Op-Ed: 50 years later, we still haven't learned from Watts
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The 1965 Watts neighborhood riots are often considered a tipping point in race relations in Los Angeles and the United States. But, coverage of recent violent protests has displayed that the media and many whites still do not understand the systemic racism and discrimination that blacks and other people of color still struggle against in America.
From Theoharis' Op-Ed:
ON AUG. 11, 1965, a California highway patrolman in the Watts section of Los Angeles pulled over an African-American man, Marquette Frye, for drunken driving. When another officer began hitting Mr. Frye and his mother, who had rushed to the scene, onlookers started throwing stones and bottles.
The unrest escalated to looting and burning. In response, the police cracked down on the black community at large. When the violence ended a week later, 34 people had died and more than a thousand were injured, a vast majority at the hands of local police or the National Guard. (New York Times)
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