The fire next time

Rodney King's beating by Los Angeles Police Department officers, and their subsequent acquittal by an all White jury sparked the first "multicultural riot" in Los Angeles in 1992. Twenty years since the time of the uprising, the vigilante murder of teenager Trayvon Martin in a gated community in Florida brought thousands across the country into the streets to protest the disposability of Black male life. Since writing this essay, Rodney King has passed away, his death also premature. This essay discusses how the lives of these two Black males are connected through the commonsense White supremacist myth of inherent Black violence. It goes on to discuss the relations of violence that structure the vastly different cities in which they found themselves. Justice for Trayvon is broader than the criminal justice system. It will mean grappling with how urban and suburban lives in the US are violently separated by fortification and targeted policing, no less than predatory mortgage lending, decades of uneven federal investments, and a militarized economy. Making claims for a right to the city, then, rests on transforming militarized landscapes and the White supremacy that naturalizes foreclosed futures.