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Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Police Brutality, Corruption, and Systemic Racism
Healing, Progress, and Collective Consciousness
Justice, Perspective, and Ambiguity
Individuals vs. Institutions
Action vs. Symbolic Gesture
Summary
Analysis
Smith interviews Harland W. Braun, counsel for the defendant, Theodore Briseno. Harland recalls not wanting to take the case initially when he heard it was a racial attack, and his son had been involved in one in the past. Braun recounts this incident now. His son, now a student at Princeton, was going to Harvard boys’ school at the time. He was riding in Westwood in a Mercedes; the driver was a friend whose mother is a partner at a law firm. It was a weekday night. An LAPD officer pulls them over.
Braun’s story about his son’s altercation with the police is oddly similar to Bill Bradley’s earlier anecdote about his college friend. The parallels between these two accounts are evidence of the widespread problem of racial profiling among the LAPD.
Themes
Braun’s son immediately accused the officer of pulling them over because Bobby (his friend who was driving) was Black. Since he’s aware of Westwood’s reputation, Braun suspects his son’s accusation was likely true. But the officer attacked his son, ordering him to be quiet or he’d “put a screw through [his] chest.” While the officer’s actions infuriated Braun, he was also angry with his son for putting himself in danger by antagonizing the officer. After this incident, Braun didn’t want to involve himself in the Rodney King case.
Braun’s reticence to get involved with the Rodney King trial suggests he fears challenging the system. The police officer’s threat to “put a screw through [Braun’s son’s] chest” suggests the dangers of challenging the LAPD and U.S. law enforcement more broadly. At the same time, acting as defense counsel for the system places Braun at the odds of public opinion, which was largely convinced of the officers’ guilt in the King attack.
Themes
Braun comments on how disturbing it is to realize “how wrong you can be” in what you’ve learned “about an entire / historic event.” For example, after the verdict was announced, even Bill Clinton announced that justice was served. “How does he know?” asks Braun, and “What does he mean by justice?” Still, Braun admits he’d probably think the same thing if he were in Clinton’s shoes.
Braun’s criticism of Bill Clinton challenges the idea that justice can be absolute and final. People want to believe that a guilty verdict for the police officers involved in King’s attack has some meaning—that it signifies progress or an embrace of equality over racism. This is what Braun means when he asks, “What does he mean by justice?” He thinks people are projecting a lot of ideals and powers onto the notion of justice.
Themes
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Braun poses a difficult question to Smith: would she rather see two innocent men convicted or fifty innocent people die? He revels in the “ambiguity” of this impossible choice. It’s this sort of ambiguity that kept Braun from turning to his Bible much in constructing his arguments for the court, though he did reference the Bible in his closing statement. He used Pontius Pilate’s trial of Christ, as depicted in Matthew, to show how Pilate reasonably claimed that the “rioting” Christ caused around the city made him a “public disorder.” Elsewhere, in John, Pilate jokes, asking “What is truth?” Braun believes the same question is relevant to the King trials: is there truth in the fact that Koon and Powell are guilty, “or is it the truth of the society / that has to find them / guilty in order to protect itself?”
The ambiguity Braun finds in justice is similar to the ambiguity Bhabha and Saar found in twilight. His question of whether there is truth in Koon and Powell’s guilty verdicts, or in “the society / that has to find them /guilty in order to protect itself” grapples with the meaning and function of justice in American society. What justice is served by convicting two men for a broader systemic problem? Braun implies that Koon and Powell’s conviction is merely a symbol the justice system pulls out to calm the masses and distract the public from the real “truth,” which is that very little will actually be done to ensure that the city’s racial tensions and police corruption is actually dealt with.
Themes
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