Rodney King, to many, is the ultimate symbol of a long, seething corruption and misuse of oppressive force that has dragged down our society and put us into a state of undeclared war with our neighbors. His beating by four white LAPD officers and their subsequent acquittal sparked massive riots, and King went on to become a touring speaker on the issue of racial discrimination and police brutality.
And what's Rodney King doing these days? Getting shot in the back while riding his bike away from would-be thieves. Drunk. I'm really hoping he parleys this incident into a speaking tour as well, because it sounds way
more interesting than racial equality.
At the end of the article, you can find an exhaustive list of the ways in which King has failed to live up to his accidental role model status, but highlights include:
Trying to run over a vice officer
Hitting his wife with his car
Committing indecent exposure while high on PCP
Driving while on PCP and crashing through a house
Threatening to kill his daughter and punching his girlfriend in the stomach
Utterly destroying any use he had as a symbolic figure of unfair racial disparity
In short, he has done everything in his power since the time of his beating to convince me that he should have been beaten. Maybe not for the reasons he was beaten, but the point is he had a beating coming. Maybe a few shotgun pellets to the back will convince him it’s time to ease up, but I’d put better odds on another PCP-related vehicular manslaughter attempt.
Rodney King, to many, is the ultimate symbol of a long, seething corruption and misuse of oppressive force that has dragged down our society and put us into a state of undeclared war with our neighbors. His beating by four white LAPD officers and their subsequent acquittal sparked massive riots, and King went on to become a touring speaker on the issue of racial discrimination and police brutality.
And what's Rodney King doing these days? Getting shot in the back while riding his bike away from would-be thieves. Drunk. I'm really hoping he parleys this incident into a speaking tour as well, because it sounds way