This is an interesting analysis -
Learn it or Repeat it
By Dae-Han Song
An unresolved past returns to haunt us...
On April 29, 1992 when four white officers, caught on videotape brutally beating a black motorist, Rodney King for well over two minutes, were acquitted of police brutality, Los Angles went on flames.
On Aug 11, 1965 almost thirty years earlier, another black motorist, Marquette Frye was flagged down by police for allegedly drunk driving. As police attempted to make the arrest a crowd gathered around, and began taunting the police, eventually one of the police officer began striking crowd members with his baton. The next day, Watts was on fire. The rioting which lasted for five days resulted in more than thirty four people dying, about a thousand wounded, and an estimated damage of two hundred million dollars in property.
There exist many similarities between the Watts Riots in 1965 and the LA Riots in 1992, hinting that both are the manifestations of a persistent problem in our urban areas. One such similar manifestation was the role that the white storeowners especially Jewish played in the situation. Much like Korean Americans, Jewish store owners also played the middleman between corporate America and the inner city dweller, and similarly in this fashion they became the first target of the pent up Black frustration building up from poverty, from being exploited, and from police brutality.
Korean Americans and Jewish store have historically played the middleman in a corporate economy that is unwilling to set up its franchises in the inner cities, hence it is left to the minority grocer to fill in this niche and to sell the alcohol for Budweiser Inc., or to sell the shoes for Nike Corporation in areas that these corporations are unwilling to enter.
These two events also point to the more persistent fact of inner city poverty and police brutality, facts which still remain true today ten years since the LA Uprisings. In fact unemployment rates are about twice the national level in South Central. These two persistent problems if not addressed will lead to another riots in the near future. If we do not learn from the past and the present we are doomed to repeat it.