SAN FRANCISCO –Dallas resident Thomas Park recently appeared on a local African American radio show to offer an apology. The 40-year-old Korean émigré had been involved in a December altercation with a customer at his gas station in a largely black Dallas neighborhood.
The fallout from that incident has since engulfed the two communities.
The dispute began when Jeffrey Muhammad, a leader in the local Nation of Islam chapter, requested that Park waive a $5 minimum for a debit card transaction. Park refused, at which point the two reportedly exchanged racial epithets.
Muhammad later launched a protest campaign called “Don’t Stop Don’t Shop” targeting Park. The protest has now entered its second month, drawing support from a local city council member, as well as members of the NAACP and the Nation of Islam. Organizers say they are determined to drive Park out of the neighborhood.
“I pay my taxes. I work hard to feed my family,” Park later told the Dallas Morning News. “I’m not a racist. I’m just trying to follow the American Dream.”
Doing so meant setting up shop in a traditionally African American neighborhood long besieged by joblessness and economic blight. It’s a pattern repeated by Korean American business owners across the country, from New York’s Flushing Meadows to Oakland and Los Angeles, where in 1992 riots erupted that have left an enduring scar on the Korean American psyche.
“At first there was concern among Koreans in the area that the incident could escalate into a repeat of L.A.,” said Ji-hwe Park, a reporter with the Korean Journal in Dallas who has been covering the near-daily protests that began in February demanding Park close his business.
“What began as a personal matter has now pulled in leaders from both communities as they try and resolve the dispute,” she added. “So far, no one has come up with a concrete solution.”
“Nothing to talk about,” tweeted Muhammad after being contacted by the head of the Los Angeles-based Federation of Korean Associations, a nationwide business advocacy group. “Store owner must go.” He also referenced Park’s radio appearance, dismissing his on-air comments as “lies.”
Park’s gas station was the site of a fatal shooting incident in 2010 involving 26-year-old Marcus Phillips, who was shot by a Korean employee after attempting to run off with the store’s cash register. Park also employs two African Americans.
“Killed a man 4 stealing,” read one of the signs carried by protestors in front of Park’s store.
Juanita Wallace, president of the Dallas-chapter of the NAACP, also took part in the protests. Speaking at a press conference in front of Park’s station, she vowed that protestors would not stop until his business was shut down. “We are here for as long as it takes,” she was quoted as saying in the Korean Journal.
Her comments drew the ire of higher ups in the organization, reported the paper, including Anthony Bond, who sits on the board of the NAACP’s Dallas offices. Bond had met with Korean community leaders on February 2 and urged members not to take part in the protests, the report noted.
Dallas is home to the country’s fourth-largest Korean American community, with about 80,000 having settled in the area. Like Park, who came to the United States in 1990 and spent six years in the Army National Guard, a number are self-employed small business owners whose customer base revolves around the local black community.
It’s a relationship that some local African Americans see as exploitative.
“We need to bring OUR dollars back to OUR communities and businesses,” read one Facebook comment in support of the protests. “If you don’t, you are a traitor.”
Such sentiment, says Gordon Jackson, managing editor of the Dallas Weekly, which covers the local African American community, comes out of a “growing resentment” over the continued lack of jobs and business opportunities for black residents.
“Why can’t this be a black-owned business,” is a question he says is behind the anger.
It’s also symptomatic of the “low level of trust” held by community members on both sides, explains Jackson, a resident of South Dallas. “This [incident] is the tip of the iceberg… The perception is that Koreans make money off black business, but don’t recycle dollars back into the community.”
Most Korean business owners in fact do not live in the South Dallas area, Jackson noted, contributing to the sense that they are simply taking advantage.
Geun-baek Ko is president of the Greater Dallas Korean American Chamber of Commerce. He pointed out that of the more than 5,000 Korean-owned businesses in Dallas, “more than half” cater primarily to the African American community.
More needs to be done, he agreed, to improve relations.
“There has been talk of setting up scholarships or grants for African American youth,” said Ko, adding that he is encouraging Korean business owners to register with the city’s Black Chamber of Commerce and to join the NAACP.
“This incident,” he said, “should serve as a turning point in relations between the two communities.”
Black-Korean Tensions Flare in Dallas
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Anonymous
Posted Feb 12 2012
Koreans specially the ones who came here are rude, it is in their culture specially to other races. They like the japanese belong to a warrior culture and are agressive when provoked. The koreans who are born here and grew up here are more american in manners and culture.
It is a misunderstanding of cultures that are is going on here.
Anonymous
Posted Feb 12 2012
Koreans specially the ones who came here are rude, it is in their culture specially to other races. They like the japanese belong to a warrior culture and are agressive when provoked. The koreans who are born here and grew up here are more american in manners and culture.
It is a misunderstanding of cultures that are is going on here.
Anonymous
Posted Feb 12 2012
Citizens must be taught not only the ability to master, access and use factual knowledge, but also the ability to challenge assumptions, to interrogate and reconstruct knowledge and to learn to know , to care, and to act, the three goals of gloabal citizenship education. This type of training will educate "citizens' heads, but also their hearts and create "transformative" citizens who are prepared to take an active role in their society and work for social and economic justice.
Grants and scholarship can come after there is training in unity and diversity, implementation of the strategies, and some positive results of the training.
NAACP Memberships are welcomed along with the diversity training.
Anonymous
Posted Feb 15 2012
why do the koreans need to service the black communities. what is wrong with blacks owning businesses in the black community like all other ethnic groups...what the fuck is wrong with us. WAKE UP BLACK PEOPLE WAKE P
Anonymous
Posted Feb 22 2012
Anonymous
I tend to agree with the exploitative aspect of this situation. No doubt, Black communities across the country are under served by by many commercial retail businesses. But it is obvious that there is money to be made or the Koreans wouldn't open up businesses in the Black communities. Joining the NAACP and providing scholarships smacks of buying off the pressure to hire local people who spend monies with these Korean retailers. Have lived in a community with this problem. Wealth is being sucked out of Black communities for sure. The real answer is for Black businesses to open stores, shops, etc.
Anonymous
Posted Feb 25 2012
First, it is very common practice for businesses to have minimum to have to purchase with a debit card. It seems like things got out of hand out of an issue nobody has a particular fault in. This man is clearly milking this situation for all he can. Park apologized for any insensitive racial comments that he may have made. Couldn't he be mature about the situation and try to ameliorate the stituation instead of stirring racial tensions and trying to run down a person's business. Secondly, killed a man for stealing, seriously? The man was a thief, he probably was armed and could have killed innocent employees and customers in the store, have you heard of self defense? This whole situation is so hypocritical by asking "why can't this be a BLACK-owned business" isn't he being racist as well? Why should a person's race determine who runs a store? If you don't live in the community you can't run business there... that is ludicrous!!!!! This whole thing has seriously gotten way out of hand, grow up Muhammad, be a leader and show how to make peace not war.
Anonymous
Posted Feb 25 2012
First, it is very common practice for businesses to have minimum to have to purchase with a debit card. It seems like things got out of hand out of an issue nobody has a particular fault in. This man is clearly milking this situation for all he can. Park apologized for any insensitive racial comments that he may have made. Couldn't he be mature about the situation and try to ameliorate the stituation instead of stirring racial tensions and trying to run down a person's business. Secondly, killed a man for stealing, seriously? The man was a thief, he probably was armed and could have killed innocent employees and customers in the store, have you heard of self defense? This whole situation is so hypocritical by asking "why can't this be a BLACK-owned business" isn't he being racist as well? Why should a person's race determine who runs a store? If you don't live in the community you can't run business there... that is ludicrous!!!!! This whole thing has seriously gotten way out of hand, grow up Muhammad, be a leader and show how to make peace not war.
Anonymous
Posted Feb 29 2012
Welcome to come to Phoenix!
Anonymous
Posted Mar 2 2012
Perhaps if Black Americans would not be so nonchalant about using the "N" word in our songs and social self-expressions, other groups might learn that it is a title that is not to be taken lightly. hip-hop verses, movies, tv, and general social discourse are still full with our own use of the word with and among ourselves. It is as if it's alright to disrespect ourselves, but not alright if some one addresses us as we address each other.
If this problem was such an issue, I would think the customer could have simply corresponded with his card issuing company or bank to have the charge returned.
Koreans have been in America in increasing numbers for years. They come they work, they build and they succeed. Are we as Blackamericans angry because they exploit our communities, or because we have not our selves - for whatever reason - done the same thing . . . work . . . build and succeed?
Anonymous
Posted Mar 2 2012
Perhaps if Black Americans would not be so nonchalant about using the "N" word in our songs and social self-expressions, other groups might learn that it is a title that is not to be taken lightly. hip-hop verses, movies, tv, and general social discourse are still full with our own use of the word with and among ourselves. It is as if it's alright to disrespect ourselves, but not alright if some one addresses us as we address each other.
If this problem was such an issue, I would think the customer could have simply corresponded with his card issuing company or bank to have the charge returned.
Koreans have been in America in increasing numbers for years. They come they work, they build and they succeed. Are we as Blackamericans angry because they exploit our communities, or because we have not our selves - for whatever reason - done the same thing . . . work . . . build and succeed?
iasiddiq
Posted Mar 2 2012
Perhaps if Black Americans would not be so nonchalant about using the "N" word in our songs and social self-expressions, other groups might learn that it is a title that is not to be taken lightly. hip-hop verses, movies, tv, and general social discourse are still full with our own use of the word with and among ourselves. It is as if it's alright to disrespect ourselves, but not alright if some one addresses us as we address each other.
If this problem was such an issue, I would think the customer could have simply corresponded with his card issuing company or bank to have the charge returned.
Koreans have been in America in increasing numbers for years. They come they work, they build and they succeed. Are we as Blackamericans angry because they exploit our communities, or because we have not our selves - for whatever reason - done the same thing . . . work . . . build and succeed?
Anonymous
Posted Jul 27 2012
Why don't more Blacks start businsses in their own communities? The Asians move into Black neighborhoods, set up shop, and become successful, while Blacks sit around whining and belly aching about it. Black people, we have to do better than this.
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