Quietly – as if yesterday’s looters, firebugs and other assailants were hunched around their televisions waiting for a reason to riot – network news programs noted the tenth anniversary of the first Rodney King verdict.

Quietly – as if yesterday’s looters, firebugs and other assailants were hunched around their televisions waiting for a reason to riot – network news programs noted the tenth anniversary of the first Rodney King verdict, whereupon South Central Los Angeles caught fire and was raped for three days by a portion of the citizenry intellectually incapable of expressing rage without burning down a Korean deli.

For those unfamiliar with the root cause of the riots: Rodney King was, and continues to be, a career criminal who, under the influence of PCP (and with three other people in his car) cruised the Foothills highway at speeds up to 110 miles per hour, putting lives in danger with each car they passed. After finally being pulled over by the Los Angeles police, he resisted arrest and lunged at the cops before being beaten to the ground with a few dozen baton swipes and taken away. Unbeknownst to the police, the entire incident was being videotaped by a local resident (oops!). Four of the officers were at first acquitted, South Central Los Angeles burned, Reginald Denny was beaten half to death by “angry blacks.” After King asked everyone to get along, things dies down a bit. In the aftermath, the first President Bush promised to have the officers tried again as a pacifier for South Central’s minority population; they were later convicted. King subsequently sued for – and won – a few million dollars, later being arrested on various drunk driving, drug and woman beating charges. (In retrospect, a stand up guy to be sure.)

Now we are being asked to consider whether or not, ten years later, “things are any better” in South Central Los Angeles. In this we are to ponder whether or not the White Man has finally taken it upon himself to stop oppressing the Black Man long enough for “significant progress” (in this, financial progress is meant) to be made. Exactly how the White Man oppresses the Black Man in what amounts to a series of black neighborhoods baffles, but the short answer is: No, things haven’t gotten any better in South Central, except for those who have spent the last decade basking in the glow of their stolen television sets.

The long answer is: Things aren’t any better in South Central because those who live there seem to be content with the toilet it has become. The White Man didn’t destroy South Central; he couldn’t have turned the place into a drug haven, and he couldn’t have created the atmosphere where bastard children are produced and abandoned by their fathers at a rate even higher than the national average for black children (70). A town (or an area of town) becomes hopeless because those who live there have given up hope, not because the White Man has conspired against them.

In response to this you will hear of the broken promises. Following the riots, all kinds of men in expensive suits came to South Central and said, “We care about you, and we’re going to bring strip malls, outlet stores and federal funding to prove it.” To this date, neither strip malls, outlet stores or additional federal funding have come to the area, as we’re sure to be reminded over the next few days. Some will say, Yes, what about those broken promises? I detest them; a man shouldn’t make a promise he has no intention of keeping (not to be confused with those promises he suddenly finds himself unable to keep). Those were momentary bones thrown to appease the populace and are inexcusable.

Instead, what should have been said to the people of South Central ten years ago was, Do you know how best to react to three days of rioting, 54 deaths, 2,000 injured and two billion dollars in damages that came as a result of a mass temper tantrum? You sure as Hell don’t build more stores there, for a variety of reasons. For one, the insurance rates to open such a business would be preemptive at best, oppressive at worst, considering the drug infestation that permeates the area. For another, for those jobs not filled by South Central’s residents, very few people will be willing to come into the area in order to work. The proper reaction is to avoid South Central at all cost, and smart companies have, to their credit.

Save your letters: The idiotic, sprout eating, degenerate, bored white college kids (and the adults who were in lockstep, trying to get laid) who tore up Seattle in the name of disease ridden third world countries are no better than those who burned South Central. This is not a matter of race, it’s a matter of logic, or a pronounced lack thereof, by both the people who lived in those places and the authorities who allowed them to be ransacked. In each riot the most disappointing factor wasn’t necessarily the lemmings left to their own devices (because they will act as they will act), but the pronounced lack of public officials willing to utter those three magic words most required at times of drastic civil unrest: “Fire at will!” (That is, so long as they also know “Cease fire!” when the time comes).

What was sold to rational people 10 years ago as a justified civil unrest has become any night of the week where fifty people are displeased and decide to take it to Radio Shack and Starbucks (Seattle, Cincinnati) … or, you know, whenever your hometown team wins a major sports championship, but only for the reasons that matter. The luster is lost because no one in this country, where more than any other place on Earth a man controls his own fate, there aren’t legitimate reasons to burn cities to the ground. Not for Shaquille O’Neal, and certainly not for Rodney King.