the Crips and Bloods, and the truce later spread between rival Mexican gangs.
Today we are talking to one of the key people deeply involved in all this. His name is Twilight Bey, a former gang member who was the inspiration for a play and a documentary by Anna Deavere Smith about the L.A. uprisings called "Twilight: Los Angeles."
First of all, welcome to our show. Second, let's acknowledge that you don't like to refer to April 29 as the 10-year anniversary of the Rodney King verdict. Instead you prefer to say that this is a 10-year progress report.
Twilight: Exactly.
Davey D: Well, that makes sense, because apparently there is still a lot of work to be done. Let's go back into time for people who don't know. We have a lot of listeners who are 18-19 years old, who were real young when all this went down. Many don't have a complete understanding as to why and how L.A. erupted. What led up to the L.A. uprisings of April 29, 1992?
Twilight: Well, in Los Angeles, for quite some time, people had been subjected to various levels of police brutality. As for me, I too had been a victim of police brutality on several occasions as a teenager growing up in Watts.
I can remember going back to a time when I was 15-16 years of age - I'm 32 now - back then, me and my friends would be walking down the streets and the police would come through tripping. After each incident, we would find ourselves saying, "You know, one day this place is going to blow up because people are getting tired of this."
Davey D: When you say "the police were tripping," exactly what do you mean? What sort of abuse were you guys dealing with?
Twilight: One of the things that would always happen is they would stop you and ask you, "What gang are you from?" If you told them you don't bang, they would ignore you and say, in some cases - if you had a snappy answer and by that I mean, if you were quick and to the point and had one word answers - they would get up in your face and grab your collar, push you up against the police car and choke you.
Or they would call us over and tell us to put our hands up and place them on the hood of the police car. Now usually the car had been running all day, which meant that the engine was hot. So the car is burning our hands, which meant that we would have to remove our hands from the car. When that happened, the police would accuse of us of not cooperating. Next thing you know you would get pushed in the back or knocked over. We would tell the police that what they were doing wasn't necessary.
You have to remember that most of us at that time were between the ages 12 and 16. Just a year ago, we were 10 or 11 and playing in the sheriff's basketball league, where they would treat us like little kids. A year later, when we are close to being teenagers, we are suddenly being treated with all this abuse.
In a lot of cases you had kids who had chosen never to be a gang member or even think about joining a gang. The police would come through and just assume because you lived in a certain area. If you told them you weren't in a gang, they would look at whatever graffiti was written on the wall and put you on record as being a part of that gang.
Now you had other cats - who were actually in gangs - who the police would pick up and drop off in a rival gang's neighborhood. They would announce it over the loudspeaker so everyone would know that a rival gang member was in the neighborhood, and they would drive off and leave you there. You had to make it back home the best way you knew how.
These were they types of things that were taking place all the time throughout the '80s up into the '90s. It was constant police brutality. People simply got tired of that.
You know, it's funny because a lot of people look at the Rodney King verdict as the reason behind the uprisings. I always tell them, if you were on the ground here in Watts and South Central, you would know that it was more than just Rodney King that led to the eruptions.
Davey D: From what you described, it sounds like there was a plan in action to make sure that young Black kids growing up in L.A. would be confronted by the police early on. It seems like it was some sort of sick rites of passage, so that by the time you became a grown man you knew to never cross that line with the police.
Twilight: Yes, that's exactly what it was. It was some sort of social conditioning. Instilling fear is the strongest motivation that this world has to use. It's also the most negative. It creates a conditioning that I don't think anyone in the world should support, because fear motivation brings about all sorts of other things that can be deemed negative.
What I mean by that is, if you are constantly being pushed into a corner where you are afraid, you're going to get to a point where you one day won't be. Eventually, one day, you will fight back. Eventually, one day, you will push back.
When you push back, what is going to be the end result? How far will this go? These were the types of things people were dealing with. Another thing that I like to always point out was that in 1988 Bloods and Crips started their peace talks.
Davey D: Man, so they started trying to bring about a gang truce several years before the Rodney King verdict?
Twilight: Oh yeah. If people went back and checked the archives of local news media here in Los Angeles, they would see that Bloods and Crips were talking in '88. The Bloods and Crips continued to talk and continued to strive for change coming forward.
There were many things that took place between '88 and '92. For example, there were many "mysterious" shootings that took place.
There were all these mysterious shootings where the same car was described as being involved and the same description (was given) for the individuals doing the shooting inside the car. This car was always moving; however, whoever the individual or individuals were, the shooter was always capable of hitting his target.
When the word would go out that there was a meeting or summit taking place and cats was sitting at the table talking, you most definitely could see that the streets were a little calmer. When this was happening, somebody would suddenly have to fan the flames and kick things back up.
Back then, when we would bring this up, people would respond by saying, "If the police are behind all these shootings and instigating things, where's the evidence?"
Who would've thought back then that the Ramparts scandal would ever be exposed? There was just so much that was taking place. Here it is: Cats was constantly trying to deal with our issues and with our community. Daryl Gates was in office as L.A. police chief, where he instituted Operation Hammer. He would have police roll through the hood and basically beat brothas up.
Brothas were getting slammed every day. Cats were trying to get their lives together. But how can you do that when you're constantly being abused, and you live in a community that has certain types of politically motivated, economic embargoes that keep you from having industry? How can you do that when -these conditions result in you being locked into an underground economy where everyone wants to call you a criminal?
Davey D: Up to this point, you've been speaking on the types of police abuse that led up to the L.A. uprisings. Was this abuse coming at the hands of all police, including African American officers? I ask this because, by 1992, there had been attempts to diversify the police force - so one would think that with more Black officers, there wouldn't be as much abuse.
Twilight: If anybody ever listens to the verbal newspapers that we call rap, you would see that rappers like NWA, Ice Cube, Ice T and others clearly spelled things out when they would rap, "Don't let it be a Black and a white one." Why? Because the Black officer is going to beat you down to show off for the white cop.
He wants to show that there's no loyalty to his people. He wants to show that just because he's Black doesn't mean that he's not going to be like everyone else on the force. It's the greatest sense of betrayal - not just against your own people, but against your own humanity. It's a great betrayal not to stand up for what is decent, right and just.
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