Riot vs. Uprising

riot (n): a noisy, violent public disorder caused by a group or crowd of persons, as by a crowd protesting against another group, a governmental policy, etc., in the streets.

uprising (n): an insurrection or revolt; an act of rising up.

For years after 1992, what happened following the Rodney King police brutality verdicts was simply referred to as "the riots" or "the LA riots". People would ask, "Where were you during the riots?" or "See that burned out building over there? That happened during the riots." You did not need to qualify which riot or when, you just knew what someone was talking about.

With history and perspective behind me, I now no longer refer to them as the LA Riots, but rather the LA Uprising. While this may seem like simple semantics, there is a real intentional choice (at least for me) behind this change. To me, riots imply bedlam and chaos, with no real meaning behind their genesis. An uprising, however, gives some power back to the historical events that led up to a group of people taking to the streets and expressing an anger, fear, and/or disillusionment.

Do not get me wrong, there was certainly bedlam and chaos in the streets of Los Angeles in 1992, but does calling them "a riot" give those of us who live outside of that world some level of emotional, intellectual, or empathetic distance? Is there a difference between looting a liquor store and throwing boxes of tea off of a ship? And if so, why?

For this week's blog post, I want students to watch the video linked here and then reflect on whether they consider what happened in Los Angeles in 1992 to, in fact, be a riot or an uprising. Why do you choose one over the other? Was it hard to make a choice and, if so, why? Do semantics matter?