Civil Racism: The 1992 Los Angeles Rebellion and the Crisis of Racial Burnout by Lynn Mie Itagaki (review)

Lynn Mie Itagaki's Civil Racism: The 1992 Los Angeles Rebellion and the Crisis of Racial Burnout paints a compelling narrative on the issue of racial civility in the post–civil rights era. Racial civility as a construct has emerged in recent decades, stemming from the belief that the United States has become a postracial society, no longer needing to be regulated by the state. The onus is instead shifted toward individuals, as they must increasingly adhere to cultural values that serve to reinforce racial inequality. Yet, Itagaki argues that dominant groups employ civility problematically as they read people from marginalized backgrounds as inherently uncivil and, consequently, as noncitizens. As a result, oppressed communities start to use incivility in order to resist those in power. The 1992 Los Angeles Rebellion serves as a powerful case study of these moments of incivility, an event that affected a number of different racial communities.

This text explores civil racism from a nuanced perspective, examining how racial groups, including Asian Americans and Latina/os, felt the effects of the 1992 crisis. Itagaki contends that while African Americans are on the forefront of these incidents of incivility, other underrepresented racial groups have experienced the consequences of racial burnout, or "the protracted inability and/or unwillingness of the U.S. nation-state to fundamentally alter conditions of racial justice" (6). One of the most intriguing features of the book is the method Itagaki uses. To understand the impact that the 1992 crisis had on the Los Angeles community, Itagaki studies forms of media that set this event as their background and that detail the stories of individuals from various racial groups.

Itagaki separates the book into two distinct parts: the first seeks to understand how civil racism permeates institutions including families, schools, and neighborhoods and the second showcases media that adopt multiracial viewpoints to challenge civil racism. The works used to support these arguments range from two of Dai Sil Kim-Gibson's documentaries (1993, 2004) to Héctor Tobar's novel, The Tattooed Soldier (1998), to Karen Tei Yamashita's text, Tropic of Orange (1997). Ultimately, the narratives found in these creations stress the need for coalitional movements across racial groups, a major takeaway for Itagaki.

Itagaki's Civil Racism is unique in its employment of racial and feminist theories to make sense of the 1992 Los Angeles crisis. As it pertains to race studies, Itagaki hopes to avoid what typically transpires in the civility debates—the erasure of racial groups other than black or white communities. In fact, Itagaki writes that invisibility felt by Latina/os and Asian Americans (among others) results from dominant groups wanting to maintain their hegemonic position. By portraying Asian Americans as the model minority, for example, conflicts occur between marginalized individuals and divert attention away from those in power. Therefore, Itagaki is particularly interested in "how groups are racialized in relation to one another," a question that she answers throughout the text (7).

In order to frame her argument, Itagaki calls upon a long history of inter-categorical and intersectional frameworks. Referencing preeminent scholars including Patricia Hill Collins, Ange-Marie Hancock, and Kimberlé Crenshaw, Itagaki proposes a pyramidal model to explain her understanding of race. In this model, race does not exist in a binary nature (with black and white functioning as the two categories); rather, it contains multiple relationships between groups. Itagaki describes the pyramid as being three-dimensional with individuals having the option to isolate specific dimensions (e.g., black-Korean relations).

Some of Civil Racism's most compelling moments stem from Itagaki's belief that artists create works that transcend racial boundaries. Chapter 1, titled "Model Family Values and Sentimentalizing the Crisis," serves as a notable example. In this section, Itagaki studies Dai Sil Kim-Gibson's documentaries, Sa-I-Gu: From Korean Women's Perspectives...