Yellow Journalist: Dispatches from Asian America

10: Race Relations: Why Can’t We All Get Along?

10 RaceRelations Why Can’t We All Get Along? JustWhoIstheVictimHere? Asian Week, September 21, 1990 From the glitz of Park Avenue, on the east side of Manhattan, to the lowrise earthiness of Church Avenue in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn, two different worlds are joined by a thirty-five-minute subway ride. That’s how long it took me on a Saturday morning in late August. In a prosaic way, I was on a pilgrimage—in search of the best-known battleground in a frustrating and protracted dispute between two racial groups, African Americans and Koreans: The Family Red Apple store on Church Avenue near St. Paul’s Place in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn. It and another Korean-owned grocery store across the street have been targets of a boycott by an African American group known as the December 12th Movement. What started out as an altercation between a Haitian woman customer at the Red Apple and a Korean grocery clerk in January has escalated to a great morality play that embodies a host of insecurities and inequities of two groups that are themselves victims. While not blaming the media for the origins of the dispute, some observers believe the boycott has been nurtured by media hysteria in the media capital of the United States. Why has this dispute gotten sensational national news attention? Because New York City has seen some startlingly raw racial conflicts in recent times. Remember Bensonhurst, Central Park, Howard Beach, Bernhard Goetz? Whether we like it or not, the Flatbush case has become a symbol of American racial and economic conflict at a time when America’s racial164 ethnic and socioeconomic profiles are evolving. Flatbush has forced Asian Americans, African Americans, and, indeed, Americans of other racialethnic backgrounds to either choose sides or become confused about this nightmarish dilemma. In turn, each side has victimized the other in Flatbush. Racial animosities have been exchanged. Anger, hurt, and bitterness are there in abundance. Numerous efforts involving veterans of the civil rights movement —African American, Asian American, white, and others—have attempted to mediate the dispute. No one yet has succeeded. The Flatbush incident isn’t the first time that black customers and Korean grocery store owners have clashed. Throughout the 1980s, in places like Washington, D.C., Harlem in New York City, Philadelphia, and Los Angeles, black customers have alleged racist treatment on the part of Korean grocers, who in turn have alleged petty criminal activity by some black customers. The Flatbush case, though, has meaning far beyond the grittiness of Church Avenue and St. Paul’s Place, the nearest corner of the Family Red Apple store owned by Bong Jae Jang, the principal target of the boycott . In a larger context, the dispute involves the aspirations of an immigrant group (Koreans) and the abject disappointment of a long-suffering American minority group (African Americans). One doesn’t follow the other, but through no grand design, they collide. Yet another culture clash. By and large, Korean immigrants come to America seeking a better life, a goal shared by newcomers from all over the world. Because of language and cultural barriers, they find opportunities limited—and end up establishing grocery stores in tough inner-city neighborhoods. That is the territory of many black Americans, whose economic dreams are snuffed out by racism and lack of opportunity. It is now fashionable among neo-conservatives to blame poor black Americans for their own circumstances. Black poverty and hopelessness aren’t society’s fault, this trendy and insidious argument goes. Other downtrodden people have “made it” against adversity, why can’t black Americans ? the neo-conservative line continues. Many black Americans have. But others have not. Ever since civil rights laws opened opportunities for many black Americans (and other disenfranchised people), many have done relatively well economically. Just Who Is the Victim Here? 165 But it takes longer than a generation to overcome the inequalities of the slave system. Thus far, the so-called permanent underclass of American cities— a code term for poor black Americans—has had little hope of achieving the relative economic success of other Americans. So, when they see Korean immigrants—or any other newcomer group, for that matter— come into their neighborhoods and start small businesses, one can understand their frustration and suspicion. The two sides literally do not speak the same language. Their customs and body languages are different and can lead...