During World War II, Chicano youth were targeted by white servicemen, who despised their "cool, measured indifference to the war, as well as an increasingly defiant posture toward whites in general." Historian Robin Kelley states that this "annoyed white servicemen to no end." During the Zoot Suit Riots (1943), white rage erupted in Los Angeles, which "became the site of racist attacks on Black and Chicano youth, during which white soldiers engaged in what amounted to a ritualized stripping of the zoot." Zoot suits were a symbol of collective resistance among Chicano and Black youth against city segregation and fighting in the war. Many Chicano and Black zoot-suiters engaged in draft evasion because they felt it was hypocritical for them to be expected to "fight for democracy" abroad yet face racism and oppression daily in the U.S.