Korean-Americans Criticized for Dominance of Beauty Supply Shops in Black Neighborhoods

Here is a story about the “peaceful” protesters in Chicago and a Korean-American shop owner:

Yong Sup Na with his daughter Jenny in 1994. (Sandra Na via The New York Times)

The crowd was growing impatient as Crystal Holmes fumbled with the keys to the store.

Dozens of people were swarming the street around Western Beauty Supply, the Chicago shop where Holmes works. She had persuaded some of them to let her open the store so they could rob it without breaking the windows.

“She’s taking too long,” someone yelled. “Let’s go in and get it.”

Western Beauty Supply sells products like wigs, hair extensions and combs mostly to Black women. Most of the employees, like Holmes, are also Black, but the owner is a Korean American man, Yong Sup Na.

When a few young men appeared outside the store earlier that evening in May, Na went out to speak with them. He offered some of them cash, and they walked away. At that point, Na told Holmes that he felt confident his business was safe. “They are not going to break into the store,” he told her.

A few minutes later, though, a larger group showed up. A woman snatched Na’s keys, but Holmes persuaded her to give them back. Then she ordered Na, her boss, to leave. “You don’t know what could happen,” she told him.

Even as Holmes tried to save the store from ruin that evening, when protests and looting followed the police killing of George Floyd, she understood what was causing the turmoil roiling Chicago and dozens of other cities.

“I understand where the rage is coming from,” Holmes, 40, said in an interview. “We don’t have any businesses in the community and we are getting killed by the police and killing each other, and we are just getting tired.”

New York Times

You can read more at the link, but I think there should be some self reflection here instead of blaming Koreans for being “insular” as described in the article.

How come a guy who came to the country in his late 20’s with no money and not speaking the language was able to become a successful shop owner who put his kids through college, but people with all the advantages of being born in the US could not? If you read the article there are some hints why.

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ChickenHead
ChickenHead
4 years ago

“You don’t need a gun. Just call a cop.”

Well. That line of reasoning is dead for a generation to all but the most pathetic little beta libtards eager to take some big black cack while the police don’t even show up or just stand down and watch.

Change my mind.

2ID Doc
2ID Doc
4 years ago

This is a rehash from LA in 1992. The Koreans are willing to go into “bad” neighborhoods and start and build a business to peruse the American Dream. True many businesses in predominantly African American areas are black owned, they are more likely to try (or be steered by the financial backers) and start a business in an area with more wealth as the chances of success will increase. It sounds as if this guy built a business after he found a need that would sell. The fact he has hired help that reflects his demographic shows he at a minimum sees an advantage in hiring help that “looks like their customers” or is trying to engage with the community to show he’s not just there to take their money and run. Yet the thank you he gets is his business wrecked in a few hours.

Korean Man
Korean Man
4 years ago

It was his choice to move to America, and it was his own choice to do business where he did his business. Surely, he knew the risks of moving to a dangerous country with severe racial strifes, and doing business in a violent neighborhood. He knew those risks, and he has to face the consequences of risks blowing up. I don’t think he’ll get any sympathies from me. He’s American citizen, not even Korean, anyway.

J6Junkie
J6Junkie
4 years ago

Guy needed to his best Wolmido impression with an AR15.

J6Junkie
J6Junkie
4 years ago

Looters should be shot and shot again.

setnaffa
setnaffa
4 years ago

Beijing boy has no sympathy except for the genocidal CCP. After all, those Uighurs were getting uppity. And those monks in Tibet were uppity, too. And those Christians. And then there were those 12 year old girls in Hong Kong that needed beating down, too.

They’re all uppity.

In fact, anyone who tries to start and run their own business instead of living off the largess of government is uppity, right?

At least, that’s Beijing boy’s common theme…

setnaffa
setnaffa
4 years ago

Sorry, I left off those uppity Taiwanese, the uppity Canadians, and those at the French museum that had an exhi it that mentioned Genghis Khan and the Mongol Enpire. And any Western tourists or business people in China.

All of ’em uppity.

J6Junkie
J6Junkie
4 years ago

Not all of us were born with a golden spoon like Beijing Boy.

Rosko
Rosko
4 years ago

I have heard this same song and dance for years. If inner city Blacks don’t like Koreans running profitable businesses, maybe these folks should buy the Koreans out. I don’t think they would because they would rather bitch about the Koreans.

As a kid I lived in Orange County, California. It was the same there, folks bitching about the Koreans. Later I lived in Orange County, NY, folks still complaining about Koreans. In between I lived in Dallas, the same thing happened there.

I see a huge double standard here. The Koreans leave their homes and go to large cities and put stores in bad neighborhoods where no one else will go. If the Koreans can’t make it, no one will. This is because they are good business people.

In the meantime the locals burn, loot, murder, and destroy their own neighborhoods because of some unfortunate incidents with police and because they are pissed at someone who is trying to provide them services. The Koreans get robbed, killed, and their businesses are burned to the ground. This is racism if I ever saw it, it’s also utter stupidity.

setnaffa
setnaffa
4 years ago

Rosko, it’s stupidity on the part of the non-player characters doing the burning, looting, and murder. But it’s part of the long game played by the people paying their way.

Welfare could be a hand up; but it turned into a handout. That created a “class” dependent on the largesse of a government infiltrated with people who hate individual liberty.

There’s an interesting old book called “You can Trust The Communists (to be Communists)”. www dot schwarzreport dot org/resources/you-can-trust-the-communists-to-be-communists

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