WRONG again my friend. those L.A riots. were a response to ALL OF IT. you must not live in L.A. or perhaps you're to young to remember.The race of the business owners doesn't change the fact that the anger of the rioters was misdirected at them. The L.A. riots were a response to the police getting away with systematic brutality and racism.
While the store owners you described may have been racist, I can't say they deserved to have their business destroyed. You say they followed customers around in response to some people stealing. That will feel disrespectful as a customer that knows they aren't stealing anything but they have a right to protect their business just as any customer has a right to not spend money with that business.
That girl was Latasha Harlins, a 15-year-old high school student. Her shooter was Soon Ja Du, a Korean American grocer in South Central Los Angeles. The killing happened on March 16, 1991, just over two weeks after four police officers brutally beat Rodney King.
That girl was Latasha Harlins, a 15-year-old high school student. Her shooter was Soon Ja Du, a Korean American grocer in South Central Los Angeles. The killing happened on March 16, 1991, just over two weeks after four police officers brutally beat Rodney King. In November of that year, Du would be convicted of involuntary manslaughter, but would walk out of an L.A. courtroom with only five years of probation, 400 hours of community service and a $500 fine.
On April 29, 1992, when Rodney King’s assailants were acquitted, a culmination of grief and loss fed the flames that burned in Los Angeles for six days. Many evoked the name of Latasha Harlins when they set fires to buildings, including the Du’s Empire Liquor Market Deli.
Approximately 9,800 beauty supply businesses exist nationwide; but only a little more than 300 are black-owned
According to the article, Korean-American entrepreneurs control all major components of the beauty supply business. There are four central distributors serving a large portion of the beauty supply stores in the country, all Korean-owned. These distributors only work with other Koreans in order to dominate the market.
“The Koreans strategically make it harder for us to get into the business. They have the supplies the customers want,†Robinson said. “They sell it to us at higher prices or they deliver the products late to the black-owned stores. Sometimes they don’t allow orders from us at all.
In the 16 years that he has built his wholesale toy business in downtown Los Angeles, Charles Woo has helped several other Chinese and a number of Vietnamese immigrants start their own small businesses. As his company has grown, he has hired whites and Mexican immigrants.
But one group hasn't benefitted from Mr. Woo's success American-born blacks.
Early on, Mr. Woo hired some African-Americans. But now his 22-person work force at Megatoys is made up of Chinese and Mexican immigrants and a handful of whites.
Mr. Woo says he isn't prejudiced. But when he has an opening in the warehouse, he says, he is likely to fill it with another Mexican immigrant, probably recruited by his workers. Blacks have a 'negative image,' he says, and they don't mix well with workers of other backgrounds.
The reluctance of Mr. Woo and other immigrant entrepreneurs to hire American-born blacks represents one of the workplace's great cleavages. As immigrant-owned businesses grow - and shed the image of mom-and-pop stores employing a few relatives - they are recruiting Mexican-Americans, West Indians and other immigrants. But while they are minorities themselves, many immigrant bosses are refusing to employ the nation's largest minority, sometimes invoking troubling stereotypes to explain themselves......
lol. there was no black community of stores and business owners. if there were blacks would not burn it down. why do you think koreans were putting up "BLACK OWNED" signs on their businesses doing the Riots? Because they knew Black people would not intentionally target black businesses. So please stop repeating that nonsense. its not true. period.And when the devastated riot area is rebuilt, it will be non-black contractors, architects, planners, construction companies, insurers and developers who will reap economic windfall from a black community destroyed.
like i said ONE business here One business there. for the most part black people were not intentionally torching BLack owned businesses. that is a flat out lie.It is an highly-false assumption that every store or institution in our communities is a price-gouging, immigrant-owned liquor store or bodega.
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Alfred and Bernice Ligon were the proprietors and owners of the Aquarian Bookshop and Aquarian Spiritual Center in Los Angeles, CA, the longest continuously owned black bookstore in the U.S.
The Aquarian Bookshop was unfortunately a casualty of the 1992 Los Angeles riots, and was burned to the ground with 7,000 books inside. A group of independent bookstores collectively organized to raise money to rebuild the bookshop, and also held a benefit featuring Maya Angelou and Alice Walker. Together, they collected $70,000 to reopen the store, which was short lived as the store closed in 1994 after Bernice was diagnosed with liver cancer.
The Aquarian Age | Los Angeles Archivists Collective