Prejudice, Racism and Genocide
by
K.C. Delorge
Research paper
English
Miss Claypool
10-28-2009
In the scope of history there are many times that “opinions founded in prejudice are always sustained by the greatest violence.” This thesis is true when a person believes something so intensely that they willingly do whatever is necessary to preserve those beliefs. This idea is supported by the following historical events: the Rodney King incident in Los Angeles, the KKK in the Deep South, a young negro girl in New Hampshire, the Holocaust in Germany during World War II, and the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia during the Sixties.
In Los Angeles there was great tension due to racism. The blacks felt that white police and people in power were using their power to prevent the black community from obtaining social and economic equality. In 1992 Los Angeles was turned inside out during the LA riots. These events began with the arrest of Rodney King. After having shot King twice with a TASER pistol and then beating him severely with nightsticks, police apprehended him. The whole event was caught on videotape. Within a year, South Central Los Angeles would be the scene of tremendous riots and widespread looting. Fifty-three people died and over one billion dollars in property was either destroyed or stolen. The main factor that led to the riots was that the arresting officers were all white and the trial was held in the white suburb of LA known as Simi Valley. During the riots there was one noteworthy beating of a white truck driver named Reginald Denny. He was pulled from his truck’s cab and nearly beaten to death, including a cinderblock being dropped on his head. He was only saved by the intervention of four men. During the riots King was quoted as saying “can we all just get along?”
In the South and other areas of the United States the Ku Klux Klan displayed their prejudice against the black race. From the eighteen-eighties to the nineteen-sixties there existed...