Bitter Fruit The Politics of Black–Korean Conflict in New York City

Kim rejects conventional wisdom that Black-Korean conflict constitutes racial scapegoating, the irrational venting of Black rage on Korean merchants. She argues instead that it is in response to White dominance in American society, which generates a distinct racial order that encourages conflict among different groups, provokes racial resistance, and delegitimates and silences such resistance. Kim asserts that the Flatbush Boycott was part of a larger resurgence of Black Power activism in New York City, that Haitian immigrants mobilized out of overlapping transnational and racial identities, and that Korean Americans responded by launching a countermovement seeking to restore the status quo. Racial protests are inevitable, she says, as long as conditions of racial injustice prevail.