“...along came Reginald Denny. No this isn’t ‘the great white hype’ or ‘along came the white man to save the day’ – the basic glory of Hollywood manufacturing.
A working-class white truck driver – remember that – is driving along Florence and Normandie with no clue as to the verdict or the subsequent violent shit-storm he was entering.
If you can stomach it – go back and watch the video taken from the helicopter above. And as you watch, do know that LAPD Officers were on the scene and ordered not to get involved. Hey Hollywood, also note that it was American Blacks who came to Reginald’s aid.
As for the brutes – sometimes referred to as men – who attacked Reginald, it’s difficult to own empathy for. What they did to a defenseless man, whose only provocation was the color of his skin (please feel free to insert a list of hypocrisies of Black men attacking someone simply for the color of their skin), was literally beaten within an inch of his life. Countless operations later, Mr. Denny will forever be physically changed by that day.
Let me say this, if Reginald were my brother, I would have wanted bloody revenge. To watch a loved one savagely beaten – who wouldn’t want blood?
Reginald Denny didn’t.
Reginald Denny – a broken man from his former self – went on record stating that he didn’t want those men to go to prison. That he understood the implications of their social predicament and felt prison was not the answer.
A working-class white man – at that moment in time – produced more heart-intelligence than the LAPD, the (Black) people who rioted, or the callous brutes that attacked Mr. Denny. And myself.
The media or even the history books have silenced Mr. Denny – in my opinion – because while this may be a stretch for some, in that moment in time Reginald Denny personified the teachings and even life of Dr. King. How many times did we see Dr. King walk peacefully down a (white) city block to have stones thrown like profanities at him? And how many times have we heard Dr. King summon non-violence as a call to what is most divine in our human consciousness… forgiveness. “