Senior: Economy Key To Easing L.A. Tension

The economic crisis in South Central Los Angeles must be addressed before Black-Korean tensions can be eased, according to a Harvard senior who spent the summer in the neighborhoods of the April riots.

Do Hyung Kim '93, an L.A. native who majors in Afro-American Studies and sociology, spoke yesterday at a brown bag luncheon in the Lyman Common Room.

Kim, a Koreatown resident who previously lived in South Central Los Angeles, spent last summer mediating relations between Blacks and Koreans on a grant from Education for Action, the sponsor of the discussion.

Kim identified South Central's 35 percent unemployment rate as the fundamental obstacle towards interracial harmony.

"The thing is, mediation and educational outreach are just band-aids," Kim said, adding later "The people have to be able to survive before they can talk."

Kim, in providing educational outreach and developing a code of ethics for Korean merchants, said he tried to explain cultural differences, since lack of understanding is a major cause of community strife.

For instance, Kim said, some Blacks are heard to say "Korean merchants are disrespectful...They don't put change in the hand. They put it on the counter."

Kim said, however, that no disrespect is intended. "In Korean society, you don't touch skin," he said.

Kim also said government aid following the riots has been misspent.

"The government put a lot of aid out there, but the aid was geared towards natural disasters," he said. And though houses and apartments are usually the worst hit in a hurricane or tornado, the places of business took the worst beating in the riots, he said.

Kim also bemoaned a lack of cooperation among different government agencies providing the aid.

"A lot of people did not apply [for aid] because they did not know what was out there," he said.

Without some preventive action, Kim said, the riots could well repeat themselves.

"This conflict is not just inherent to Blacks and Koreans. In the Watts riots [im the summer of 1965], it was Jewish merchants," he said.