4 - Sunday, May 10, 1992 - North Shure News A policeman’s state HERE’S AN interview I conducted with Jerry Lindsay, a teacher at San Fernando Staie College, an ex-social worker turnea therapist in training at the California Institute of Psychodrama, and a part-time actor. Jerry is black. This is his description of the L.A. street scene: “The cops are scared. Listen, I was busted six times last summer when I was doing social work in Watts. Just walking aleng the street. “Cops would just get out, push me up against the wall and frisk me like I was loaded with dyna- mite. “The only way I could handle them was to treat them as pa- tients. They don’t always wait for it, but they like to have an excuse to beat you up or shoot you. **You have to be very careful not to give them that excuse. So I’d ask them, very gently, ‘What are you so afraid of?’ I’d en- courage them to relax, take it easy, nobody’s going to hurt you. “But the kids, you know, when they get that up-against-the-wall stuff, they’re not very cool. They get mad, start yelling, or try to hit the bastards. And then they’ve had it. Sure, they get beat up, and some of them get shot. “Is a police state emerging? (Laughter) It is a police state. If you live downtown or someplace like Watts, it’s a police state.”’ This interview with Jerry was conducted in November 1969, I reprint it as a reminder, to inyself as much as anyone, that the cur- rent riots in L.A. have been build- ing up tike an earthquake fora long, long time. I visit L.A. quite often. There are moments when the place is so beautiful you know exactly why California has a population equal to Canada’s, and why so many. of those people are expatriate Canucks. During our last visit — in Feb- ruary — my wife and I climbed to the roof of the Belage Hotel, where we were staying, just off Sunset Boulevard, to soak in the hot tub and watch the dawn break over the vast flatland to the south of us between the Sierra Nevadas and the ocean. We had the scene to ourselves. And we were lucky enough to witness an extremely rare phe- nomenon: a clear Los Angeles morning, smogiess and brisk. Beb Hunter Sie Glittering in the orange light, the towers of the six or seven clusters of skyscrapers at the dif- ferent downtown cores rose at great distances from each other, like metallic and glass islands spread in an archipelago across a sea of palm trees, freeways, homes, warehouses, and apart- ments with white clay walls. It was quiet except for the par- rot-like birds. The roads hadn’t awakened. The fumes from the millions of cars hadn't formed in- to in inevitable midday ground- level ozone cloud. “God, why don't we move here?”’ my wife said. Ata moment like that, it almost made sense. Of course, there was the traffic to deal with, all that business about a Green Card, but yes, in- deed, dream on, sweetheart! Just a matter of getting enough work... The Rodney King episode had already happened, and while the news reports and the conversa- tions amcng the people we were hanging out with were about how tense things were ‘‘out zhere”’ on the street, generally speaking life was going on as it always did. If you stuck to the freeways, you were OK. The key to survival in L.A. was, we gathered, to live as much of your life as possible within your own particular ghetto, avoid getting on the wrong turf on the ground, and don’t get out of your car in an unneighborly neighborhood. But of course all of them are unneighborly towards strangers. And no more so than in Malibu Colony, where we were invited to a party to meet a bunch of film industry folks. The Colony is a fortress, actual- ly. It has an enormous wall all around it. You have to stop your vehicle at a security gate Jong be- fore you get past the main defences. It was difficult to estimate how much a typical home in the Col- ony cost, but three or four million each, at the very least. Our host, a rising young hot- shot film director, had a place right on the ocean. Although it was certainly not something | would be foolish enough, in the midst of a grand schmoozing session, to mention, I couldn’: help noticing that the security was incredibly heavy. There were armed private cops pacing about everywhere outside, patrolling the perimeter and the bezch. { also couldn’t help noticing that every one of the delightful Hollywood directors, producers, writers, actors, aides, agents and loved-ones present was white. Every one of the cops outside was black. **Thank God,’’ I muttered in an aside to my wife, ‘‘they’re paid cops, otherwise they might be beating us up with sticks, eh?”’ What was keeping a lid cn things in L.A. back in February was & feeling, shared by nearly everyone, that for once the racist white cops were going to get theirs. They'd been caught on video. Everyone and his dog in the uni- verse had seen the footage. Final- ly, justice would have to be done. Maybe they’d been getting away with it since 1969, since long be- fore that. But finally, thanks to “Little Brother’? videocamera, the whole world had seen the truth. The riot-triggering verdict in favor of the cops marks the end of an era in the City of Fallen Angels. There’s no more pretending, is there? If not quite yet a police state, in the totalitarian sense, L.A. has become a policeman’s state, which isn’t a whole hell of a lot different if you’re black. precious regardless of For information on biomedical and ethical issues like abortion and euthanasia call the Resource Centre at 984-9094 (Ad sponsored by the No (_DWIN&.COMPANY Law Office program begins full-time on July 6, 92. If you are a high school graduate with a minimum of seven years related business experience, we can help you upgrade or change your career and be job-ready in just 10 months. CHOOSE FROM FOUR SPECIALTIES: © Administrative Management Diploma ® Financial Management Diploma © Marketing Management Diploma © Merchandising Management Diploma To learn more about this highly successful retraining program, attend an information meeting on Monday, May 25 at 7 p.m. in ‘SH’? Building, Room 501, or call the Business Management Dept.,984-4960. 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