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After nearly thirty years of struggle and continued efforts to be more inclusive and diverse, the country is once again in the throes of unrest, clamoring for real change. As the nation strives for answers and ways forward in the wake of George Floyds death, it is helpful to look back. How did we get here? How can we help make lasting changes? Read on to learn more.

April 29, 1992 from Sublimes 1996 debut album opens with a radio transmission from a panicked LAPD officer. I don't know if you can, but can you get an order for Ons, that's O-N-S, Junior Market, the address is 1934 East Anaheim, all the windows are busted out, he reports. [I]t's like a free-for-all in here and uh the owner should, at least come down here and see if he can secure his business. If he wants to. The transmission encapsulates some of the most obvious aspects of the 1992 Rodney King Uprising: the LAPDs inability to respond effectively, the looting that unfolded and the small businesses, notably those owned by Latino and Korean Americans that were victimized.

Admittedly, one does not normally look to a ska-punk band for sociological breakdowns of urban unrest, but the Long Beach outfit put its finger on something very real: the uprising, asTim Rutten wrotein 1992, was the nations first multiethnic urban riot, one that involved not simply the traditional antagonism of one race toward another, but the mutual hostility, indifference and willingness to loot of several different racial and ethnic groups. Of those arrested by the LAPD over the course of the unrest, roughly one-third were Black, half Latino and the remainder, mostly White. [C]lass, not race, constituted most of the tensions that led to the riot, Department of Justices lead investigator into civil rights violations in the Rodney King Case, Wayne A. Buddtold reportersin May of 1992.

If one accepts both Rutten and Budds points regarding the diversity of the riots participants, others, such as the University of Southern Californias George Sanchez, add that it also fit into long history of anti-immigrant vigilantism in California. Between 30 and 40% of the businesses damaged in the riot were owned by Latino residents; Koreans too bore the brunt of the looting with over $400 million in losses. Though the assault on truck driver Reginald Denny captured the nations attention, 30 other people were beaten at the same spot, most of them pulled from their cars requiring extensive hospitalization, nearly all of them of Latino or Asian descent, writes Sanchez.Complicating matters further, many Latinos participated in the looting with their neighbors.

How did economic downturn and immigration intersect during one of the nations most notorious examples of twentieth century unrest? Importantly, what role did the LAPD play in the uprisings outcome and how did the departments policies shape how native-born Americans viewed immigrants in Southern California?

The demographics of 1992 Los Angeles begin nearly three decades earlier with the passage of theHart-Celler Actin 1965. Passed in an effort to both eliminate quotas from earlier laws that many viewed as prejudiced and to draw more European immigrants to American shores, the act resulted in far many more newcomers of Asian, West Indian and African descent. For Southern California, the states Asian population, which dates back to the nineteenth century, exploded. Between 1973 and 1990, Southern Californias Chinese population increased by almost seven-fold. During roughly the same period, hundreds of thousands of Koreans also made the region their home. In 1970, only 7,000 Koreans resided in Los Angeles County, by 1990, that number had risen to 145,000 and 600,000 in the larger Southern California region. After the Vietnam War, Vietnamese and Cambodians, many of them refugees, also decamped for the Golden State in large numbers.

The immigration act, when combined with post-1945 segregation and the eventual shift to class-based zoning, resulted in new communities of racial interaction in urban centers across the nation, placing Black, Latino and Asian Americans in close proximity residentially and commercially. This proved more common in newer western cities than those in the Midwest or on the East Coast and Los Angeles, arguably, served as the purest distillation of such developments. For example, nearly half of Koreatowns residential population was actually Hispanic. Despite depictions that present both as exclusively Black communities, in Watts and South Central, African American and Latino residents shared the community. Korean entrepreneurs established businesses in the two neighborhoods particularly after Jewish merchants left in the years following the unrest inWatts. Interactions between these groups gained greater salience and frequency as demographic and neighborhood change washed over the city in the ensuing decades leading up to 1992.

Ironically, the 1965 immigration law penalized immigrants coming from Mexico when it placed hemispheric restrictions on migration. Prior to its passage, migration from Latin American countries to the U.S. was largelyunrestricted. The acts provisions practically created the category of illegal alien. The distinction is equally important for how it shaped how some Americans came to view Mexican Americans and other Latin American nationalities; lumping native born and naturalized persons of Latino descent into collective illegality despite the fact that by 1990, of the over 3,300,000 Latinos in Los Angeles county, only 7% could be considered undocumented or illegal.

To be clear, Mexicans have long lived in the region well before and well after it became Southern California. Still, the increase in numbers of Latino residents from 1980 to 1990 was stark. During the decade, Los Angeles County added 1.4 million new residents; 93%, were Latino. Economic struggles and expanding inequality in Mexico drove many nationals to migrate north. Mexico City, once a prime destination for rural Mexicans and Central Americans, could not absorb the rise in migration. U.S. interventions in Central America predictably created havoc for residents of Nicaragua and El Salvador and destabilized the larger region, which resulted in increased immigration to Southern California. By 1990, 300,000 Salvadorians and nearly 160,000 Guatemalans resided in the city; a five-fold increase for both from 1980.

As more than one writer noted, by the end of the twentieth century, Los Angeles International Airport had transformed into the nations new Ellis Island.

In 1988, nearly 14% of new immigrants to the country settled in Los Angeles; in 1990, almost one third of the citys population had been born abroad.

Worries about immigrants exploiting the nations resources became commonplace. TheLos Angeles Timesblamed local budget issues on increased immigration as one headline read, Aliens Reportedly Get $100 Million in Welfare. David Rieffs 1991 work, Los Angeles: Capital of the Third Worldfurthered such attitudes in his depiction of the city as fragmented and awash in mutual incomprehensibility.

To critics points about immigration, notably undocumented residents, there were costs. By 1993, 23% of the Los Angeles Unified School Districts budget of $6.5 billion went to bilingual education. Governor Pete Wilson alleged that illegal immigration along with residents amnestied by the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, cost the state $1.5 billion every year. By 1993, undocumented immigration rose to three times its counterpart. Senator Diane Feinstein argued that 2.3 million undocumented immigrants resided in California, a figure that made the state home to over 50% of undocumented immigrants in the U.S.

Evidence also suggests that some groups, some Southeast Asian groups for example, did initially turn to welfare, but that others, notably Latinos, decidedly did not. Latinos, immigrants especially, were by far the least likely to be on any form of public assistance, noted California historian Kevin Starr.

In recent years, researchers have shown that refugee populations, similar to the Vietnamese, Cambodians and Hmong that settled in California during the 1970s following the Vietnam War, and immigration more broadly might prove costly upfront but result in long term rewards such as low level gentrification,increased economic activityandlower crime rates. In 1992 however, nuance on the subject frequently evaporated into angry or accusatory policies, statements and headlines.

The LAPDs policing of immigration helped to shape public opinions regarding the status of the regions newer arrivals. By the 1970s, the LAPD routinely rounded up undocumented Mexican immigrants and handed them over to Immigration and Naturalization Services (INS, a precursor to Immigrations and Customs Enforcement). In addition, it created the categorization of alien criminal, which actually preceded the INS creation of a similar category in 1986 with its Criminal Alien Program.Aggressive immigration enforcement thereby treated all Mexican American residents as perpetual foreigners, writes historian Max Felker-Kantor. By constructing a racialized category of the alien criminal as any ethnic Mexican in need of supervision, the LAPD expanded its authority to enforce order and define exclusionary boundaries of citizenship.

"Injustice can provoke African-American rage, not only against white authority, but against, racialized others'" George Sanchez

To be fair, crime statistics during the 1980s and into the early 1990s were alarming, particularly in Los Angeles. Between 1969 and 1989, violent crime trebled and Los Angeless incidents exceeded the national average by a factor of two. The paramilitary approach adopted by the LAPD to crime framed by slogans such as The War on Gangs and The War on Drugs served to address this rise in crime, defenders asserted.

The LAPD instituted Special Order 40 in 1979 to curb the departments involvement in policing immigration by making arrests based on immigration status beyond an officers jurisdiction. Yet in reality, the LAPD continued to work jointly with the INS during the 1980s, and critics argue this relationship collapsed their approach to both gangs and drugs as a means to police immigration.A 1988 task force consisting of the LAPD, INS and Los Angeles Sheriffs Department focused on undocumented gang members for deportation even when not charged with a crime. The problem was not so much that all undocumented individuals were innocent of drug crimes but rather the status of gang member proved fluid in LAPD definitions, meaning numerous individuals were categorized incorrectly, despite having little or no connection to gangs.

Legitimate evidence and investigation-based raids morphed into immigration sweeps. As Antonio Rodrguez of the Latino Community Justice Center noted following a 1989 raid, the police may apprehend some criminals, but they target and capture in their net many innocent persons who are taken prisoner by INS agents. Even the LAPDs less sensational decisions regarding immigration, such as the crackdown on street venders beginning in the early 1980s, sent a similar message. Commander Rick Barton of the LAPD attested to this fact. The thing is most of these people are Latinos from Mexico, (San) Salvador, Nicaragua, Honduras and who knows how many of them are undocumented. So even though the INS has no part in this task force, it could be that a lot of them are afraid we might have the INS with us.

From a purely procedural perspective, such strategic decisions overburdened the criminal justice system and led to civil rights violations for Americans of Latino descent. Historians such as David Gutirrez have shown many Americans fail to distinguish between Latino American citizens and undocumented residents lumping them all into a single category thereby subjecting the former, in particular, to civil liberties and civil rights violations. It also placed the city council at odds with the LAPD; the council declared Los Angeles asanctuary cityin 1985.

Throughout the 1980s, federal funding to cities declined as more and more municipal governments adopted neoliberal policies which at the risk of oversimplification advocated for tax abatements to businesses and corporations, public private partnerships for public works, and the reduction or elimination of public pensions. Typically, such policies disproportionately affect the working class and poor. In Los Angeles case, Mayor Tom Bradley pursued Pacific Rim investment spending municipal dollars on the citys airports, harbors and downtown at the expense of Los Angeles struggling neighborhoods.

As 1992 approached, the nation fell into a recession and Los Angeles suffered not only the same economic downturn but also the retreat of local industry to other parts of the American Sunbelt or to other nations with cheaper labor costs.

"The city today is like the Balkans, rich with blood feuds that outsiders can scarcely understand John Gregory Dunne

The combination of reduced federal funding and deindustrialization struck Black Los Angeles harder than arguably any other population in the city. From 1973 to 1986, average yearly earnings for young Black high school graduates declined 44%. Extend the period three more years to 1989 and one finds that average earnings for Black men dropped 24% while unemployment rose to record levels. Poverty rates for families living in South Central, many of which were not only Black but Latino, ranked twice that of the citys overall rate and nearly a third higher than just before Watts.

Meanwhile as heavy industry left, the low wage garment industry developed particularly in Southeast Los Angeles. In the three years before April 1992, the city shed 150,000 manufacturing jobs. From 1979 to 1989, of all the new jobs created, 40% paid under $15,000 per year, and most of this employment went to newly arrived immigrants hailing from Mexico, Central America, and Asia. Even with employment, poverty rates among Latinos from 1969 to 1989, especially among the foreign-born, increased from 17 to 23%. Between 1973 and 1986, Latino earnings diminished by 35%.

More generally, inequality between Anglo residents and others widened as median household net worth for Anglos in the city was $31,904; for non-Anglos, $1,353. For all the hardship endured by Black Los Angeles, their proportion of the citys population living in poverty declined from 24% in 1969 to 18 in 1989 while Latino L.A. increased its share of this demographic from 22% to 57%.

At the same time, Mexican and Central Americans moved into Watts and South Central, which by 1992 had become significantly, if not predominantly Latino. Korean storefronts operated in both and relations between African Americans and Korean store owners frayed due to several factors including the shooting of Latasha Harlins by the wife of a storeowner, the killing of two store workers by a black robber and boycotts by local African American leaders demanding Black-owned retail. The city today is like the Balkans, rich with blood feuds that outsiders can scarcely understand, John Gregory Dunne wrote in theNew York Review of Booksin October 1991.

Dunne appeared prescient when violence erupted after the Rodney King verdict on April 29, 1992. The unrest demonstrated not only the anger over police brutality that simmered beneath the surface, but as author George Sanchez argues that injustice can provoke African-American rage, not only against white authority, but against, racialized others, most notably Asian and Latinos living among blacks in newly reintegrated communities. City council member Nate Holden, who is African American, told investigators after the uprisingthat the nations borders needed to be closed because the city could not absorb any more foreigners, noting that all his constituents be they Black, White or Brown felt similarly.

Property damage from the uprising occurred in communities that had transitioned from Black to Latino though it was not shared evenly as damaged areas were nearly 50% Latino and 37% Black. Of the 58 individuals violently killed during the unrest, the vast majority resided in these communities. The longer established East Los Angeles remained untouched while newer immigrant enclaves such as Pico-Union and Westlake suffered damage.

View pages from the 1992 RAND report on the Uprising by clicking on the arrows below.

When Pico-Unions city council representative, Mike Hernandez, requested National Guard troops to quell the looting, the government sent the Border Patrol. Of the 1,200 riot aliens transferred from the LAPD County Jail to INS, 86% of their cases resulted in deportation. East Los Angeles City Council representative Richard Alatorre underlined the separation between the communities. I will try my best to be advocate for immigrants concerns. But I didnt get elected to represent them, he commented at the time. I have a responsibility to the people I happen to represent.

During the unrest, the LAPD abandoned Koreatown along with other minority and low-income communities, drawing a perimeter the stopped at Pico-Robertson and prevented the spread of unrest to Beverly Hills. Then President-Elect of the Korean American Bar Association and Los Angeles nativeAngela Ohworked the phones at the Korean American Community Center as storeowners called in frantically. The citys Korean American radio station operated as an emergency network though which calls for help by storeowners went out. Toyota Land Cruisers brimming with armed Korean men patrolled Koreatowns streets.Edward Jae Song Leewould be the lone Korean American death when killed by cross fire, mistakenly shot by a fellow Korean American.

As Elaine Kim wrote in Scott Sauls Gridlocks of Rage, the civil disturbanceboth served as a baptism into what it really means for a Korean to become an American in the 1990s, and a reminder of the state,cityand nations long history of violence toward Asian Americans. Economically, the lootingstruck a crushing blow to the Korean American business community, one third of which operated in Koreatown. The average Korean business owner carried debt between $200,000 and $500,000. Like many minority entrepreneurs at the time, these businesses often had no insurance or were underinsured. A total of 300 Korean American businesses burned during the unrestand clearly, liquor stores, small groceries and gas stations in South Los Angeles had been targeted.

However, though Korean American relations with African Americans had frayed, a significant portion of the looting that victimized Korean entrepreneurs was done by their Latino neighbors. [M]any of the most hard pressed Latinos poor immigrants who had fled poverty or political terror in Mexico and Central America, settled in overcrowded apartments in South Central or Mid-City, and taken subminimum wage jobs to support their families enthusiastically availed themselves of food, clothing, diapers, and other goods, Saul noted. Several observers pointed to the history of trauma and poverty endured by Central American immigrants to explain the looting and its shopping spree-like atmosphere.

After the uprisingas part of the Webster Commission investigating theevent,JosLozano, then publisher of the citys largest Spanish language newspaper,La Opinion, admitted he feared future violence telling investigators it would not be directed at Whites but rather between African Americans and Latino and Asian immigrants as a gulf of misunderstanding existed between the groups. Anti-immigrant sentiment pervaded Southern California perhaps exemplified by Governor Pete Wilsons anti-immigrant/anti-LatinoProp 187referendum, which drew the support of even liberals such as Senator Diane Feinstein. In a 1994 statewide poll, 25% of all immigrants expressed fear over discrimination or violence due to their appearing foreign to native-born Americans. Their fears proved very real when hate crimes increased by 17% between 1995 and 1996.

Though it arguably got worse before it got better, both attitudes about immigration and LAPD policies evolved. To the former, organizing shifted from ethnic identification to a more community and labor-oriented strategy, notes Manuel Pastor. Organizations like AGENDA and the Community Coalition, both established in South Los Angeles, were multiethnic from the get-go focused on forging coalitions based on economic and quality of life issues.

To the latter, after a series of scandals, the federal government intervened with a consent decree forcing reform on the department. The LAPDs demographics have radically changed as well. In 1992, nearly 70% of the department was White. Today, 60% of its officers are minorities. While Felker-Kantor and others point out that diversifying police forces, due to larger structural issues, does not guarantee better law enforcement or an end to abuses, others believe it still holds value. Prominent civil rights attorneyConnie Rice, who spent much of the 1980s suing the LAPD, believes it makes a difference. Theyve gone from an openly racist and misogynist subculture that they had, controlling the majority culture, for at least 50 years, shetold theNew York Timesin 2018. Over the last 20 years, that is what we have exorcised, after the Rodney King riots.

Finally, big city departments typically eschew policing immigration. Numerous police chiefs across the United States argue such policies actually inhibit policing since it alienates immigrant communities and results in fewer coming forward to report crime. In 2019, LAPDrefusedto participate in ICE raids on undocumented residents.

Cause everybody in the hood has had it up to here/It's getting harder and harder and harder each and every year, Sublimes Nowell croons. Economics and a disingenuous overly zealous LAPD It wasn't about Rodney King, he declares, but rather this fucked situation and these fucked up police, explain what happened on April 29, 1992. The Long Beach band might not have been experts on policing, immigration or the LAPD, but, in the end, they werent that far off.

Davis, Mike. "Magical Urbanism: Latinos Reinvent the City."New York: Verso, 2000.

Dunne, John Gregory. Law & Disorder in Los Angeles.New York Review of Books, October 10, 1991.

Felker-Kantor,Max. "Policing Los Angeles: Race, Resistance, and the Rise of the LAPD."Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2018.

Gutirrez, David. "Walls and Mirrors: Mexican Americans, Mexican Immigrants, and the Politics of Ethnicity."Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1995.

Hackworth, Jason. "The Neoliberal City: Governance, Ideology, and Development in American Urbanism."Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2007.

MacDonald, Susan Peck. The Erasure of Language.College Composition and Communication58, no. 4 (2007): 585-625.

Meraji, Shereen Marisol. As Los Angeles Burned, the Border Patrol Swooped In. Produced by NPR.Code Switch. April 27, 2017. Podcast, MP3 audio, 00:08:00.

Pastor, Manuel. Contemporary Voice: Contradictions, Coalitions, and Common Ground. In "A Companion to Los Angeles," edited by William Deverell and Gregory Hise. West Sussex, UK: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010.

Rutten, Tim. A New Kind of RiotThe New York Review of Books(June 11, 1992).

Sanchez, George Face the Nation: Race, Immigration, and the Rise of Nativism in Late Twentieth Century America.International Migration Review31, no. 4 (Winter 1997): 1018.

Sassen, Saskia. "The Global City: New York, London, Tokyo."Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001.

Saul, Scott. Gridlocks of Rage: The Watts and Rodney King Riots. In "A Companion to Los Angeles," edited by William Deverell and Gregory Hise. West Sussex, UK: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010.

Sides, Josh. "L.A. City Limits: African American Los Angeles from the Great Depression to the Present."Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2003.

Starr, Kevin.Coast of Dreams: California on the Edge, 1990-2003.New York: Vintage Books.

The project to digitize the records from the Los Angeles Webster Commissionhas been made possible by a major grant to the USC Libraries from the National Endowment for the Humanities: Exploring the human endeavor.

Top Image:"Understanding the Riots," a Los Angeles Times publication containing photographs, testimonies, and descriptions of events before, during, and after the Rodney King riots, cover, 1992. | Los Angeles Webster Commission records, 1931-1992, USC Libraries

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Policing a Global City: Multiculturalism, Immigration and the 1992 Uprising - KCET

WASHINGTON Top Pentagon officials ordered National Guard helicopters to use what they called persistent presence to disperse protests in the capital this week, according to military officials. The loosely worded order prompted a series of low-altitude maneuvers that human rights organizations quickly criticized as a show of force usually reserved for combat zones.

Ryan D. McCarthy, the Army secretary and one of the officials who authorized part of the planning for the helicopters mission Monday night, said on Friday that the Army had opened an investigation into the episode.

Two Army National Guard helicopters flew low over the protesters, with the downward blast from their rotor blades sending protesters scurrying for cover and ripping signs from the sides of buildings. The pilots of one of the helicopters have been grounded pending the outcome of the inquiry.

The high-profile episode, after days of protests in Washington some of which turned violent was a turning point in the militarys response to unrest in the city. After days of operating on the periphery of the crowds, National Guard forces suddenly became a focus of the controversy over the militarys role in urban law enforcement.

Military officials said that the National Guards aggressive approach to crowd control was prompted by a pointed threat from the Pentagon: If the Guard was unable to handle the situation, then active-duty military units, such as a rapid-reaction unit of the 82nd Airborne Division, would be sent into the city.

Senior Pentagon officials, including Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, were trying to persuade President Trump that active-duty troops should not be sent into the streets to impose order, and that law enforcement and National Guard personnel could contain the level of unrest.

On Monday night, both Mr. McCarthy and the Armys chief of staff, Gen. James C. McConville, pressed Maj. Gen. William J. Walker, the commanding general of the District of Columbia National Guard, to increase his forces presence in the city, according to a senior Defense Department official.

An Army official declined to comment, saying that the investigation was continuing.

The episode has stirred outrage among lawmakers. What we saw on Monday night was our military using its equipment to threaten and put Americans at risk on American soil, said Senator Tammy Duckworth, an Illinois Democrat and former Army Black Hawk pilot.

Documents obtained by The New York Times show that planning for the National Guard mission included oversight by Mr. McCarthy and General McConville. The operation had been reviewed by a judge advocate team military lawyers before aviation units were instructed to apply persistent presence. These types of maneuvers are well known to Mr. McCarthy, who served in the Armys elite Ranger Regiment during the opening operations of the war in Afghanistan.

The episode, which occurred about three hours after a 7 p.m. curfew in the capital went into effect on Monday, began when a Black Hawk helicopter, assigned to the District of Columbia National Guard, began a low and slow pass over a group of roughly 200 peaceful protesters in the Chinatown neighborhood.

The downward force of the helicopters rotor blades snapped a small tree, with debris almost hitting several people. The second helicopter tried a similar maneuver. Roaring overhead, the Lakota, adorned with a red-and-white cross denoting its medical affiliation, hovered over the crowd, staying at rooftop level, blowing debris and sending protesters scattering.

The red cross with white background is a universally recognized symbol of medical aid and is protected under the Geneva Conventions, Human Rights Watch said in a report Friday. Its misuse is prohibited under the conventions and it has no place in a show of force or to forcibly disperse protesters.

The wind speeds created by a low-hovering helicopter can lift objects and cause serious damage, potentially leading to injury or death, the report said. These risks are amplified in congested urban environments, where the consequences would be exceptionally dangerous if something were to go wrong.

On Wednesday, Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper said that he was told that the helicopters had been asked by law enforcement to look at a checkpoint to see if there were protesters around.

We need to let the Army conduct its inquiry and get back and see what the facts actually are, Mr. Esper told reporters. The District of Columbia National Guard is the only unit of the Guard that reports directly to the president because of the capitals unusual political status it has no governor, who usually commands the units.

A District of Columbia National Guard spokeswoman declined to comment, citing the open investigation.

During the operation Monday night, the helicopters followed the crowd through several well-lit intersections and repeatedly hovered over protesters for close to an hour.

People at the scene expressed their disbelief and fear. One protester, asked by a friend if he wanted to stay out later, responded curtly that he was just trying not to die.

There is no formal training for the type of maneuvers conducted Monday night, said one military official with direct knowledge of the episode, so any guidance about persistent presence is left to the interpretation of the pilots.

The use of a medical evacuation helicopter, the official added, appeared to result from the fact that command levels of the District of Columbia National Guard did not realize that the majority of the Lakota helicopters available for law enforcement missions are deployed to the Texas border for Customs and Border Protection missions there to halt illegal immigration.

While many Army aviation units have the Red Cross symbol in a detachable form, by way of magnets, the District of Columbia National Guard has the cross painted on the airframes of its helicopters since they are so often involved in a patient transfer program that moves people among routine, urgent and critical care facilities in the Washington area, the official added.

The unit responsible for Mondays episode performed a lifesaving transfer mission the next day, transporting a deteriorating patient from Ft. Belvoirs community hospital in Virginia to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., the official said. On Friday, The Washington Post reported that all District of Columbia National Guard helicopter operations had been suspended pending the results of the investigation, although it was unclear if that affects medical patient transfers.

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Pentagon Ordered National Guard Helicopters Aggressive Response in D.C. - The New York Times

Republican state leaders condemned a spate of racist social media posts from members of their own party on Friday. Eddie Gaspar/The Texas Tribune

On Friday morning, Texas top Republican officials, including Gov. Greg Abbott, had condemned four GOP chairs for proliferating conspiracy theories on Facebook. The posts, from chairs of some of the largest counties in Texas, suggested George Floyds death was staged to erode black support for President Donald Trump. Meanwhile, a fifth chairperson posted a racist image of a Martin Luther King Jr. quote next to a banana.

On Friday afternoon, The Texas Tribune identified similar posts from seven more GOP chairs across the state. Some of these posts suggested people who have been protesting Floyds death across the state and the country were being paid by Jewish billionaire George Soros an oft-used anti-Semitic trope.

GOP county chairs are elected leaders of the Republican Party who help oversee local elections and head up county-level meetings and events. News circulating about the first five chairs posts sparked concern both internal and external about the Texas GOP.

This is a disgusting level of ignorance thats hard to hear from anyone, much less an elected official, State Rep. Donna Howard, D-Austin, said in an email to the Tribune. Im glad to see Republican state leaders finally start to push back against this nonsense and look forward to a day when we can actually debate fact-based policy instead of constantly refuting conspiracies.

Charles Blain, the president of Urban Reform, a conservative public policy nonprofit based in Houston, used Twitter to call for reflection within the party: Ill say more on this later but the fact that in one day 4 Texas GOP chairs have come under condemnation for racist remarks including MY county should make it CLEAR AS DAY that we have a problem in this party and yall need to talk to more black people.

The original five chairs Cynthia Brehm in Bexar County, Sue Piner from Comal County, Jim Kaelin of Nueces County and Lee Lester from Harrison County, as well as Harris County GOP chairperson-elect Keith Nielsen faced backlash from Democrats and Republicans alike over their social media posts.

But many of the GOP officials who criticized Brehms social media posts as inexcusable did not return calls from the Tribune seeking comment about the more recently identified posts from the seven other chairs across the state. Nor did they comment about Facebook posts by Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller that included calls to start the race war.

Doug Sanford, the chairperson of Freestone County, Russell Hayter, the chairperson of Hays County and Jaime Durham, the chairperson of Foard County, each shared this week a fake advertisement reading Get Paid to be a Professional Anarchist, with a note claiming Soros would pay people $200 for taking action.

Sanford and Hayter did not respond to requests for comment, and Durham only confirmed to the Tribune that she shared the image, noting that it was posted on her personal account and declining to elaborate further.

Lynne Teinert, the GOP chairperson for Shackelford County, shared on Saturday a picture of Soros with the text, The pandemic isnt working. Start the racial wars.

The suggestion that Soros is puppeteering political happenings behind the scenes has routinely been put forth by conservatives. Soros, who has spent billions of dollars supporting liberal and pro-democracy causes around the world, has long been a target of conspiracy theorists on the ideological right. Some of these theories use his Jewish heritage to invoke anti-Semitic tropes.

It was mostly a joke, like the murder hornets, Teinert explained. You know, the pandemic didn't work so the murder hornets were next. It's just one thing after another, and it was just a joke.

However, Teinert said she believes the riots are the result of a coordinated, nationwide effort, echoing Republicans all the way up to the White House who have blamed the demonstrations on organizations or outside agitators.

I do think there are organizations behind [the unrest], she said. It's very organized. I don't understand where they came from, smashing windows, and burning buildings, and stealing purses and, you know, I just don't understand why that's necessary. There's so much of it, and all at once at the same time. I just think it's odd.

Cindy Weatherby, the GOP chairperson of Reagan County, shared a post with a series of 21 puzzling questions about Floyds death, including Can someone really not breathe when someone kneels on his neck and is the victim really able to speak for considerable periods of time if he cant breathe? and Why did the kneeling officer appear completely cool and calm, as if he was posing for the camera?

Though she said she doesnt believe Floyds murder was staged, Weatherby told the Tribune that if humans dont question, theres something wrong with us. Weatherby added she thinks some protesters are being paid, and she said the comments reflect her personal beliefs, not her role as the GOP chairperson.

Shawn Tully, GOP chairperson of Red River County, shared an image Tuesday of the 1992 Los Angeles riots when, after four white police officers were acquitted on almost all charges for severely beating a black man, people turned to violent protest. The post Tully shared features a crashed truck and a person lying on the ground, bleeding from the head. It reads, This is why you dont brake for protesters. Tully did not respond to a request for comment.

LaDonna Olivier, GOP chairperson from Reeves County, shared a post on Monday saying people are trying to turn George [Floyd] into a saint but he was a brutal criminal.

Im too old, set in my ways, Olivier said about Republican leaders in Texas asking other GOP chairs to step down over their own posts about Floyd. She added that shes not afraid of being reprimanded since her term ends in August.

If they want me to step down I'd be glad to, Olivier said. My husband would be so happy.

Olivier said she is aware that some of the theories she shares may be untrue.

I do sort of want to persuade people but I tried to get the truth out, too. If they have a different opinion or they want to post their facts or, you know, straighten me out, I'll be glad to apologize, Teinert said. I have no problem with that. Like I said, I make a lot of mistakes. I say a lot of stupid things. I'm not a good public speaker. But it's a job nobody else wanted.

Asked on Friday about the conspiracy theories and racist speculation in the posts by the initial five chairs, Abbott said the problem is narrow.

"Listen, the only point is not a broad point, but it's a narrow point, and the narrow point is this, and that is the death of George Floyd is a travesty and it's a result of a criminal act, he told reporters at a press conference. It should not be the subject of any of these conspiracy theories, and it's irresponsible for anyone to promote some conspiracy theories of what is otherwise a brutal act of police violence.

As of Friday evening, none of the four GOP chairs called on to resign by party members had offered to step aside, and at least two said they intended to stay. Abbott did not respond to requests for comment about whether he would also call for the resignations of the other GOP chairs.

Blain, the conservative nonprofit president, told the Tribune that the state Republican Party needs to change its bylaws to allow the partys executive committee to remove county chairs in situations like this when chairs refuse to resign.

Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who also chastised Brehm and Nielsen, responded to questions from the Tribune with a press release saying the party needs to call out racism.

Going forward, we know that some Democrats and their allies in the media will continue to throw out charges of racism anytime they disagree with us on any issue, the statement reads. Without taking that bait, we should continue to unequivocally condemn racism where we see it in our party and in their party.

Patrick has previously faced criticism for referring to undocumented immigrants as an illegal invasion and boycotting a prayer led by a Muslim cleric on the floor of the Senate.

James Dickey, chair of the Republican Party of Texas, issued a statement Friday afternoon calling for all five chairs originally identified to resign, saying their social media posts do not reflect the partys history or values.

Gerald Horne, a history and African American studies professor at the University of Houston, said he wasnt surprised by the posts. The Republican Party, he said, has to cater to far-right hardline fringe voters to win elections in a polarized political arena. He added that even if the county chairs resigned, they'd likely be replaced by people who shared similar beliefs.

Abhi Rahman, a spokesperson for the Texas Democratic Party, said the posts reflect the Republican Party Abbott and Patrick have built.

This is what theyve done for years, Rahman said. Now, people are starting to see what kind of conspiracy theories they engage in, they see how repulsive and disgusting they are.

Last August, the Texas Democratic Party criticized Abbott for sending fundraising mailings calling to DEFEND the Texas border against illegal immigration. The mailings were dated a day before a deadly shooting in El Paso which targeted Hispanics. Abbott later said mistakes were made in his choice of rhetoric.

Peniel Joseph, a public affairs professor at the University of Texas at Austin, said Abbott and Patrick dont set the agenda as much as they reflect the beliefs and feelings of constituents who voted them into office.

Citizens are looking for their champions and for people articulating what they feel is their world view, Joseph said. That's what the lieutenant governor and governor represent.

But Blain cautioned against jumping to conclusions that the entire Republican Party is racially insensitive, he said, stopping short of viewing the dozen posts as a party-wide problem.

I dont believe that Keith Nielsen is racist, Blain said. This was just a really bad post that did have very, very strong racial undertones.

Sami Sparber and Miguel Gutierrez contributed to this report.

Disclosure: University of Houston, University of Texas at Austin and The Foundation to Promote Open Society, founded by George Soros have been financial supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here.

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Conspiracy theories and racist memes: How a dozen Texas GOP county chairs caused turmoil within the party - KSAT San Antonio

Historically, the vast majority of migrants in small boats have been adult males from Iran and Iraq, but recently there has been a rise in the number of Africans and children, as more traditional smuggling routes - in lorries and cars - have slowed down because of coronavirus.

Last month, a record 741 people made the dangerous crossing, while 559 did the same in April. Some 1,562people have arrived since lockdown on March 23. The previous record for the most people crossing in one day was 145 on May 8.

Critics including Nigel Farage have accused the government of not addressing the problem quickly, and warned that the numbers will only grow.

If the UK does not act there will be an invasion of people this summer, and there are likely to be many casualties, he told the Telegraph.

In order to deter people, there is only one thing the government can do. There needs to be a clear message that anyone who comes by this route will not be allowed to stay.

This week, Australias former Prime Minister Tony Abbott wrote in the Telegraph: As long as to arrive is to remain, people smugglers will have a business model and those countries that lack the will to say no are at risk of peaceful invasion.

This is the prospect that faces Britain, if swift action is not taken to stop people coming illegally by boat.

He faced a similar situation when Prime Minister in 2013, and took a hardline stance against illegal immigration, turning boats around and leaving them with just enough fuel to make it back to Indonesia.

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More migrants have crossed the Channel illegally this year than the whole of 2019, as a record 166 arrive on nine boats - Telegraph.co.uk

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New Delhi: Kuppahalli Sitaramayya Sudarshan, the fifth Sarsanghchalak of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), will always be remembered in the Sangh fraternity for laying ideological foundations of at least three key issues whose journey ultimately culminated decades later in the form of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), Atmanirbhar Bharat (self-reliant India) and renewed focus on the Northeast by the Narendra Modi government ever since it came to power in 2014.

On his 119th anniversary, which falls on 6 June, it is interesting to take a look at his legacy as it seems to be getting manifested in many crucial decisions of the current government at the Centre. (Although Sudarshan was born on 18 June, 1931, according to the Gregorian calendar, the RSS adheres to the Bharatiya calendar, according to which his birth anniversary falls on 6 June this year.)

It was during Sudrashans stint first as the sarkaryavah (general Secretary) from 1990 onwards and then as the sarsanghchalak from 2000-2012 that the RSS-backed Swadeshi Jagran Manch (SJM) often hit the headlines for challenging successive governments over key economic decisions such as allowing Foreign Direct Investment in non-priority areas and succumbing to pressures of World Trade Organisation, especially on the issue of reducing subsidies for agriculture, and facing pressure from a more stringent patent regime.

Along with senior RSS pracharak Dattopant Thengadi, a co-founder of the SJM, it was Sudarshan who clearly put forward the swadeshi model of economics that favoured a self-reliant India, which is being reflected today in Modi governments ambitious plan of making India atmanirbhar.

Sudarshan was a strong opponent of the western model of economic development and favoured a self-reliant India.

He had said, The root cause of poverty and unemployment in India is this specific Western model of development as it is centralised, high energy-consuming, urban-centric, capital-intensive, promoting unemployment and destroying nature. We need to replace this model with an economy, which is decentralised and based on rural India.

Instead of walking into the trap of globalisation and foreign debt, it would be better if we promote rural development with the resources we have at our disposal. It should consume least energy and it should be less capital-intensive while creating more jobs and conserving the environment, he had stressed.

According to Devendra Swaroop, an RSS ideologue who worked very closely with Sudarshan since 1950s, When Rajju Bhayya (the fourth sarsanghchalak) handed over the charge of the sarsanghchalak to Sudarshanji because of the formers frail health, the latter himself studied swadeshi science and technology very closely in every part of the country. He used to explain them with very minute details.

Also read: Hindu Samrajya Diwas why and how RSS is reviving a forgotten chapter of history

During his tenure in the Northeast as an RSS pracharak, which began in 1977, Sudarshan played an important role in identifying several key issues such as illegal migration from Bangladesh and mass conversion of tribals into Christianity.

The current government has passed the Citizenship Amendment Act and taken up the development of Northeastern states as top priority since 2014, spelling it out openly.

The BJP, an ideological mentee of the RSS, has also become a strong force to reckon with in the Northeast as it has scored significant electoral victories there.

The bugle for the need of many of these initiatives, which are being initiated by the Modi government, was first sounded by Sudarshan who spent considerable time in the Northeast as a pracharak.

Former national president of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and ex-Union minister Murli Manohar Joshi puts it aptly: I was in-charge of the Northeast when Sudarshanji was working there. I was deeply impressed by his in-depth study and thought process At that time, we prepared several programmes, which were executed in future. The agitation on illegal migrants was one such issue. Sudarshanji had prepared an intellectual and emotional ground for this agitation much before it was launched.

Within the RSS also, Sudarshan was one of the first ones to flag the issue of illegal migration of Bangladeshi Muslims to Northeast, specially Assam. He considered illegal migration to be an attack from across the border. He travelled extensively to states like Tripura, Nagaland, Arunachal Pradesh, among others, to study the issue of illegal immigration and its impact. He prepared a detailed plan to counter this influx and resolve the issue.

Ashok Singhal, another senior RSS pracharak, who passed away in 2015 and was a key figure in the Ram Temple movement, had worked and interacted closely with Sudarshan.

He remembered Sudarshan fondly in one of his articles.

As a pracharak (whole-timer) in the Northeast, first he learned Bengali and Assamese. He could deliver lectures fluently in both these languages. He studied in-depth the activities of the Church and exposed them Later, he sent a number of pracharaks from all over the country to work there in view of the gravity of the problem.

Singhal further added: He studied the tribes in the Northeast in detail He suggested ways and means to protect tribes from the influence of Christian Missionaries. Several schools and hostels for students were set up. The Bangladeshi Muslims were migrating illegally to Assam, West Bengal and Bihar in a planned way; simultaneously, the Hindus from Bangladesh, unable to protect themselves, were also migrating.

At that time, it was Sudarshanji who told the countrymen and especially the Assamese people, that while the Muslims coming from Bangladesh were illegal immigrants, the Hindus coming from there were refugees. So, the latter should be sheltered by the Hindus in the rest of India. Meanwhile, the illegal Muslim immigrants who have settled in West Bengal, Bihar and Assam should be deported back to Bangladesh. The six Northeastern states gradually understood his argument, Singhal said.

Kolkata-based senior journalist Asim Kumar Mitra, who attended the third year training camp of the RSS at Nagpur in 1959 along with Sudarshan, had the opportunity to watch him from close quarters when the latter was given the responsibility of Purvanchal region in late 1970s.

Under the Sanghs organisational structure, Purvanchal was quite a big region covering Northeast as well as Bihar, West Bengal and Odisha. Prior to him, RSS stalwarts like Rajju Bhayya and Bhaurao Deoras had been appointed at this position.

It was a region that faced many complex socio-economic issues and it was a formidable challenge to spread the RSS work there.

Mitra underlined the fact that Sudarshan played a key role in ensuring that the movement started by Asom Gana Parishad against illegal immigrants from Bangladesh did not turn against Bengali Hindus.

The Muslims in Assam tried to make it an anti-Bengali agitation but Sudarshan could not only see through this conspiracy, he also realised the long-term adverse impact of an anti-Bengali movement. This would have affected Hindus severely while skirting the real problem, he added.

Also read: Gandhi admired Hindutva icon Savarkar as lover of truth, addressed him as bhai

Born in Raipur, (now in Chhattisgarh), Sudarshan had his early studies in Raipur, Damoh and Mandla.

In 1953, Sudarshan finished his four-year degree course in telecom engineering. One of the long-lasting influences on him was of senior RSS pracharak Eknath Ranade, who was a regular visitor to his hostel during his intermediate days.

He inspired Sudarshan to take up RSS work full-time. After taking his final examination of the engineering course, he finished his four-month practical training and instead of picking up a coveted and well-paid job, chose to become an RSS pracharak. He was formally appointed as an RSS pracharak on 23 June, 1954 in Raigarh district as a tehsil pracharak looking after three tehsils Champa, Janjgir and Bilaspur.

He worked there for a little less than two years and was then appointed as the Nagar (town/city) Pracharak in-charge of Sagar in 1956. He was elevated to the post of Zila (district) Pracharak. From 1957-64, he looked after Vindhya Vibhag as a Vibhag Pracharak. He was given the responsibility of Prant Pracharak of Madhya Prant in 1964 and was based in Indore.

He played an instrumental role in the launch of daily newspaper Swadesh in which he wrote extensively. While he was the Prant Pracharak of Madhya Prant, he was also given the responsibility of Akhil Bharatiya Sharirik Pramukh (All-India in-charge of the physical activities in the RSS).

When former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi declared emergency in June 1975, Sudarshan was arrested and he was in Indore jail for 19 months.

After the emergency was lifted and he came out of jail, Sudarshan was made the in-charge of Purvanchal (East India). Thus, apart from Hindi, Marathi, Kannada, Tamil and English, he also developed fluency in Assamese, Bengali and Odia.

While holding the charge of Purvanchal, he was given the additional responsibility of Akhil Bharatiya Bauddhik Pramukh (All India in-charge of the intellectual activities of the RSS).

In 1990, he was given the responsibility of Sahsarkaryawah and in 2000, he donned the mantle of the RSS Sarsanghchalak.

It was Sudarshan himself who handed over the mantle to the current RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat, nine years later. He passed away in Raipur on 15 September 2012.

(All the quotes used in the article have been taken from the book Hamare Sudarshan ji edited by Baldev Bhai Sharma.)

The writer is CEO of Indraprastha Vishwa Samvad Kendra, an RSS affiliate, and author of two books on the RSS.

Also read: Pro-Hindutva groups see larger conspiracy in Palghar killings, want CBI probe

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CAA, Atmanirbhar Bharat, focus on Northeast were first propagated by this former RSS chief - ThePrint