Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992

Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992

by

Anna Deavere Smith

Themes and Colors
Police Brutality, Corruption, and Systemic Racism  Theme Icon
Healing, Progress, and Collective Consciousness  Theme Icon
Justice, Perspective, and Ambiguity  Theme Icon
Individuals vs. Institutions Theme Icon
Action vs. Symbolic Gesture  Theme Icon
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.
Healing, Progress, and Collective Consciousness  Theme Icon

One of the central concerns of Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992 is how Los Angeles should move forward in the aftermath of the riots, which occurred in response to the police officers who brutally beat Rodney King being acquitted of all charges. How do oppressed communities begin to heal, Smith asks, and how do racial tensions resolve, when it appears that the city’s (and the nation’s) institutions have no genuine interest in bringing about that change? Many interview subjects in Smith’s play struggle to reconcile their idealistic hopes for a racially-just future with the reality of ignorant or indifferent governments, corrupt legal systems, and people too consumed by hopelessness and devastation to uplift themselves and their communities.

The most promising solution to this problem comes in Smith’s final interview, where Twilight Bey, an organizer of the 1992 Watts gang truce, eloquently describes the gap that exists between the self and the outside world. Twilight identifies the self as “darkness” and a knowledge of the outside world as “light.” “In order for me to be a, to be a true human being,” he argues, “I can’t forever dwell in darkness, / I can’t forever dwell in the idea, / of just identifying with people like me and understanding me and mine.” Essentially, he suggests that people must look beyond their insular communities and get to know people who are different from them. While the play suggests that corrupt institutions like the LAPD bear the brunt of perpetuating racial tensions in LA, it also suggests that it’s this inability to look beyond oneself and the suffering of one’s own community that makes it difficult for people of different social or ethnic groups to coexist. Smith suggests that a more purposeful effort to engage with one’s surroundings, practice empathy and understanding, and see outside of one’s own experiences can be the foundation for broader and lasting social and structural changes.

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Healing, Progress, and Collective Consciousness Quotes in Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992

Below you will find the important quotes in Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992 related to the theme of Healing, Progress, and Collective Consciousness .
These Curious People Quotes

Why do I have to be on a side?

Related Characters: Stanley K. Sheinbaum (speaker)
Page Number: 15
Explanation and Analysis:
They Quotes

Who’s They?

Related Characters: Jason Sanford (speaker)
Page Number: 21
Explanation and Analysis:
Indelible Substance Quotes

“No.”
I said, “We have to stay here
and watch
because this is wrong.”

Related Characters: Josie Morales (speaker), Rodney King
Page Number: 67
Explanation and Analysis:
War Zone Quotes

As far as I’m concerned,
nobody is better than me,
I’m not better than anybody else.
People are people.
Black, white, green, or purple, I don’t care,
but what’s happening in South Central now,
I think they’re taking advantage.

Related Characters: Judith Tur (speaker), Rodney King, Reginald Denny
Related Symbols: Violence
Page Number: 97
Explanation and Analysis:
Bubble Gum Machine Man Quotes

This Reginald Denny thing is a joke.
It’s joke.
That’s just a delusion to the real
problem.

Related Characters: Allen Cooper “Big Al” (speaker), Rodney King, Reginald Denny
Related Symbols: Violence
Page Number: 102
Explanation and Analysis:
To Look Like Girls from Little Quotes

If she didn’t caught it in her arm,
me and her would be dead.
See?
So it’s like
open your eyes,
watch what is goin’ on.

Related Characters: Elvira Evers (speaker)
Page Number: 123
Explanation and Analysis:
That’s Another Story Quotes

Who the hell does he think he is?
Oh, but that was another story.
they lootin’ over here,
but soon they loot this store he went to,
oh, he was all pissed.

Related Characters: Katie Miller (speaker)
Related Symbols: Violence
Page Number: 133
Explanation and Analysis:
The Beverly Hills Hotel Quotes

No one can hurt us at the Beverly Hills Hotel
‘cause it was like a fortress.

Related Characters: Elaine Young (speaker)
Related Symbols: Violence
Page Number: 155
Explanation and Analysis:
I Was Scared Quotes

All I can think of…one bottle,
one shear from one bottle in my father’s car,
he will die!
He will die.

Related Characters: Anonymous Female Student (speaker), Anna Deavere Smith
Related Symbols: Violence
Page Number: 157
Explanation and Analysis:
The Unheard Quotes

riot
is the voice of the unheard.

Related Characters: Maxine Waters (speaker), Rodney King
Related Symbols: Violence
Page Number: 162
Explanation and Analysis:
Trophies Quotes

We spoke out on April 29.
Hoo (real pleasure),
it was flavorful,
it was juicy.
It was, uh,
it was good for the soul.

Related Characters: Paul Parker (speaker), Anna Deavere Smith, Maxine Waters, Judith Tur, Elaine Young
Related Symbols: Violence
Page Number: 174
Explanation and Analysis:
Long Day’s Journey into Night Quotes

This is the city we are living in.
It’s our house.
We all live in the same house…
Right, start a fire in the basement
and, you know,
nobody’s gonna be left on the top floor.
It's one house.
And shutting the door in your room,
it doesn’t matter.

Related Characters: Peter Sellars (speaker), Anna Deavere Smith
Related Symbols: Violence
Page Number: 200
Explanation and Analysis:
I Remember Going… Quotes

After a couple of days
I stopped wearing the collar
and I realize that if there’s any protection I needed
it was just whatever love I had in my heart to share with people that
proved to be enough,
the love that God has taught me to share.
That is what came out in the end for me.

Related Characters: Reverend Tom Choi (speaker), Twilight Bey
Page Number: 203
Explanation and Analysis:
A Jungian Collective Unconscious Quotes

you believed
that it actually could change,
and of course
here we are a year later.
(seven-second pause)
didn’t change.
All
the
language
was there,
and all the big gestures
were there[.]

Related Characters: Paula Weinstein (speaker)
Page Number: 210-211
Explanation and Analysis:
Screw Through Your Chest Quotes

Is it the truth of Koon and Powell being guilty
or is it the truth of the society
that has to find them
guilty in order to protect itself?

Related Characters: Harland W. Braun (speaker), Rodney King, Officer Theodore J. Briseno, Sergeant Stacey C. Koon
Page Number: 243
Explanation and Analysis:
Swallowing the Bitterness Quotes

In a way I was happy for them
and I felt glad for them.
At leasteh they got something back, you know.
Just let’s forget Korean victims or other victims
who are destroyed by them.
They have fought
for their rights
(One hit simultaneous with the word “rights”)
over to centuries
(One hit simultaneous with “centuries”)
and I have a lot of sympathy and understanding for them.

Related Characters: Mrs. Young Soon Han (speaker)
Related Symbols: Violence
Page Number: 248
Explanation and Analysis:
Limbo/Twilight #2 Quotes

I am a dark individual,
and with me stuck in limbo,
I see darkness as myself.
I see the light as knowledge and the wisdom of the world and
understanding others,
in order for me to be a, to be a true human being,
I can’t forever dwell in darkness,
I can’t forever dwell in the idea,
of just identifying with people like me and understanding me and mine.

Related Characters: Twilight Bey (speaker), Homi Bhabha , Betye Saar
Related Symbols: Twilight
Page Number: 255
Explanation and Analysis: