Korean Merchants, Blacks Reach Accord

A black community group will end its boycott of a Korean-owned discount store in East San Diego today after reaching a complex agreement with store owners designed to bring more black merchants and employees into the Euclid Avenue establishment.

Members of the African American Organizing Project and the owners of the Fam Mart Discount Store on Euclid Avenue are scheduled to sign an agreement marking a negotiated end to a conflict that erupted in December after a confrontation between a black customer and a Korean vendor.

The director of the African American Organizing Project, which staged the boycott, and the professional mediator who helped forge the agreement cited the process Tuesday as a model response to enmity between blacks and Koreans that has sparked violence in other cities.

“The watershed of the deal is that they have agreed to work together, and that hasn’t happened with Koreans and blacks in other areas,” said Thomas Fentiman, director of the Omega Forum, who mediated between the two sides for the past month. “Here, they were able to work through mediation and avoid violence.”

Greg Akili, organizer of the African American Organizing Project, said the boycott and resulting settlement sent a message from blacks to the Korean store owners that “no longer can you come into this community, hire your relatives, take money out, and not put anything back.”

Akili said that picketers were successful in turning customers away from the Fam Mart on weekends, but that he could not assess the success of the boycott.

Young Chun, co-owner of the Fam Mart, declined comment Tuesday. He confirmed the basic elements of the deal, however.

Tensions between the predominantly black customers of the Fam Mart and its almost exclusively Korean vendors burst into the open after a Dec. 13 scuffle between two merchants and Rhonda Johnson, a black woman attempting to exchange clothes she had bought. The 54 merchants at the large warehouse sell electronics products, jewelry, toys and other products from individual booths.

Johnson claimed that a Korean merchant refused to take back the garments and threw them in her face. A scuffle ensued between her and her daughter, and two vendors, she said.

Chun has said that Johnson started the fight by throwing the merchandise at the vendor.

Johnson’s attorney is preparing to file a lawsuit against the vendor and Fam Mart’s owners. The suit could be filed as early as today, said Frederick Meiser Jr., the attorney. No charges were filed in the case, but police notified the city attorney’s dispute resolution officer, who brought the mediator into the case.

The Johnson incident brought to the surface black resentment of the Korean vendors’ treatment of black customers, the absence of black-owned booths and the Koreans’ failure to hire black employees, Akili said. Of the 54 merchants now open in the 60-booth warehouse, one is black, he said.

“We certainly interpreted their behavior and their treatment as disrespectful,” Akili said. “Now, we can debate whether it was.” He said Korean merchants appeared to accept stereotypes such as “all our kids are gangsters, all our adults are loud and raucous people.”

Tensions have risen along similar lines in other cities as Korean entrepreneurs have opened small shops in predominantly black neighborhoods. In Los Angeles, a Korean merchant allegedly shot and killed a black teen-ager in March after the girl placed a bottle of orange juice in her knapsack and approached the counter to pay. The merchant has claimed that the gun fired accidentally. A Brooklyn, N.Y., grocer was acquitted of attacking a black woman inside his store in a January, 1990 incident that led to a long boycott of the market.

The local settlement, reached more than a week ago, guarantees that the Fam Mart owners will reserve half of all vacant booths for black shop owners and will advertise their availability in black newspapers and major media. Black merchants will have 30 days to apply for the stall before it becomes available to anyone.

In addition, one booth will be reserved for black entrepreneurs seeking a low-overhead location in an attempt to start businesses. Instead of paying rent to the Fam Mart, as other vendors do, that businessman would make payments to the Black Community Fund, he said.

In the meantime, however, black businessmen will continue with plans for the Southeast Business Bazaar, a weekend swap meet in Southeast San Diego that will foster development of black businesses and compete with the Fam Mart, which is open daily.

Under the agreement, black leaders will work with Fam Mart owners to hire more black employees. Also, a six-member committee of Koreans and blacks will be formed to resolve disputes and foster communication and understanding between blacks and Koreans, Akili said.