The Politics of Black-Korean Conflict
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Trotter Review Volume 7 Issue 2 A Special Issue on the Political and Social Article 5 Relations Between Communities of Color 9-23-1993 "No Justice, No Peace!": The olitP ics of Black- Korean Conflict Claire Jean Kim Yale University Follow this and additional works at: http://scholarworks.umb.edu/trotter_review Part of the African American Studies Commons, Asian American Studies Commons, and the Peace and Conflict Studies Commons Recommended Citation Kim, Claire Jean (1993) ""No Justice, No Peace!": The oP litics of Black-Korean Conflict," Trotter Review: Vol. 7: Iss. 2, Article 5. Available at: http://scholarworks.umb.edu/trotter_review/vol7/iss2/5 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the William Monroe Trotter Institute at ScholarWorks at UMass Boston. It has been accepted for inclusion in Trotter Review by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks at UMass Boston. For more information, please contact [email protected]. conflicts between blacks and Korean Americans. we need “No Justice, No to understand what structural and political factors Peace!”: The Politics encourage their recurrence. The Red Apple Boycott of 1990 of Black-Korean and Racial Politics in New York City The Red Apple Boycott. which occurred in 1990 in Conflict Flatbush. a section of Brooklyn. New York. was one of the most widely publicized and controversial instances of black-Korean conflict in recent 3 By history. It culminated a decade of black-Korean conflict happening across New Claire Jean Kim York City. Precipitated by a Korean-American shopkeeper’s alleged assault upon a Haitian woman In the opening scene of the recently released film. customer, the Red Apple Boycott began as a spontaneous Menace 11 Society, the protagonists, two young African- outburst among black area residents and developed into a American men, make a routine beer run to a convenience sustained protest campaign that lasted for thirteen months, store owned by a Korean-American couple. The embroiling the black and Korean-American communities. merchants’ manifest suspiciousness toward them triggers the police, the courts, clergy, and political officials at an exchange of hostilities that concludes when all one of the levels, including the newly elected mayor. David Dinkins. men kills and robs the couple. For audiences of all colors. The activists leading the boycott and picketing this depiction of black-Korean conflict appears starkly campaign included both veteran Black Nationalists who familiar. Ranging from verbal altercations to killings, to had been active in city politics since the l960s and retail boycotts and picketing campaigns, conflicts between Haitian community activists serving the Korean-American rapidly merchants and black customers, expanding Haitian immigrant population centered including in African Caribbeans. have become commonplace Brooklyn. As the protest leaders, these activists in many major American cities over the past decade.’ Well consistently articulated and pursued a Pan-African before the highly publicized destruction of Korean-owned political agenda for which the immediate merchant stores during the Los Angeles uprising of 1992. the customer altercation was only a departure point. Through mainstream media had chosen to spotlight black-Korean speeches, rallies, marches, placards, and fliers, they not conflict as an emergent symbol of racial strife and urban only demanded redress for the alleged assault victim, but decay in America. also decried racist practices throughout American society Familiarity, however, has not bred understanding. (e.g.. redlining. which constrains black entrepreneurship) Mainstream media coverage, which has been emphatically and exhorted blacks to mobilize in pursuit of political biased. has ensured that black-Korean conflict is at once empowerment and self-determination. Thus, what was widely recognized and scarcely 2 understood. Rather than ostensibly a showdown between blacks and Korean performing a public service by explaining the sources of Americans was, more fundamentally, protest black-Korean a in which conflict, the media has consistently the former pursued both immediate and long-term performed the distinct ideological function of political goals related to racial justice and empowerment. depoliticizing it and protecting the status from quo any The Red Apple Boycott’s linkage of a targeted retail challenge that it might pose. Thus, the media has tended boycott and a broader political campaign resonated with to either attribute black-Korean conflict to innate both historical tradition and contemporary forms of “cultural” differences or to collapse all such conflict into activism within the black community. Since the l800s. the movie image described above, even though the most advocates of economic nationalism have accused far-reaching instances phenomenon—black-led of this nonblack merchants of mistreating and exploiting their retail boycotts and picketing campaigns against Korean- poor black customers and have urged blacks to start up owned stores—have been fundamentally political protests and patronize black-owned businesses. From the “Don’t against the racial hierarchy endemic in American society. Buy Where You Can’t Work” campaigns in Chicago and Unlike cultural clashes or cnminal activity, the black New York during the I 920s and I 930s to the community led retail boycotts and picketing campaigns against control movements of the l960s, tenets of economic Korean-American merchants that have occurred in major nationalism have shaped perceptions of race and U.S. cities, including New York and Los Angeles. over entrepreneurship within the black community.4 the, past decade have been organized. sustained collective The Red Apple Boycott was also part of an ongoing actions. That is to say. they must be understood in black empowerment movement that emerged in New York reference to their political dimensions: their politically City during the 5 late l980s. Relying upon loose but structured context, the political grievances and aims regular cooperation among several high-profile, black expressed participants, by their and their political activist-leaders, this movement is best characterized as a consequences. As a society, we tend to perceive all strife series of ad hoc community mobilizations around specific negatively, as a problem to be “solved.” Yet, most forms incidents of racially motivated white violence against of protest rely upon disruption to catalyze social change. blacks—for instance, the killings of Michael Griffith in Therefore, rather than simply seeking to ameliorate these Howard Beach, Queens. and Yusef Hawkins in 12 Bensonhurst. Brooklyn. Although somewhat reminiscent “color-blind” or “race-neutral.” universalistic policies of the Black Power movement of the l960s. this emergent rather than through affirmative action programs. Seeking movement is firmly anchored in such present-day political to arrest progress toward racial equality and to preserve realities as the increasingly evident constraints upon black the political, economic, and racial status quo. proponents electoral power and the new opportunities presented by a of this perspective assiduously criminalize and growing black immigration population from such areas as delegitimate racial protest. occluding its political content Haiti. The movement’s distinctive combination of the and reducing it to a law-and-order problem. Thus, they tactics of civil disobedience and the rhetoric of Black charge those who organize such race-based protests as the Nationalism points to its concurrent strategies of pursuing Red Apple Boycott with promoting racial polarization and racial empowerment both through and outside of the unnecessarily “racializing” politics. political system. One of its slogans. “No Justice. No One of the most striking features of this emergent Peace!” captures this perspective. Led by several perspective is its command of bipartisan support. prominent organizers. the Red Apple Boycott was a Although it took root under Reaganism. this perspective building block for this black empowerment movement. has reached its apogee with the Clinton administration, whose nonresponse to the Los Angeles uprising. The Role of the Mainstream Media mishandling of the Guinier nomination and the Haitian Mainstream media coverage of the Red Apple Boycott refugee situation, along with its vote-currying vows to end criminalized the conflict, thereby obscuring its political welfare “as we know it” and succor “the middle class” dimensions. While a few journalists attributed the boycott make the possibility of vitiating institutionalized racism to such innocuous causes as “cultural” differences or the over the next several years look improbable, indeed. After language barrier, the vast majority depicted it as all, we cannot alleviate a problem whose very existence scapegoating—the irrational venting of frustrations upon we deny. an innocent group. Portraying Korean-American merchants as a “model minority” (hard-working, family- Notes oriented. etc.) that was being scapegoated by elements of The list of cities includes but is not limited to: New York City. Los Angeles. behaviorally Philadelphia. Chicago, Baltimore. Washington. D.C.. and Atlanta. the “underclass” (morally deviant, ‘For a helpful discussion of the media’s approach to racial issues, see Simon pathological. etc.), the media effectively denied the Cottle. “‘Race.’ Racialization. and the Media: A Review and Update of rationality. purpose. and political agency of the Red Apple