Chungs Update

I came across another good article by Marc Fisher, columnist for The Washington Post, a video link of a press conference, and a discussion also led by Marc Fisher.

UPDATE: I like this Marc Fisher and I'd forgotten that he was among the few, if not the only one, who covered the recent appointment of Michelle Rhee to the top position of the D.C. school system of simmering Black-Korean tensions with the recent laundry pants case. Here's his article and check out the subsequent reactions to his post. It's very predictable.

D.C.'s Black-Koren Dynamic: A Simmering Tension
by Marc Fisher, Metro Columnist

What do the $54 million pants man, Roy Pearson, and the new D.C. schools superintendent, Michelle Rhee, have in common?

Their moments in the news in recent days have lifted the lid off a cauldron of black-Korean tensions. This relationship has a volatile history in Washington, running back to 1986, when Rev. Willie Wilson of Union Temple Baptist Church famously led a boycott of an Asian-American grocer in Southeast who had supposedly disrespected a black customer. The episode culminated in Wilson saying, after being asked if his demands were inflaming racial tensions, that if he and his followers hadn't forgiven the Asian shopkeeper, "we would have cut his head off and rolled it down the street."

Interestingly, until the start of last week's trial, the mail on the Pants Man was focused almost entirely on issues of abusing the legal system, the eternal battle over tort reform, and how the District could possibly have such a fellow serving as an administrative law judge. But once the trial started--and most importantly, once the first news photos of Pearson started appearing online, on TV and in the paper--the tenor of reader reaction changed dramatically. I still heard plenty of outrage about how Pearson was tormenting the owners of the dry cleaners and wasting the court's resources, but now that it was widely known that Pearson is black, a good chunk of the mail shifted to matters of ethnic rivalry.

Similarly, the surprise announcement that Rhee, a Korean-American woman, would become the first non-black chief of the D.C. school system in nearly half a century immediately engendered all manner of comment about supposed antipathy toward blacks by Koreans--all this from people who know nothing of Rhee's background, approach or personality.

I'll spare you the comments that consist solely of racist vitriol, but I think there's value in looking at the texture of the incidents and complaints that readers report about encounters with Korean merchants. I doubt that these incidents are much different from those that could be catalogued about any dry cleaner, no matter the owner's ethnicity, but here's one of the more thoughtful comments I've received from readers who believe the pants case is more about black-Korean tensions than anything else:

"The main thing here is the strained relationship between Korean businesses and Blacks with regard to customer service or lack thereof," wrote Keith Jones, a legal assistant at a major Washington company. He told of an Asian-owned grocery in his D.C. neighborhood where he says the owner routinely sells coffee creamer that has passed its sell-by date, as well as a dry cleaner that he says charges exorbitant rates.

"It is clear that the Korean merchants have a lot of businesses in urban America and that they are unified," Jones writes. "Blacks in these urban settings, for the most part, rely solely on Korean establishments in their neighborhoods. This is due to access and ultimately, their socio-economic status. I am certainly not saying that this justifies the Pearson case, especially not the amount. From the examples I gave from my own experience, however, one can only imagine what a Black person experiences daily dealing with the Koreans."

And here's an account from Rosemary Reed Miller, the longtime owner of Toast & Strawberries, which was one of the city's best-regarded boutiques, talking about her experience with a Korean dry cleaner:

"I had brought in a pair of pants which had a small spot. They cleaned that area, but left a larger spot on another area of the pant. When I pointed that out (unfortunately, I didn't see the spot until after I had paid), they told me that the large spot was on the pant when I brought the pants in. They wouldn't give me my money back, and implied that it would be another fee to get out the second spot. I decided to walk.

"When you're in business--and I had a small shop, Toast and Strawberries for over 20 years--I know you can't be perfect with everyone, but this I thought was unreasonable. I've lived long enough to share [Pearson's] pain. I am African American, but didn't sue. However, I feel as though I should have sued that cleaner even though my silk pants had a modest price tag. I've fought for the civil rights of all people all of my life. People need their rights to be addressed, and the people who 'wrong' them should be educated not to do something like that again to another person.

"I appreciate his suing on my behalf. Obviously $60+ million is 'over the top.' And I understand that
Korean-Americans have made efforts to be 'nicer' to their Afro-American clientele, but I think these cases are examples of their needing to be more sensitive. If they had listened with more understanding in the beginning,
and paid him for his 'lost' pants, I would hope that Mr. Pearson wouldn't have had such a strong sense of outrage."

Why do the kinds of poor customer service that might otherwise result in a grumble or a decision to shop elsewhere morph into ethnic tension in the black-Korean dynamic? This has been the subject of considerable study since the 1992 Los Angeles riots, in which some Korean grocers took up arms against black rioters, and the years that followed, when some rappers took after Korean merchants in their lyrics? (Warning: That link goes to a song with R-rated language.)

In part, this divide is a continuation of black-Jewish tensions that developed when many shops in American ghetto neighborhoods were run by immigrant Jews. But there's an additional element that many of the academics end up focusing on: It's a culture clash between two groups with very different behavioral mores.

Contrast a Korean social manner in which merchants may put change down on a counter rather than touch a customer's hand, or an infelicitous command of English that can make a shopkeeper seem distant and even disrespectful, against an African-American culture in which strangers are expected to make eye contact and acknowledge one another in a respectful exchange. Here's a black writer's perspective on this, and here's a Korean writer's view of a similar situation.

Did Roy Pearson sue the Chung family, owners of Custom Cleaners, because they are Korean immigrants? There's no evidence of that. Will the rank and file of the D.C. school system refuse to give Michelle Rhee a chance to succeed because she is Korean-American? Certainly most people are better than that. But in both cases, the noise around the black-Korean tension is loud enough to make hard situations much harder, and that's worth keeping a close eye on.