Remembering Rodney King: Myth, Racial Reconciliation, and Civil Rights History

In: Journalism & mass communication quarterly: JMCQ, Band 91, Heft 4, S. 740-755

Abstract

On June 17, 2012, journalists reported the death of Rodney King, the black motorist whose 1991 beating by several white Los Angeles police officers was captured on video by citizen journalist George Holliday. This essay argues that journalistic mythologizing of Rodney King as a victim of circumstance and journalism as simultaneous hero echoed existing narratives of civil rights history that largely strip black people of agency. In so doing, journalists proffered a larger cultural narrative of racial reconciliation and progress, while recoding King's life in accordance with other pre-existing, racialized scripts.