Twilight by Anna Deavere Smith

In her introduction, Anna Deavere Smith writes, “This book is first and foremost a document of what an actress heard in Los Angeles” (xxiv). In her interviews, she seeks out many different responses to the riots. Smith believes “words are not an end in themselves,” rather, words are “a means to evoking the character of the person who spoke them” (xxiii-xxiv). Something I noticed is that in each of the interviews, the person’s voice shines through their words, whether it is the diction used, the stutters, the snaps, the repetition, or the hand slaps. Their personality is evident in what they are saying. By acknowledging the voice of these people, Smith gives their emotions, their experiences worth and meaning. Like Lou Cannon, Smith recognizes that there are many sides to every story. There is no one voice that Smith feels sums up the experience; all the responses are equally important because they are genuine and real. Just as no one factor caused the riots, no one person’s reaction is “right” or “best”. One example of this is in Chief Gates’s interview. In the news coverage of Gates in The New York Times articles we read, Gates gives only terse, one-word answers. Smith, however, allows him the chance to speak eloquently and passionately. Though Cannon points out that Gates mishandled the riots and was by no means infallible, Gates resents becoming the scapegoat. He defies the media’s representation of him: “Who told you this? What gave you this idea? You don’t know me. You don’t have any idea what I’ve done” (185-6). Gates argues that he was once the “most popular Republican in Los Angeles and Los Angeles County” and then suddenly he was the national symbol of police oppression (186). At the time of the Rodney King beating he was in Washington, DC receiving recognition for his forty-three years of civic service. The president declared him “a national hero” one day, and the next he is vilified across the country (187). In his response, his passion, biases, and motivations are laid bare, and it is much easier for me to understand how and why he made the decisions he did at the time.