From Unwatchable Life to Consumable Spectacle: On History and the Black-Korean Conflict

Abstract

This article considers the immigrant store owner as spectacle, signifier, and actor in Korean-Black relations in Los Angeles during the late twentieth century, arguing that the “Black-Korean conflict” was an historical and cultural phenomenon in which events and their representations built upon each other. Members of these groups sometimes resisted and interrogated the framework of interethnic conflict which was projected onto them, but also incorporated it into their outlooks and organizing strategies. The article also reflects upon efforts to address intergroup tensions and conflict against a backdrop of widespread racial injustice and economic inequality in Los Angeles and the United States.