I was watching a documentary the other night on the
1992 L.A. Riots. It was a fairly interesting documentary to watch as the events happened in my life time, but I was too young to understand what was going on. The video footage looked like a fictional story as Los Angeles looked like an urban warzone, it seemed all too unreal. Yet the sad thing is, it actually happen.
I remember during my high school grad trip, we went down to Los Angeles, and one of the teachers said we were driving through this intersection where a lot of the most infamous violence happened. My teacher had actually lived in L.A. during the riots.
In either case, the documentary frames L.A. 1992 as a city that was in decline and had many poor regions. The most poor of those regions had mostly African Americans, Latinos, and Koreans living in it. There had been a lot of racial tension already brewing before it. The whole thing exploded when an African American driver, Rodney King, was pulled over by the LAPD and beaten savagely. This beating was captured on tape showing four policemen using excessive force on Rodney King. The African American community felt betrayed when the courts ruled that the policemen did nothing wrong, and were acquitted. This court case became a symbol of injustice.
Another element that helped spark the riots was the tension between African Americans and Koreans which I never knew about. I had always assumed the riots were a Black VS White conflict, but it wasn't.
A lot of Koreans that immigrated to America decided to pool their money together so they could open up stores to support themselves. So, they were buying up real estate and opening various stores like grocery stores, dry cleaners, etc. This part of L.A. was quaintly named Koreatown. Apparently a lot of the other poor minority groups had misgivings for this "richer" property owning group of people.
Part of the grief was caused by cultural misunderstandings which I found the most interesting. The documentary interviewed a few African Americans asking why there was tension between them and Koreans. One man explained that they felt the Koreans didn't respect them. They said a lot of times when they entered Korean stores, a worker would follow them around the store as though they were afraid you were going to steal something. He also said that when he went to the counter to pay for something, he would talk to the owner, but the owner wouldn't acknowledge you, the owner wouldn't say anything or even look at you. In American culture, this was a definite sign of disrespect.
The interesting part came when Korean store owners explained their side of the story. They said that this was a cultural misunderstanding. Firstly, a lot of store owners did not understand English, therefore they could not reply when a customer made small talk. Secondly, in Korean culture, when someone talks to you, it is a sign of respect to not look up and make eye contact. You should act as if they were not there. In Korean culture when you make eye contact, it is a sign that you are challenging someone's authority.
Ironically both parties were trying to show respect to each other, one side would make small talk to be polite, and the other would not make eye contact to be polite, but this was misinterpretted by both sides.
The craziest part of the documentary was when the riots actually happened. A lot of Korean stores got targetted by mobs. Police didn't have the manpower or will to go in and disperse these mobs pillaging and burning these stores. A lot of times, Korean store owners would call the police, and the police said, if you have insurance then we're not coming, it's not worth the risk, you'll get your money back anyways. A lot of store owners didn't accept this response, so they took matters into their own hands. I saw footage of Korean store owners taking up arms and fighting back mobs with pistols. This probably didn't help the volatile mix of racial tension.
I asked my Korean co-worker about some of this just to see if the documentary was accurate, and she said a lot of it was true. She did mention that the not making eye contact thing was especially true, and they ingrain that teaching in you starting in school. If a teacher is disciplining a student, and the student looks up, the teacher will yell, asking why are you looking at me?!
In either case, all these cultural differences and misunderstandings can clearly cause a disaster. I am suprised that Canada is able to have all these different cultures living together and peacefully co-exist. Kudos to Canada.
