Rage Against The Machine Book Review

Having been aware of police brutality, growing up many of us saw what was going on the television or hear politically charged music. From memory, when I was a teen listening to Rage Against The Machine, this type of music gives me a voice. At the time, when the Rodney King beating occurred, the city of Los Angeles became a literal war zone. We are introduced to Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992 by Anna Deavere Smith. When I first looked at the structure Smith uses in this book I was skeptical, because I have never read books with this style. Which was very unique, this book is a mixture of poetry and autobiographical accounts of L.A. Riots, even though I do agree with a lot of the content, however I felt lost. The reason was when reading an interview

As where Mrs. Park had a mixture of emotions visually you can see the sadness in her face and anger in her tone of voice as Mrs. Park states, “Why, why he has to be shot . . . he was very high educated. He also donated a lot of money to the Compton area and the Compton police they knows him and the city council they knows him” (Smith). This infusion was well thought out by Smith. When we examine such events, some people had to be professional just like Mr. Gates, while others like Mrs. Park were concerned citizen. In article “Los Angeles Riots: Rage Take Over From Aspiration” by Martin Walker, he states, “There is nothing [understated] about the rage in Los Angeles that had America 's second city subject to curfew, and 2,000 National Guardsmen standing by to enforce it” (Walker). In other words, Mr. Walker is saying that Los Angeles had rage, shortly after the four police officer’s acquittals and extreme measure need to be acted upon. This rage turns the city of Los Angeles upside down in

This is a prime example of the chaos, of what occurs throughout Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992. This can have an affect on the reader causing confusion. Some people might even confuse the difference between context and content. The main difference can be tone of the speaker; since it’s a book we have to visualize it on our own as where in the play, the tone is given to us through Smith’s dramatization. For example in the article called, Rodney King, Shifting Modes of Vision, and Anna Deavere Smith 's Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992 by Robin Bernstein, he states:
As Smith emphasized through the Park monologues, context is crucial to the reception of truth (the "truth" of Mr. Park 's story was not discernable without the contextualizing monologues of his son and wife); Smith therefore implied a critique . . . model, which eliminates that context . . . she implied a criticism of the defense . . . context: history and sound (Bernstein 126).
In other words, the context is essential to succeed in the storytelling process. I am a firm believer that you need, both content and context to tell the full history of the events, and in some interviews either one is lost. Given that confusion is a theme we can also question what is the message smith is trying share, yes she gives us the message, but where are we