BLACK KOREA: Media Action Network for Asian...

BLACK KOREA: Media Action Network for Asian Americans, a new Los Angeles watchdog group, is upset with singer Jody Watley over what it is calling “insensitive remarks toward Korean-Americans” in a Rolling Stone magazine round-up on the Los Angeles riots.

Watley, one of several Los Angeles pop figures interviewed for the article, was critical of Korean businesses in the black community.

Her remarks in part: “It’s ironic that the Korean citizens say they don’t understand why this happened. They’re either being naive or playing on sympathy. I went to high school there, and those businesses charged three times more for goods in an area where people can’t afford discount prices.

“They only hire within their own families. There’s no interaction. They’re just there to take your money, and they show no respect.”

The Media Action group has sent Watley a letter charging that the singer was blaming Koreans for racial tensions coming from cultural differences. At press time she had not received it but after seeing the press release, Watley told Pop Eye that she thinks the group “still seems to miss the point.”

Continued Watley: “What I said was not a justification of any violence or attacks on anyone. It’s not enough to say that cultures are different. When you go anywhere to open a business, you have to work with people there to have a comfortable environment. If you just say, ‘This is the way it is,’ you can’t come to a solution.”

Guy Aoki, a writer for a syndicated pop music radio show and president of the watchdog group, still says he is “outraged” by Watley’s comments and that she is also “still missing the point.”

Said Aoki: “She’s just looking at it from a black point of view. Part of the stereotype is that Koreans are rude to them because they’re black. That’s not true. I think she puts the blame on the Koreans.”