Asian ownership of stores in black neighborhoods provoked protest from residents, and although rude service or racial discrimination was the basis of initial demonstrations, protesters from separate demonstrations shared mutual demands (NFNT). Demands by residents were economically rooted in nature, often calling for a lowering of store prices and requests that they hire more black employees (NFNT). In another case, after negotiations that followed a weeks-long demonstration outside three Flatbush stores, storeowners agreed to hire four black youth part-time in order to end the boycott (NFNT). Unsurprisingly, boycott leaders almost always claimed that they were defending the economic self-sufficiency of black neighborhoods (nfnt). The mutual economically-rooted demands that protesters called for suggest
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The perceived threat of Asian-Owned businesses may have been rooted in the fact that Asian-Americans were regarded as a “model-minority,” which often was used to subjugate the progress of African-Americans. Although largely credited as a myth by scholars, the large representation of Asian-owned stores in African-American neighborhoods helped introduce fears to African-Americans that there was an impending economic takeover of their neighborhoods. For the L.A riots, Sumi K. Cho notes how “the portrayal of Asian Americans as the paragons of socioeconomic success contributed to the targeting of Korean Americans as a scapegoat by those above and below Koreans on the socioeconomic ladder during the L.A. riots” (SUMI). In the example of South Central, residents mainly comprised of a 73.9% African-American population and a 22.9% Latino population (SUMI). Because only 3.6% of the total land mass in South Central was zoned for industry, longtime residents grew to resent
The perceived threat of Asian-Owned businesses may have been rooted in the fact that Asian-Americans were regarded as a “model-minority,” which often was used to subjugate the progress of African-Americans. Although largely credited as a myth by scholars, the large representation of Asian-owned stores in African-American neighborhoods helped introduce fears to African-Americans that there was an impending economic takeover of their neighborhoods. For the L.A riots, Sumi K. Cho notes how “the portrayal of Asian Americans as the paragons of socioeconomic success contributed to the targeting of Korean Americans as a scapegoat by those above and below Koreans on the socioeconomic ladder during the L.A. riots” (SUMI). In the example of South Central, residents mainly comprised of a 73.9% African-American population and a 22.9% Latino population (SUMI). Because only 3.6% of the total land mass in South Central was zoned for industry, longtime residents grew to resent