Why Can’t We Just Get Along? For Rodney King

Why Can’t We Just Get Along? For Rodney King

Rodney King was delivered a beating
By a racist gang of uniformed men
Who were supposed to serve and protect.

They kicked, they clubbed with nightsticks,
They beat, they hit, they sustained an attack
On a man who had committed the heinous crime
Of Driving Whilst Black.

LAs ‘finest’, in their arrogant hubris
Never registered a witness who in that
Hate filled darkness filmed their violent business
For the world to see. And armed with that evidence
The perpetrators and haters faced trial by judge and jury.

And then what happened? They got off.
They were found not guilty, despite the evidence
Before their eyes, 12 men and women good and true,
And ‘incidentally’ all white decided that a gang of cops
Beating a black man unconscious was somehow alright.

And then what happened? In a repetition of Watts
LA was set alight and the flames grew and the riot
Spread from the day into the night with Anaheim
And Disneyland and Beverly Hills in sight, the burning
And the anger spiralled up and on and on.

And Rodney King, the man who had every
Right to fan those flames and carry
The heat of hate and vengeance,
Stood in front of TV cameras and with dignity
Asked one simple question to try and make it all stop,
To halt the wrong, he asked, ‘Why can’t we all just get along’.

©Robert Hill 2012