Film Analysis: Back To The Hood

Race has begun to make a major difference in our world today and the laws on supposed equality have come into question after many situations in which mass media coverage has dramatized the white versus black fight in America. African Americans often are treated unjustly by the police and the repercussions for the officers have a long history of being very minimum if any. Thus, the claims of African Americans of improper police brutality are warranted in most cases. The films that we viewed in class pertaining to the Rodney King riots have opened up a question of as to whom were these films intended for and which of them gives us insight into the “truth” behind the riots. In particular, Back to the Hood was the film that displayed the truth

I believe that the intended audience of this documentary was the African Americans of LA trying to showcase to their Caucasian counterparts that the struggles that African Americans are faced with daily led ultimately reaching their tipping point and reacting to years of being undervalued by whites. Back to the Hood was targeting the police administration to fix their corruption amongst their ranks. In Back to the Hood the viewer learns out of 600 cases of police brutality only two policemen were found guilty, this led to the African American minority being unhappy because the minorities are usually the ones beaten. Chaney & Robertson (2014) reports that “from January 1- June 30, 2012, one Black person was killed by law enforcement or someone acting in such a capacity every 36 hours.” (Chaney & Robertson, 2014, p.109) Also they found “69% of those who lost their lives were between the ages of 13 and 31 years old.” (Chaney & Robertson 2014, p.109)This goes hand in hand with the argument of Back to the

What I mean in that statement is, Back to the Hood showed the events that led up to the animosity (Korean killing African American teen), displayed the riots in a perspective that the other three have not and lastly, the aftermath of the riots in examining ten years later. The breakdown of the Korean businesswoman killing Lastasha Harlins in 1991 failed to be mentioned in the prior documentaries we had watched in class. The inclusion of this event helped me to grasp the anger of the African Americans even more because in the Harlins case the Korean businesswoman was found not guilty which solidified this film as the truth to me. Then Back to the Hood focuses on Rodney King beating, which sent the entire nation into an uproar and shocked everyone when the verdict was not guilty. What followed was something that no one in the country could have imagined took place. As stated in Franklin (1992), “The LA riot was like a bomb, a wrathful wakeup call” (Franklin, 1992, p.1) this showcased to the nation the corruption in the American judicial system and the unjust treatment of minorities. Once the “bomb” was set off African Americans in LA went berserk looting businesses, killing innocent people and brutalizing anyone who was not of fellow African American skin tone. The actions of the rioters over this twenty four hour period were showcased all over the