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Host Lipsyte introduces clip he's about to show on the picketing at Coco's Food Market on 125th Street by the group, "December 12th Movement" as a result of rumors of black shoppers being beaten in the store but most importantly the discrimination Blacks face by banks that will not lend them money. Discrimination in the real sense. Some things never change!

African American woman shopping in grocery store. At checkout, Korean worker weighs vegetables on scale and rings up her sale. A police officer is seen in the store.

Korean man unloading wooden crates of vegetables from van onto sidewalk

African American lady shopping for produce in grocery store.

Multi-racial protestors behind police barricades. African American male in wool hat and scarf shouting into bullhorn. People chanting "boycott".

Exterior wide shot, Fresh produce outside grocery store and protestors chanting "boycott" standing behind picket lines. Peds walking by.

Protestors at night on sidewalk led by African American male holding bull horn. Peds walking by.

African American man with sunglasses, wool hat and scarf, shouting into megaphone

Talking head African American male talking to unseen reporter inside grocery store about liking to shop in the store and that he was in the store when the incident occurred - it did not happen the way they stated in the pamphlets being passed around.

Very angry African American woman on the street amidst other protestors speaking out.

Return to Host Robert Lipsyte on set of The Eleventh Hour. He introduces and welcomes guests, Lloyd Williams (President Uptown Chamber of Commerce), and Illsoo Kim (Author, The New Urban Immigrants).

Interview continues with Lloyd Williams and joined by Illsoo Kim

Robert Lipsyte 12:57
Mr. Kim, would you join us on this?

Il Soo Kim, Sociology Professor & Author:
Yes.

Robert Lipsyte:
Do you think it's a localized issue of just that store? Or do you think that there's something wider, something broader going on here?

Il Soo Kim, Sociology Professor & Author:
Ah, let me mention a couple of things. Black and Korean conflict is not new phenomenon is all you know, is 10 years old, I think more than 10 years old. It took it took place first in Philadelphia in 1976. But since then, as far as I'm concerned, the relationship to Black and Koreans have improved a lot. Partly because of the Koreans are more assimilated into American society. Partly because the Korean leaders are self consciously involved in all of it, improving the relationship. So in this context, I'm very optimistic, you know, as Koreans more assimilated, more educated, they would learn how to deal with, you know, blacks customers, in general way.

Robert Lipsyte:
Yeah. But I think we really come back to the point. I mean, the hard point is beyond Coco's, is the fact that there are 68 Korean. Why are there 68 Korean businesses on a Black street?

Lloyd Williams, President of the Uptown Chamber of Commerce:
Well, it would seem that the answer is obvious that the Black community has no problem with Koreans in their community. Very obviously, if they had problems with Koreans in the community wouldn't be in the community. But I think what is being said to the Korean business persons is first and foremost, respect us. Secondly, hire people from our community to also do business with black business persons that are cleaning and support the issues of our community. It is in fact black people who paid the price to allow other minority persons particularly Koreans to have the opportunities to be on 125th Street on Nostrand Avenue. So I think that what you're seeing in the Black community is a receptivity to a positive presence of the Korean business persons and a resistance when they believe that presence is not positive.

Robert Lipsyte:
And yet there are Blacks, including the Blacks in this December 12th organization who feel that the presence of the Koreans is proof that blacks are not getting the loans and not getting the opportunities necessary. Well, in terms of the black businessmen, we also talked with a black store owner just down the street from Coco's market. Let's hear from Bill Smith of Bill's hardware.

Exterior Bill's Hardware store, 125th Street, NYC

Return to studio with Host Lipsyte and guests, Laura Blackburn, Lloyd Williams, and Illsoo Kim.

(INTERVIEW continues...)
Robert Lipsyte:
Rejoining us, Laura Blackburn to talk about Blacks and small businesses. But But first is something I just don't get here. 68 Korean owned businesses on the biggest Black street in the world? How do these 68 businesses get the money and get the finances that those black stores that might have been in those spots, can't get? Mr. Kim? Where do all of these Koreans get this money from?

Il Soo Kim, Sociology Professor & Author:
There are three sources of for Koreans to finance their business. Number one is South Korean government allows Korean immigrant family one in immigrant family to bring with them more than $100,000. So most of Korean Koreans have brought a lot of money and they invest in you know, that's number one source. Number two source is

Robert Lipsyte:
Those are middle class or better Korean families.

Il Soo Kim, Sociology Professor & Author:
Yes, the Koreans aren't prize selected in terms of class, they are mostly well educated know, the middle or upper middle class in South Korea. And number two source is they rely upon a lot of community self help networks, right. You know, there are many, many Korean churches, organizations, so Koreans borrow lots of money from their friends. For instance, in the in the in church, they're organized on kind of rotating credit associations. So they pull the money together and we know the length of money to the members.

Robert Lipsyte:
And the third?

Il Soo Kim, Sociology Professor & Author:
And the other source is the family savings. The family, the rate of family savings, savings brokerage is very, very high in my estimates more than 6%. So these three basic sources, but few of them very few of them, get money, get a loan from.

Robert Lipsyte:
Okay. This seems something intrinsically out of whack about

Laura Blackburn- President of the Institute for Mediation and Conflict Resolution:
Let me make couple of points that I think are important to understand. We have to put this in the context of the American history with slavery and the legacy of slavery, which we are still experiencing at this point in time.

Robert Lipsyte:
I understand that and we're gonna we're gonna talk about that later in the show with Professor Foner. But what about money now for black businesses? Mr. Williams?

Lloyd Williams, President of the Uptown Chamber of Commerce:
In the main it doesn't exist. It's interesting to listen to Mr. Kim, because certainly, a minimum of two of the three sources that he made reference to does not in the main exists from blank people. First and foremost, obviously, as Ms. Blackburn said, when we came over this country, if we each had $100,000 each, we'd be millionaires today. Secondly, we certainly don't have family savings because most of our families were very poor or unemployed persons or underemployed, at least, we did at some point in time, have the support system of the black church, but to a large degree that which has happened between the Welfare Society of America in the Drug Society of America has destroyed even that as a source of income. So, in the main, the resources for the black business persons does not exist, you will find that certain places in the South where there's been consistency and continuity, you will find it in some of the Caribbean communities

Robert Lipsyte:
But in the northeast, that tradition and the money just isn't there.

Lloyd Williams, President of the Uptown Chamber of Commerce:
Does not exist. And I'll just end by saying the issue of redlining, gentrification and economic racism, which we tend to overlook

Robert Lipsyte:
That's white against black, not Korean against Black.

Lloyd Williams, President of the Uptown Chamber of Commerce:
It but the issue has not really been Korean against black, it has been white against black. And and I think most of us really understand that

Robert Lipsyte :
Do you believe that by looking at it as Korean against black, we're obscuring what's really going on here?

Laura Blackburn- President of the Institute for Mediation and Conflict Resolution:
Oh, absolutely. Whenever I am involved in conflict resolution, one of the hardest things to do is to get people to focus on the issues as issues and not as positions. In this situation, the issue is economic development opportunities. And if you focus on economic development opportunities, there's a great opportunity here, for the continued joint effort on the part of blacks and Koreans to work together to make government do what it's supposed to do.

Robert Lipsyte:
If the Koreans put some of their money into the Black community.

Laura Blackburn- President of the Institute for Mediation and Conflict Resolution:
Not even that! Where Koreans have been here long enough, for instance, to become politically involved, then they can put pressure on government to do the thing that is appropriate and proper. They can also provide opportunities for blacks to get jobs. We still have a huge unemployment problem in the black community.

Robert Lipsyte:
We're gonna have to leave it there. We'll come back in a moment with Professor Eric Foner.

Host Lipsyte returns and interviews another guest, Professor Eric Foner from Columbia University. Discussion access to credit by ethnic groups, racism keeping Blacks at bottom of our society

INTERVIEW INSERTED:
Robert Lipsyte:
This is Eric Foner, a professor of history at Columbia. The rub between blacks and Koreans is sort of an old story with new colors.

Eric Foner, Professor at Columbia University:
Well, it does reflect a very old pattern in the city. I mean, after all, blacks have the resentment, and I think with justification, they feel that each immigrant group that comes into the city sort of jumps over blacks. They remain at the bottom, as you heard economically in terms of unemployment, in terms of access to credit. And historically, first, Irish immigrants, Jews, Italians, and now Koreans have all, well, even though they many of them came poor, and some of them face discrimination, none of them face the institutionalized kinds of racism that have kept blacks at the bottom of our society. All of those groups had opportunities available to them in terms of employment in terms of going into business, which blacks simply have not had. And therefore, I think there is some resentment, and there's a history of resentment about the opportunities that the society offers to other immigrant groups. But even there, it's important that I said other immigrant groups. It's important to remember, blacks are not an immigrant group in this city. Blacks have been in the city since the very beginning. In 1750, about 240 years ago, 1/7 of the population in New York City was black. Most of them were slaves, of course. So blacks have been here for a long time. But immigrant groups coming in have not pushed them up the ladder, immigrant groups jump over them. When the Irish came in, they took the jobs which blacks had, they push blacks further down out of menial and laboring jobs and things like that. And then, of course, most of the violence in our in the city's history, or has been from immigrant groups and whites against blacks. In the 1860s, we had the New York City draft riots in this city, in which hundreds of Blacks were killed on the streets, largely by Irish immigrants. Because as that film of that Korean, the woman who runs that Korean store showed the assimilation of immigrant groups often includes learning American racism, and blacks are aware of that also. So, in other words, the tensions here are not simply Black versus Korean, but they really reflect the long history of racism in this city.

Robert Lipsyte:
Yeah. Professor Foner, thank you very much. That was a terrific quick course. Going to have to leave it there though. The person who shot the Coco's fruit Market Report for us was more than an eye behind a camera. His name is Larry Bullard, and he has some thoughts to share.

Black male in Coco's Food Market standing amidst shelves of ketchup and jarred foods and refrigerated grocery items, speaking to unseen reporter.

Off set interview:
Larry Bullard, Cameraman/Witness:
This is a real complicated issue for me. I'm the cameraman for the show. I guess. One of the things is that makes it so complicated is because I'm used to the black community, which I am a member of, and to me that's in terms of my own identity being black is the most is the primary thing to me. Customs in my community looking at the media as being if not a friend, at least an ally. So it puts me in a contradictory situation. Especially the story like this, I have mixed feelings, I would never do anything that would hurt the black community, or, you know, black individuals. And I respect the viewpoints of the boycotters. I'm not certain that their viewpoints are, are accurate. For working with the kids today, I have a very good sense of them. I like them as people. If the Kims are just here as legitimate business people, I think that they have a right to it as anyone should have a right to come into any community And open a business. This is an aspect of democracy. We really can't fault them for that we just have to fight to become more competitive on our own terms. Black people must control the economics of their community. At the same time, I don't like seeing the black community separated from any other community, Korean, white, or any other community that can in the future be potential allies of us.

Framed clip female and male at cash register in food market. Female holding register tape as it comes out of machine - speaking with unseen reporter (no audio)

Framed clip Korean woman looking kind of sad, leaning against glass door at entrance to food market. food on shelves and large sign written in Korean can be seen. camera zooms out, peds walking by

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