Illusions of Progress

Last week, we talked about illusions of progress as they relate to the Los Angeles riots. There was a prime example of this in today's reading, page 212. Paula Weinstein tells Smith that she has the sense of a changing community. After the riots began, people of all ethnicities were coming together to give food to those who needed it. Weinstein implies that she expected this peaceful cooperation of "multiracial and multicultural" to continue, and to come even closer together over the Rodney King verdict (210).

But then, a year later, nothing is different. In fact, white people are sending their children out of the city, and race relations are just as prejudiced and fear-fueled as they were before. The media, Weinstein thought, led the "retreat" of the multiracial advances made at Diane Watson's. Weinstein reflects on the short-lived, supposed harmony, saying, "It was a fake euphoria we all felt" (212). The progress made in the aftermath of the riots was lost.