#latasha harlins

[alwaysbewoke]

On March 16, 1991 Latasha Harlin’s short life came to a violent end in the midst of racial tensions in LA, and became a major spark for the 1992 Los Angeles Riots. By the late 1980s, racial tensions were high in South Los Angeles. After the change in national immigration laws in 1965 a large number of Korean immigrants arrived in Los Angeles and by 1968 the first Korean-owned market opened in South Central LA. Longtime African American residents in the area at first welcomed the Koreans but eventually grew angry with them because they refused to hire black employees and often treated their customers poorly. By 1990, 65% of South Central businesses were Korean-owned and a 1992 survey of these storeowners revealed considerable racial prejudice against black customers and black people in general. Koreans in response argued that their attitudes evolved from high crime rates in the area and shop owner fears of shootings and burglaries. Latasha Harlins became a victim of these racial tensions on the morning of Saturday, March 16, 1991. She entered a store owned by a Korean family, to purchase a bottle of orange juice. As she approached the counter, Soon Ja Du, accused her of stealing after seeing her place the bottle in her backpack, despite her holding the $2 payment approaching the counter to pay. Du grabbed the bag and the two women had a violent scuffle. Harlins threw the juice bottle back on the counter and turned to leave the store when Du pulled a .38-caliber handgun and shot 15-year-old Harlins in the back of the head. Du was arrested and her trial was held on November 15, 1991. Security-camera footage which showed Harlins’ attempt to pay for the juice and the subsequent scuffle between the two women convinced a jury to find Du guilty of voluntary manslaughter. The Judge, Joyce Karlin, rejected the jury’s recommendation and instead sentenced Du to five years probation, 400 hours of community service, and a $500 fine.

One of the many reasons black people don't f*** with Asians like that and we should collectively drive them out of our neighborhoods

[sanyu-thewitch05]

So the Latasha Harlins movie trailer went viral:

https://x.com/slausongirlnews/status/1690120102417764356?s=46&t=VgNCf575PY7lLqxkH7ldJw

This is Latasha in real life:

This is Latasha in the movie:

And just for comparison:

@thisismisogynoir

[dreamfaerye]

Watched A Love Song for Latasha and cried.

It's less than 20 mins long but had details that I didn't know. Like that her mother had also been murdered and she was helping her grandmother raise her younger siblings. That she protected other kids from bullies. I knew she wanted to be a lawyer but she also wanted to own a business with her best friend and do community outreach.

That Soon Ja Du, her murderer, had pulled her gun out and threatened people, other children, before.

Apparently, Du is still alive. May her death be excruciating and her soul never rest.

[boricuacherry-blog]

The Trickle Down of the Trial of the Century

Some said the country saw a major shift on a subject that had historically been framed as a private matter.

More broadly, advocates reported at the time that the number of donations to battered women's shelters and other women's organizations rose nationwide. The numbers of calls to shelters also increased, indicating that more women were comfortable coming forward about their abuse.

"When we think about the warning signs, especially for progressing to lethal violence, the absolute top early warning sign is strangulation," said Angela Hattery, professor of women and gender studies at the University of Delaware and co-director of its Center for the Study & Prevention of Gender-Based Violence. "Many domestic violence homicides are preceded by strangulation."

Though media coverage of the Simpson trial widely portrayed Black Americans as being supportive of him, some say that Black people had a complicated relationship with Simpson and that generalizations about the community should be avoided.

"If you remember, Black people had said, 'Well O.J. is not one of us. He's not Black. He's transitioned out of being a Black guy because of who he is, because of the women he dated, because of the woman he married, because of where he lives, because of his notoriety,'" said Davis. "So, it couldn't have been just Black people being happy that O.J. got off."

If Brown-Simpson had been Black instead of White would her murder have led to a media frenzy?

"I doubt it," she said. "I see those murders all the time, and they're not televised."

In the political space, nonprofits that serve survivors, such as the Jenesse Center, have to constantly lobby politicians for funding to provide transitional housing and other services. Moreover, survivors who call law enforcement for help too often have their children removed from their homes and placed into the child welfare system.

[underwaterspiderbird]

See this shit? This is why we need guns, to protect ourselves from **THESE** ignorant Karen troglodytes who want nothing but to kill us. You cannot stop a charging bear with pacifism. You can try, but it will most DEFINITELY end horribly. If we’re gonna stop shit like this from happening again, we can NOT let these racist fucks get the up on us again.

Most of you don’t know who she is but she’s important. Her name is Latasha Harlins. In 1991, at the ripe age of 15, Latasha went to her local Korean owned food mart and never made it out. The store owner’s wife, Soon Ja Du, mistook her for trying to steal a bottle of orange juice and a minor struggle ensued. Du grabbed Latasha and ended up getting pushed to the ground. Du then went and got her gun and pointed it at Latasha. Latasha bends down, picks up the orange juice, and places it on the counter. As Latasha had walked away to leave the store, Du shot Latasha in the back of the head at a 3 foot distance, killing her immediately. Du tried to claim self defense, but there were 2 eyewitnesses and the store’s security camera showed otherwise. The jury convicted Du and advised the judge to go with the maximum sentence of 16 years. Du walked away with 400 hours of community service, 5 years probation, and a $500 fine, as the judge said although Mrs. D acted inappropriately, her actions were justified. Judge Joyce Karlin states that Mrs. Du was the victim, Latasha is the criminal and would be standing in front of her for assault on a store clerk had she not died. The slaughter of Latasha Harlins is one of major factors in the initiating of the LA Riots. We only hear about Rodney King but she is the original #SayHerName. Tupac had an affinity for Latasha and has mentioned her name in several songs as well as dedicated the iconic song “Keep Ya Head Up” to Latasha. So today we say Latasha Harlins, you’re a pillar baby girl, whether they realize or not. And today, someone heard ya story❤️

Black History Month Day 19

[kineticpenguin]

i heard about the killdozer guy but what about the rooftop koreans?

During the LA riots in 1992 the LAPD abandoned minority neighborhoods, leaving the locals to fend for themselves. Some Korean families posted up on the roofs of their buildings to protect their businesses with guns. Without any other context, they've become something of a right-wing gun culture meme. Y'know, the whole "model minority defending their property against the savage hordes with glorious firearms" sorta thing, you can see the marketing appeal.

(And I do mean marketing quite literally, there are tons of Roof Korean merch churned out on Internet shops).

The thing is, this is a somewhat whitewashed version of events. Racial tensions had been inflamed between the local black and Korean communities recently, most intensely by the killing of Latasha Harlins by a Korean store owner, Soon Ja Du. Du accused Harlins of stealing juice even though she had money in hand to pay, initiated a physical conflict, and then shot Harlins in the back of the head when she was trying to flee the store. Du received a suspended sentence for manslaughter: five years' probation and 400 hours of community service, plus a $500 fine and Harlins' funeral costs. The killing is widely seen as a contributing factor to the 1992 riots, especially with regard to Koreatown being targeted.

As for the actual defensive actions by the "Rooftop Koreans," in practice it was kind of a disaster.

What's more, if you talk to the actual Koreans who were out there that day, they don't see anything to celebrate about it. If anything, they found the abandonment to be a wake-up call with regard to their standing in society: Second-class and fully expendable.

But because of the sanitized version of history that became a meme, you can guarantee every time there are mass protests and riots, some douchebags are going to run in, drop their pants, and start furiously cranking their hogs, moaning "we need roof Koreans!" for the duration.

[dejwrld]

i can’t find my original posts i made about colorism on here, but seeing a filmmaker make a movie about latasha harlins and casting a light skinned girl as latasha when her being dark skinned played a key role as to how the media/court perceived, demonized, and painted her makes my blood boil. thats why i always shout from the rooftops that it is deeper than dating when it comes to the topic of colorism.

[notreallyimportant]

I just want one summer of peace.

Cyrus Belton, a 14 year old child, was murdered by Rick Chow. Why? Because Chow assumed he was shoplifting ( and his own security cameras proved that Cyrus didn’t). This is very reminiscent of Latasha Harlins, who was 15 years old and was murdered by the shop owner Soon Ja Du because she suspected Latasha of shoplifting.

Chow’s store has been wrecked by locals, like what happened with Du’s shop.

Many articles note that Chow has dealt with many shoplifting incidences in the past, but to chase and kill a child over a water bottle is extreme and is no way justifiable. From what I understand, Chow is being held without bond.

[wakandamama]

Now that I'm sitting here thinking about it, why ain't there 100 bands on Zimmerman's shit? Someone shoulda made him chalk lines day 1 of the acquittal.

Emmet Till, Latasha Harlins, Trayvon Martin, Tamir Rice, Aiyana Jones, Ma'Khia Bryant, all the Black children's who names are loss in the Mass amount of them dead. From the babies tossed into swamps by slave master to poor Ralph Yarl who has to suffer for the rest of his life because some evil white bigot who was proably in post card picnic in his youth decided him being lost in his neighborhood was cause enough for a death sentence.

If they feel bold enough to kill innocent Black kids with no justice for the lives loss. Welp, we should be bold enough to correct that shit🤷🏾‍♀️ they obviously only speak violence and it's time we speak they language to get the fucking message across atp.

[theliterarywolf]

Man, this situation with the Primos cartoon is so weird to me. Like, i actually live in a country in South America, but i wanted give the people working on it some lenience, since it's aparently not supposed to take place here (i think at least?? it's in the USA right?), and i don't know how it is to live in the USA as a immigrant and whatever. I even gave them the benefit of the doubt with the language stuff, hoping that it was some spanish-american slang that we don't have in here.

But after the people there just started talking about how shitty people in south america are, it just left a bad taste in my mouth. I'm sorry, they just ended up sounding like the same gringos that insult people in here for no reason, and just made me think they are doing stuff without even a little bit of reseach, just based on steriotypes they know

Yep, the show is supposed to take place in LA.

Which, as some people pointed out, makes the continued 'Aestheti-fication' of tennis shoes hanging from a powerline kind of questionable. But that's a conversation for someone else: the bulk of my historical interest when it comes to LA are the '92 Rodney King/Latasha Harlins Riots.

Going back to "Mexican Loud House But Not Really Since The Casagrandes Exists", I'm going to paraphrase what I said during a conversation with a friend:

'It's one thing to want to defend a project you're on from online backlash. However, when you are essentially representing said project, there is a right way and a wrong way to go about this. Various VAs from this show chose the wrong way and now, no matter how much of the backlash could have been attributed to bad faith, those people are all justified in everything they said'.

Seriously, the creator could have just said 'this is based on my personal life growing up in LA; whenever I would get upset at my cousins, I just remember shouting 'Oye! Primos!' And that would have quelled 75% of the backlash.

[commajade]

Hello. I have been looking through your blog for the relationship between antiblackness, Korea and colonialism. But specifically do you have any academic works or recommendation reading on the LA Riot (or maybe any your personal analysis). I feel like sources online tend to be shallow in its analysis. I also wanted to thank you as another queer Korean for your analysis and work.

thanks! glad ur enjoying my v informal thoughts on this blog!

i don't have resources on hand because i find any writing about the rodkey king uprisings that aren't specifically about the way antiblackness is the foundation of the US economy and global capitalist society and south korea is a US neocolony to be fundamentally lacking. it's a complex historical event that has continuities with the rest of the US history of police brutality and resulting uprisings so i am in no way an authority on that aspect.

so this is a disclaimer that this is my attempt to show a limited political view as a korean person talking about the perspective of korean diaspora in southern california.

in my understanding the rodney king uprisings were a natural and historically repeating result of oppressed people expressing grief, anger, and communal political power in response to police brutality and the ways antiblackness is the foundation of the US economic, legal, and social systems. this iteration of this pattern involves korean-americans because of the murder of latasha harlins by a korean shop owner that was 1 year before and the way korean american small business owners became militant because they were targeted for looting and theft and property destruction by people agitated by the uprisings as well as well as the cops.

what happened is that the murder of latasha harlins was utterly evil and disgusting and happened as a result of a lot of different historical factors. there's a saying among korean diaspora that early korean immigrants, especially the ones in LA, tend to be meaner, harder, more jaded, and less trusting. the awful economic conditions and violent racism they faced made them very closed off. the history of US military presence in south korea and the ideas about race that experiencing US military occupation during the desegregation of the US military gave them + being outsiders setting up businesses in historically black urban areas made them wary, paranoid, and virulently antiblack. at the same time, the chief of police made a decision to protect white neighborhoods and businesses and not korean ones. so even those who were initially less prone to enacting antiblackness felt it was life or death situation to be militant in defending their property. meanwhile some black people felt it was right to get something during the chaos from businesses that are actively racist. it was a warzone, because white cops vs black people in their homes who are agitated by police violence is always an all out warzone. korean people remember it as sa-i-gu/4-2-9, as a war. they were completely unprotected by the state and their own part in policing black people in their own neighborhoods was what made them targets to the people agitated by the uprisings.

the event has had a huge impact on korean diaspora in california, any koreans that could move out of urban areas into suburban areas moved and went further and further south into orange county. the ones who remained simply have to live with the tension and fallout and distrust and many of them are very antiblack. there is a cultural memory of sa-i-gu that perpetuates antiblack myths that black people are more likely to be violent or dislike korean people. this solidifies the racist beliefs that military occupation instilled in korean people from the 1950s to now. this is another way that white supremacist racial capitalism works.

i guess my "take" is that colonization and military occupation of the US in south korea is what makes korean diaspora so antiblack and that the rodney king uprisings were another war of white supremacist cops vs people trying to survive. and korean diaspora need to realize that the entire world is built on a foundation of antiblackness and the US and its neocolony the ROK are the ones putting korean poor people in these life or death situations, not other oppressed people. what's necessary is korean reunification, removal of US military presence from the korean peninsula and turtle island (the north american continent), abolishment of the US government in all its carceral and brutalizing ways, landback to the indigenous people of turtle island, etc.

[tariah23]

I didn’t know that they were making a movie/doc on Latasha Harlins…… unfortunately, they have a light bright playing her.

[renegadeurbanmediasource]

I am against anti-Asian hate, but they have to respect us as well. I remember Latasha Harlin’s murder back in 91. I was 19 and remember it as if it were yesterday.

[boricuacherry-blog]

[jewishgoth]

Watching some of the documentaries on my watch list and I'd really like to recommend 'A Love Song For Latasha'. It's about Latasha Harlins so it's obviously an emotional watch, but it's done so wonderfully and it truly is a beautiful memorial for her. Less than 20 minutes long but so, so impactful 💜

[cyarskaren52]

It’s giving me flashback to Latasha Harlins when she was murdered by that shop owner right before the LA Riots popped off. The store is already gone. If he gets off like Soon Ja Du... SMH

I swear if he gets off you better burn that store to cinders…and he deserves to be in the building when it burns cause he’s going to hell nevertheless