Quayle blames poor as thousands face jail
Socialist Outlook newspaper1990sPaul ClarkeTranscribed or corrected by hand from the printed page.
TV HEADLINES were grabbed last week when US Vice-President Dan Quayle blamed the immorality of the poor for this month's riots in Los Angeles and other major cities.
But the real aftermath of the US riots is the wave of repression against 13,500 people arrested during the riots, and the hundreds who face deportation as 'illegal' immigrants.
Quayle made an idiot of himself by putting the blame for inner-city riots on single mothers and illegitimate children.
Bizarrely, he attacked the fictional TV character Murphy Brown, played by Candice Bergen, for having an illegitimate baby. Which led everyone to ask whether anti-abortion Quayle would advocate a fictional abortion instead.
But the joke is not so funny for those facing long terms of imprisonment. Details of the police repression during and in the aftermath of the riots are still emerging.
Apart from rioters, hundreds were arrested in Los Angeles and San Francisco simply for demonstrating against the Rodney King court verdict.
Open pens
In one San Francisco demonstration all 600 demonstrators were picked up. Hundreds were held for several days with little food and water in open pens.
Details of this repression appear in an article is US Marxist Socialist Action by student Jerry Caldwell, arrested with his mother near a demonstration. He says after his arrest:
'We were driven to a big warehouse on the waterfront. I could see hundreds of people who were already there enclosed in pens made out of police barricades.
'There were about 150 people in each. As we arrived we cheered and they cheered back... Then they threw us in a holding tank with only a cement floor, one bench and an exposed toilet. About 25 of us were packed on top of each other like sardines.
'I was lucky. My mothers' boyfriend bailed us out at 4 am, by which time I had slept only 15 minutes.
'In 27 hours custody I received just an orange and a sandwich. Much of the time during the night it was freezing cold. We were lucky to get out early. Many people stayed there for days.'
Towards the end of the riots the Los Angeles police department started mass raids on apartment blocks occupied by Mexican-Americans. Hundreds now face deportation as 'illegals'.
Many of the arrested have been charged with crimes which carry very heavy prison sentences. A big defense campaign is under way. Socialist Outlook will be reporting in coming issues.