| | | Blacks and Koreans have a thing, at least in California. The Rodney King riots...
Korean American-Black conflict during L.A. riots was overemphasized by media, experts say (nbcnews.com)
...What started as an act of anger toward LAPD officers quickly shifted gears toward the Korean immigrant community, experts said.
Tensions had been brewing beneath the surface for years. As Korean immigrants began to occupy many of the businesses in South Central left by Jewish owners in the aftermath of the Watts riots of 1965 — six days of unrest when the Jewish community was caught in the crosshairs of the Black community's anger toward urban woes and police brutality — Black residents felt that the Korean merchants were taking from them, experts say.
“It brings up the historically old idea of how Black lives have been treated,” said Kyeyoung Park, a professor of anthropology and Asian American studies at UCLA. “Korean merchants came into South Central without understanding that.”
The year before, liquor store co-owner Soon Ja Du had shot and killed Latasha Harlins, a 15-year-old girl. Du claimed she shot her in self-defense: Harlins had been caught putting a bottle of orange juice in her backpack, and, following a verbal altercation, punched Du in the face, she said. Du was eventually found guilty of voluntary manslaughter, but only received a sentence of five years’ probation and 400 hours of community service — angering many in the Black community and escalating tensions between the two groups.
The media took it and ran with it, igniting a smoldering fire, said Carol Park, who was 10 when she started working at her mother’s gas station in Compton. The videotape of Du shooting Harlins in the back of the head was played repeatedly, and headlines invoking their races were in bold. So when the riots broke out, the sense of interethnic conflict was spotlighted and scapegoated as more of the reason for the unrest. |
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