Racial conflicts, which were contradictory to the national narratives of multiculturalism, happened often in the late 1980s and the early 1990s in major cities of the US. Although multiculturalism was in the process of establishing and solidifying its concept, value and strategy, violent and destructive rebellions and uprisings involving racial minorities have become exacerbated, demystifying the tenets of multiculturalism. American popular culture produced around this time definitely reflects these issues. Basically multicultural texts whether literature or cultural arts like films or songs investigate the cultural and political relations of individuals and racial groups. In so doing, they often raise questions to the dominant discourse which tends to propound multiculturalism concerning racial issues
영미문화 제14권 1호(2014 30) 한국영미문화학회 1-26 Multiculturalism, Ghetto and Racial Conflicts in Pop Culture*1) Hyunjoo Ki Ⅰ Introduction Racial conflicts, which were contradictory to the national narratives of multiculturalism, happened often in the late 1980s and the early 1990s in major cities of the US Although multiculturalism was in the process of establishing and solidifying its concept, value and strategy, violent and destructive rebellions and uprisings involving racial minorities have become exacerbated, demystifying the tenets of multiculturalism American popular culture produced around this time definitely reflects these issues Basically multicultural texts whether literature or cultural arts like films or songs investigate the cultural and political relations of individuals and racial groups In so doing, they often raise questions to the dominant discourse which tends to propound multiculturalism concerning racial issues The film and the rap “Black Korea” interrogate the possibility of coexistence disclosing the economic and social conditions of African Americans in inner city ghettos , produced, written, and directed by Spike Lee in 1989, addresses antagonisms among different races or ethnicities in Bed(ford)–Stuy(vesant), Brooklyn in New York Lee mainly speaks * This work was supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea Grant funded by the Korean Government(NRF-2010-327-A00484) Hyunjoo Ki for blacks in urban ghettos who are invisible in American films(Reid 2) , as Lee’s first movie about racial problems in New York(Reid 10), received praise and criticism simultaneously when it was released Whereas Peter Travers acclaimed the movie for “its devastating portraits of America pushed to the limit”(qtd in Cooper 206) Joe Klein predicts that the message that blacks accept in the film will increase the racial conflicts in cities complaining Lee’s dangerous and silly messages(Cooper 206) Like , Ice Cube’s rap song "Black Korea," released in 1991, was controversial “Black Korea” is included in his album Death Certificate which became number two on the Billboard charts a week after its release and were sold over one and half million copies(Chang 89) Due to the vehement lyric of the song which explicitly rails against Korean American merchants Korean American community started boycott against Ice Cube’s album As these highly controversial remarks and mixed receptions testify, and “Black Korea” have been influential in black communities Although the film and the song concentrate on the interracial conflicts the ways in which the major issues are delivered are disparate with each other The movie aims to have polyphony or ambiguity in terms of ideologies or voices of the community while it resists against binary value system Interracial tensions are caused by dualistic perspectives, but various features of the movies make the racial boundaries obscure Comparatively the rap pays attention to the dualistic values and ideologies when it illustrates confrontation of the two groups without representing other possibilities Accordingly the two cultural artifacts are similar when they center on the racial tensions, but their aesthetic strategies are not the same In this paper, I will examine how multicultural features are Multiculturalism, Ghetto and Racial Conflicts in Pop Culture represented in and “Black Korea” by investigating major concerns and aesthetic approaches of the two artifacts Especially, I will raise a question to the perspectives to examine the film in terms of black-white axis by foregrounding the ambiguous and polyphonic aspects As for the rap, I will discuss the ways in which blacks and Korean merchants and their relationships are portrayed As their confrontational positions are emphasized, I will pay attention to the frame of binary opposition on which the song is based In addition, as the film and the song respectively uncover the economic and social problems while they deal with racial issues, economic concerns are focused as well As racial conflicts often broke out in ghettos before and after 1990 when multiculturalism was gaining power in theory and practice, the contradiction between ideology and reality was acutely sensed Thus, at first, I will delve into the history, development and features of multiculturalism and ghettos Examination of ideology of multiculturalism and the reality of inner city ghettos will provide the foundation to discuss the film and the rap in terms of material and idealistic perspectives II Contradiction between Multiculturalism and the Reality of Urban Ghettos Multiculturalism addresses theory, values, strategies, and attitudes which recognize and respect the differences among people in terms of race, ethnicity, culture, gender, and sexual orientation These principles are incompatible with the troubles from which the ghettos suffer To comprehend the context in which narratives of and “Black Korea” are situated understanding the formation, Hyunjoo Ki development, and features of multiculturalism and ghettos is required Multiculturalism has always existed in U.S society; however, the dominant European culture, which has been most valued and standard, has oppressed and excluded different cultures Racial minorities have been expelled, excluded or exterminated through history In addition, they were forced to integrate into the mainstream society by discarding their own cultures, languages and customs In particular, the increase of migrant people after the World War II accelerated the debate about assimilation and integration of racial minorities Since the emergence of multiculturalism in the 1970s, the US has advocated recognizing and respecting other people sublating formulation of the US as a melting pot Although democratic integration and cultural plurality were valued as tenets of multiculturalism, its discourses have become complex and contradictory along with different perspectives within its theory Theories and discussions related to multiculturalism after the 1990s become complex and subdivided into several categories According to Joe Kincheloe and Shirley Steinberg, there have been several theories within multiculturalism: conservative, liberal, pluralist, left-essentialist, and critical multiculturalism(1-26) Although each branch of the theory has differences in its ideas, the debate about the recognition of and respect for diversity is liable to be circumscribed in a cultural region Liberal multiculturalism, called “benevolent multiculturalism” by Barry Troyna(qtd in May & Sleeter 7), focuses on natural equality and a common humanity which diverse individuals in terms of race, class, and gender share While the liberal version of multiculturalism pursues equal rights of individuals on the basis of common humanity, it has a tendency to neglect material inequality and power relations among ethnic or racial groups Leading Asian American literary and cultural critic Lisa Lowe vehemently criticizes Multiculturalism, Ghetto and Racial Conflicts in Pop Culture that multiculturalism leveling the important differences and contradictions within and among racial and ethnic minority groups exacerbates "a contradiction between the concentration of capital within a dominant class group and the unattended conditions of a working class increasingly made up of heterogeneous immigrant, racial, and ethnic groups" (28) Accordingly, Lowe claims that multiculturalism is utilized to maintain the present hegemony and status quo in the matter of economic inequality intersected with race, gender, and ethnicity Simply put, accepting a condescending coexistence of diverse culture multiculturalism underpins and hardens the unequal power relation and economic inequalities already structured On the other hand, critical multiculturalism mainly concentrates on class intersected with race, gender, and other axes of power Further, it pays attention to “the way power shapes consciousness” (Kincheloe & Steinberg 25) Specifically, it involves the construction of individual political perspectives, socio-economic class roles, racial stereotypes, and gender roles in accordance with power and fosters social justice and egalitarian democracy Even though critical multiculturalism investigates racism and inequality present in the society, it centers not on its “actual application” but on “the theoretical parameters” (May & Steer 12) Institutions or schools thus tend to work with liberal multiculturalism rather than critical multiculturalism Although critical multiculturalism is theoretically desirable it is hard to put it in practice Moreover, when multiculturalism is discussed in general, it tends to denote liberal multiculturalism Since the mid-1990s, multiculturalism has retreated because of mainstream society's fear of cultural diversity threatening their lifestyle(Kymlicka 32) Especially, a series of events since 9/11 provide critics of multiculturalism with excuses to backlash against and retreat fully from it They especially criticized that liberal ideology embracing multiculturalism created the Hyunjoo Ki social environment in which dangerous Islamic terrorism would thrive(Vertovec 1) Due to this atmosphere, a British newspaper even announced that “multiculturalism is dead”(Vertovec 1) In the US, after 9/11, the clash of civilization advocated by Samuel Huntington sounds valid (Palumbo-Liu 118) Huntington claims that the conflict which will sweep the world will be caused not by ideologies or competition among nations but by clashes of civilization(Liu 118) On the contrary, Will Kymlicka, Steven Vertovec, and Susanne Vessendorf maintain that narratives concerning a retreat from multiculturalism are exaggerated or that using the term multiculturalism was avoided It means that the value of multiculturalism is still valid for an egalitarian society Although discourse of multiculturalism has lessened since the mid-1990s(Kymlicka 32), it was strengthening its power in the later 1980s and the early 1990s Contradictorily, during this period racial conflicts were exacerbating in inner city ghettos Thus, these urban ghettos became the very places where the ideals of multiculturalism debunk their myth Actually the movie and the rap "Black Korea" respectively are set in urban ghettos While the film portrays black residents’ lives along with racial conflicts that happened in Bed-Stuy in New York, the rap song is concerned with an accident that happened in a black community Inner cities including Bed Stuy and Compton are ones where the poverty stricken underclass blacks, Latino Americans, Asian Americans and other races and ethnicities live together On the surface these inner cities are multicultural; on the other hand these places are charged with tensions among different races and ethnicities These conflicts are also inextricably related to the economic and social condition constructed through discriminatory and exploitative history Originally, US ghettos were formed and developed from residential Multiculturalism, Ghetto and Racial Conflicts in Pop Culture segregation resulting from institutional racial discrimination in relation with immigration and internal urban migration According to a politician and educator Allan Spear, black enclaves have emerged in northern cities such as New York, Chicago, and Washington, since the pre-World War One years as a result of ideological racism and profound class tensions(166) In these ghettos which are political, social, educational and economic colonies, mostly African Americans have suffered from dilapidated houses, social and educational discrimination, and isolation from mainstream society Sociologist Robert Blauner maintains that the dominant want to bring non-white people for developing the economy but to prevent the social problems of blacks from spilling over their boundaries It is up to the ghetto to solve this dilemma (Blauner 32) A ghetto under the control of the dominant group provides labor that is needed and yet it is separated from the mainstream society and contains blacks' resentment and hostility resulting from economic devastation and deprivation within the ghetto's limited space Further, transformations of economic structures and demography have affected the formation of population in the entire nation, specifically in inner city ghettos The once thriving northern cities have witnessed shifts with the movement of middle class whites and other businesses to the suburbs since World War II While white people got out of inner cities to the suburbs, the underclass blacks were not able to move out of ghettos Particularly during the 1970s and the 1980s, as Sharon Zukin denotes, "Not only have social services been drastically reduced, punitive and other social controls over the poor have been increased" (514) Political and legal oppression resulted in deterioration in ghettos Additionally, anti-discrimination policies coming from the civil rights movement granted the black middle class means to escape from the ghetto Ghettos have been Hyunjoo Ki impoverished and afflicted with social problems of poor blacks due to deindustrialization of inner cities and movement of middle class whites and blacks as well Especially immigrants from African, South American and Asian countries have contributed to the heterogeneity of the ghetto In ghettos already structured for the advantages of hegemonic ideology and the dominant class, racial minorities with diverse skin color and cultural background have to coexist uncomfortably Besides, the fact that US society is structured unequally along the line of race and class signifies that the possibility of racial conflicts is implied in the space of the ghetto The 1992 LA Riots, the most destructive incident relating to racial minorities in US history, bring those issues to light Although structural problems of the ghettos played the important role to cause the Riots, racial and cultural differences are much emphasized Ghettos are not geological entities naturally formed by poor families and individuals but are systematic forms constructed from racial control This confused place charged with high rates of crime, violence, drug trafficking and use, and other social problems has the possibility to explode because of an uneasy coexistence of different groups in terms of race, culture and class Racial minority literature and culture demystify the pluralism or multiculturalism by uncovering the reality which the ghetto confronts Whereas portrays Bed-Stuy in New York, the rap “Black Korea” is set in Compton in LA Residents of Bed Stuy are mostly blacks along with whites, Hispanic and Asians Compton, located in southern Los Angeles, is one of those areas where poor African Americans and Latino Americans converge Both and the rap song "Black Korea" are concerned with racial relations in inner city ghettos These impoverished areas are the Multiculturalism, Ghetto and Racial Conflicts in Pop Culture very places where diverse people mix with each other Put simply, both Bed-Stuy and Compton are multiracial and multicultural society Whites, Puerto Ricans, Koreans and blacks are intertwined, affecting each other on different social and economic levels Furthermore, it is the colonial history embedded in inner cities that the racial and economic problems of Bed-Stuy and Compton become entangled Historically whites have assigned people of color to their 'appropriate' places and maintained this system through ideological devices based on 'difference' in order to perpetuate their position as the dominant group Under this oppressive system, black people's pain, anger and frustration have accumulated and exploded whenever pungent issues rekindle their rage As the Watts riots in 1965, Red Apple boycott in 1990, Crown Heights riots in 1991 and the LA riots in 1992 demonstrate, racial minorities targeted not only whites but other racial groups in these mayhems Cultural arts including Lee’s films and gangsta raps produced during those racially turbulent years confront the dominant ideology which represents racial conflicts as cultural ones Each work contextualizes urban matters with more complex and complicated views III Demystifying Multiculturalism/ Cacophonous Voices In , the two crucial factors determining the residents’ present lives are stressed throughout the film That is, blacks’ antagonistic relationships with other races and the declining economy Although the economic situation of the ghetto and the conflicts among people are separate entities, these elements are intertwined affecting everyone whether they are whites, blacks, Hyunjoo Ki 10 Latinos, or Asians On the surface, however, racial issues are the most significant factor which determines the condition of the ghetto The problems concerning race connotes that there is the system of binary opposition on which people depend on People dichotomize themselves into self and other when they confront with each other On the other hand there are diverse voices in the film including the economic condition of the ghetto and different values and ideologies present within the black community These different thoughts and attitudes rather than a monolithic voice propose the ideas of juxtaposition and coexistence At first, the major narratives of the movie develop centering on the clashes among different races Under political, economic and social restrictions, the uneasiness and strain among peoples in terms of race and class have been aggregated The movie is saturated with a lot of verbal altercations, bickering, disputes, hassles, or squabbles until the community gets swept into the riots after the young black guy Radio Raheem is killed by police brutality As bell hooks criticizes, “the movie graphically portrays the racism” (83) From the disputes between Sal and his customers consisting of blacks and Latinos, to ones between Korean merchants and Radio Raheem who asks for Energizers and language skill, and to the brawl between Buggin Out and Clifton, the yuppie owner of a brownstone who steps on Buggin Out’s sneakers, characters consistently get involved in big or small fights even though they not become violent except for between Sal and black residents These quarrels among people put emphasis on their differences in terms of race and culture These dissensions are epitomized through the scene in which Lee interrupts his narrative and makes his characters look directly into the camera to blurt out racial slurs Their curses consist of Hyunjoo Ki 12 black people experience In the movie, most of the black residents are unemployed and they spend their time hanging out in Sal’s pizza house, wandering around in groups without any purpose, or chatting with each other on the street In fact, Lee emphasizes the fact that black people are working: “In this script I want to show the black working class Contrary to popular belief, we work No welfare rolls here, pal, just hardworking people trying to make a decent living”(qtd in Kellner 90) In contrast with his assertion, most blacks in the film just spend their time without working except the disc jockey, Mookie and some black policemen Further, there is no profound exploration of blacks’ living and working condition as Catherine Pouzoulet indicates, maintaining that there is no “drug use, street gangs, local hoodlums, drug dealers” in Lee’s movie(34) The movie stresses black people’s problems displaying unemployed people instead of crimes and violence The two major businesses in Bed-Stuy are owned respectively by an Italian American and Korean merchants Blacks deprived of economic rights under the discriminating system express their hostility and resentment toward people who own businesses in this black community The wall of fame is a significant spot which epitomizes the black community’s frustration over the fact that they cannot put up pictures of their heroes although they are proud of those figures At this point, what Sal advocates sounds valid in the relation to the entire story which focuses on blacks’ economic constraints When Buggin Out demands that Sal put up the pictures of black leaders since he operates his business in the black community, Sal advocates his right: “You want brothers up on the/ Wall of Fame, you open up your/ own business, then you can do/ what you wanna My pizzeria,/ Italian-Americans up on the wall” (141) Multiculturalism, Ghetto and Racial Conflicts in Pop Culture 13 He considers his store as his private property On the other hand, it reinforces the deprived economic opportunity of blacks who cannot afford to open businesses in their own community Koreans especially are objects of the anger and jealousy of most residents Blacks feel that they have been disadvantaged economically under a discriminating system and their feeling of loss is highlighted by Koreans who are able to open their own businesses not long after they immigrated to the US As a “chorus” (Pouzoulet 35), the three corner men who are always chatting on the street reveal how black people perceive Korean shops in their neighborhood: "[A] motherfucking year off the/ motherfucking boat and got a/ good business in our neighborhood" (174) Of the three men, ML’s speech about Koreans is filled with resentment and bitterness over the fact that while Koreans increase their profits running their business in this black neighborhood, black people not have any financial power to start their own businesses Under this economic structure, the relationships among racial minorities become detrimental While the film addresses economic problems of the ghetto foregrounding racial contentions, it introduces the possibility of the coexistence of diverse racial groups through ‘polyphonic voices.’ There is no dominant or monolithic sound aiming at preexisting socio-ideological reality and truth Rather, there are cacophonous and even antithetical ones These articulations not signify authoritative admonition or order, but their mixed voices exist as heterogeneous and discordant ones Especially the relationship between Sal and the black community cannot be defined in a dualistic perspective As Robert Stam points out, there are both “tensions and affinities”(267) in Mookie’s relationship with Sal Even for Mookie, who is an employee of the pizzeria, Sal represents not only a capitalist who is in the upper status of Bed-Stuy’s economic Hyunjoo Ki 14 order but also a fatherly figure Actually, Mookie mediates the diverse and different voices arising from heterogeneous and irreconcilable cultures He does not choose one culture nor unify them He just navigates the divergent cultures and societies The values or ideologies which represent black community are also contradictory or opposing with each other Pictures of smiling Malcolm X and Martin Luther King which Smiley with cerebral palsy sells to Bed-Stuy neighbors epitomize the irreconcilable discourses the two leaders pursued The two iconic figures have devoted their lives for the rights of blacks but their lines were antithetical Martin Luther King followed “the ethics of the reform”; on the other hand Malcolm X incorporated “the ethics of the revolution” (McKelly 61) The movie does not attempt to emphasize either ideology nor unify them Accordingly, the ideological tensions generated by the picture of the two leaders add to the divergent voices in Bed Stuy Lee does not provide any solution to the troubles of the ghetto The film highlights the conflict itself rather than harmonious relationships or building coalition bell hooks criticizes that Lee does not explore the possibility of alliance among different races According to her, it takes coalition in order to resist against racism and other forms of domination: “Combating racism and other forms of domination will require that black people develop solidarity with folks unlike ourselves who share similar political commitments”(183) Lee, however, suggests that the formation of a multicultural society can be started by looking squarely at a crack or chasm that exists in the community By contemplating the reasons of the disharmony, the audience can figure out the conditions that are obstacles for the building of a coalition of different people, and, further, they can imagine the space of harmony at the site of rupture of Multiculturalism, Ghetto and Racial Conflicts in Pop Culture 15 multiculturalism Furthermore, the film reinforces ‘multivalence’ or ambiguity existing between dualistic discourses, ideologies or cultural articulations It does not allow a distinct ideology to dominate other ones It lets different and opposing voices be heard everywhere In so doing, the film imagines the possibility of juxtaposition of conflicting values, ideologies, attitudes, and cultural representations IV Between Empowerment and Conflict offers a vision for a multicultural space by letting cacophonous voices be hard; on the other hand, Ice Cube’s “Black Korea” proposes comparatively monolithic perspectives concerning the racial conflict Portraying the antagonistic relationship between blacks and Korean American merchants, this song depicts Koreans as targets of blacks’ threats Specifically, the song refers to the incident in which a fifteen-year-old African American girl, Latasha Harlins, was killed.1) Based on the accident the song centers on the site where the two racial groups entangle The 1) In 1991, Harlins went to a Korean owned liquor shop After she put a bottle of orange juice in her backpack, she approached the counter Soon Ja Du, the proprietor of the shop, watched her through a surveillance camera and suspected that she had stolen the orange juice Responding aggressively to Du’s accusation, Harlins had a verbal altercation and physical fighting with her Finally, Du shot and killed Harlins, who had turned to leave the store In the trial, Du was found guilty but was given the sentence of a five-hundred dollar fine, probation, and community service The black community was agitated outrageously with this incident and remarkably lenient sentence by the court Black artists including film makers and rappers also represent black-Korean’s contentions including the accident in their works Rappers mention the incident in their songs including Ice Cube’s “Black Korea.” Hip hop artist Tupac Shakur also released a song entitled “Keep Ya Head Up.” It is dedicated to Latasha Harlins(“Death of Latasha Harlins”) Hyunjoo Ki 16 narrator of the rap is an African American who expresses his anger and contempt toward Asian merchants In so doing, the song embodies the confrontation of different people in terms of race and class Basically, providing critical commentary on racial and social issues of the US, young black rap musicians express their experiences and feeling acquired in the ghettos As Tricia Rose asserts, rap music comments on and challenges the powerful regarding racial and class inequalities using disguised cultural code: “[A] large and significant element in rap’s discursive territory is engaged in symbolic and ideological warfare with institutions and groups that symbolically, ideologically, and materially oppress African Americans”(100-101) Therefore, institutions and systems which perpetuate unequal power relations become targets of rap Even rap music plays a role as ‘a media outlet’ for young blacks and Latinos as Ice Cube asserts(Choe) Accordingly, rap signifies not only an art form but also a crucial instrument for urban blacks and Latinos in ghettos through which they can communicate Actually, rap music was created in the urban environment in which young blacks and Latinos were confined psychologically and materially Along with other fields of hip hop like graffiti and breakdancing, rap started as apolitical party music, and has become a major cultural form for African Americans and Latino Americans Defined as “a form of rhymed storytelling accompanied by highly rhythmic, electronically based music” (Rose 2), rap music originated in the late 1970s in the South Bronx, New York, which had been hit hard by economic decline and conservative politics Due to postindustrialization and globalization, people of color who used to work in industrial fields became unemployed and young people did not have a chance to get jobs Besides, the government’s conservative politics trapped lower class African Americans in ghettos Socially Multiculturalism, Ghetto and Racial Conflicts in Pop Culture 17 alienated and marginalized in ghettos young black people channeled their pain and unfulfilled desire and stifled resentment through the innovative cultural form hip hop Although rap music became commercialized more than a decade after its birth with huge popularity especially among teens, gangsta rap, a new sub-genre of hip hop music emerged on the west coast in the late 1980s sticking to the original hip hop resistant spirit Los Angeles rappers from Watts and Compton, which were impoverished and devastated by the postindustrial economic redistribution, developed gangsta rap The genre was popularized in the late 1980s by groups like N.W.A (Niggaz With Attitude), whose debut album was called Straight Outta Compton N.W.A especially deals with radical political messages and is criticized by many for being misogynist and glorifying drugs and crime One of its representative songs is "Fuck Tha Police" which expresses blacks' infuriation toward racial discrimination and the police's inhuman treatment toward blacks Some lines in the song directly refer to the murder of police officers by blacks The lyrics were so controversial that even the FBI sent a letter to warn NWA concerning the violent content of the song(Canton 245) Like other raps, especially gangsta rap which repudiates the hegemonic group, Ice Cube’s “Black Korea” also excoriates for Korean shop owners in blatant expletives and threats Released after Ice Cube left N.W.A., “Black Korea” addresses the turbulent relationship between blacks and Koreans From the start, organized as an aggressive verbal address to Korean shop owners, “Black Korea” speaks on behalf of a poor black community In the narration, a Korean merchant is objectified as the person who humiliates and suspects black customers In the shop, the narrator’s movement is checked by “the two ‘oriental one-penny countin motherfuckers.” Hyunjoo Ki 18 Portrayed as a money-crazed person the Korean merchant seems to be afraid that black might take out his gun and rob the little store: ”They hope I don't pull out a gat and try to rob/ they funky little store, but bitch, I got a job.” Sensing the Korean clerk’s fear and suspicion the narrator scores sharply remarking “I got a job.” In fact Korean immigrant merchants’ fear of blacks reflects the reality of urban ghetto According to Eithne Quinn, by 1989 36.7 percent of blacks’ wages was at or less than the poverty level(43) Moreover, the crime rate of blacks were increasing In 1990, 33 percent of black males in California are related with the three P’s: “parole, probation, or prison” (Quinn 47) Along with the reality of urban black youth, their mutual images blacks and Asians depicted in the song are constructed following the dominant ideology which has been disseminated by the media Many people believe that the Du’s murder of Harlins was one of the major elements which incited the LA riots Although the riots were triggered by the acquittal of police officers involved in beating Rodney King, the video captured in Soon Ja Du’s store was repeatedly broadcasted along with the video of Rodney King’s beating As a result, the incident that happened in Du’s store became “an emblem of black-Korean conflict,” foregrounding Korean Americans as the riots’ instigators and villains(Chang 163) In addition, the narration mirrors the media’s representation of racial minorities and their conflicts Images of blacks and Asians are constructed reflecting the media When they meet, the prejudices or images concerning each counterpart operate in their attitude and behavior toward each other Koreans are suspicious about the blacks and they have to surveil them Black people also are infuriated about the fact that Korean merchants look at them as criminals The song focuses only on money grubbing entrepreneurs exploiting Multiculturalism, Ghetto and Racial Conflicts in Pop Culture 19 poverty-stricken areas Further, they consider Koreans as people who take advantage of the poor black neighborhood like whites who have discriminated and exploited blacks through history Basically, blacks’ perspectives from which they look at Asian Americans are constructed on binary opposition According to the value system which they have been indoctrinated, their opponents are people who are ‘not blacks.’ To them, Asians are ‘ones who replace whites’ position The narration does not demonstrate that blacks extend their understanding enough to look at the fact that Korean Americans have experienced different forms of disempowerment in the US Finally, the black narrator becomes aggressive and intimates that they will boycott and even burn the market down if Koreans not respect black people So don’t follow me, up and down your market/ Or your little chop suey ass’ll be a target/ of the nationwide boycott/ Juice with the people, that’s what the boy got/ so pay respect to the black fist/ or we’ll burn your store, right down to a crisp/ And then we’ll see ya!/ Cause you can’t turn the ghetto—into Black Korea In general, the police, government, and dominant media are the major targets of rap (Rose 105) Rap music usually comments on and challenges the powerful In “Black Korea,” however, there is no white who usually represents the power Instead, Koreans are the very object of blacks’ threat As blacks empower themselves by challenging and threatening the powerful whites through raps, the black narrator in “Black Korea” does the same to the Korean shop owner The narrator warns that he will destroy Korean shop if the owner doesn’t esteem blacks Jeff Chang asserts that “Black Korea” is a cultural expression of Hyunjoo Ki 20 blacks’ animosity toward the dominant group According to him, however, if black people’s anger is examined from the perspective of the “white-black racial axis,” the Korean American community is ignored He maintains that “the hierarchy of socio-political power in the U.S places whites on top, African Americans far below, and Asian Americans still below them,” describing Korean Americans as the middleman position Although the middleman concept is a useful tool to understand the role of Korean merchants, the socio-economic situation of ghettos like Compton is too complicated to be examined by it As Jeff Chang rightly claims, ‘white-black racial axis’ obscure the Asian Americans in the ghetto Besides, while “Black Korea” empowers underprivileged blacks confined in the ghetto, it put Korean merchants on the position which used to be for the whites In so doing it ignores the dominant which played a crucial role in the construction of the urban ghetto Moreover the song stimulates the antagonisms between racial minorities who have been disempowered through history V Conclusion and “Black Korea” were released before the 1992 LA riots erupted Responding to the racial conflicts which happened in the ghettos these cultural articulations unsettle the multicultural discourse that African, Asian, and Latino Americans are equal others and their harmonious coexistence and juxtaposition are achieved in the US society The narratives of multiculturalism contradict with the profound and urgent gaps and tensions among racial and immigrant groups which are explored in the film and the Multiculturalism, Ghetto and Racial Conflicts in Pop Culture 21 rap Accordingly, they intensify the fictiveness of multiculturalism The film and the rap produced by black artists focus on the acute racial issues of the late 1980s and the early 1990s Centering on the collisions among different races, the film and the song unveil the economic structure and social problems sedimented and complicated through the history of the inner city ghettos Although the film centers on the racial tensions, it offers a positive vision for the multicultural space through its aesthetics There are no dominant ideas or values Rather, there are ambivalent and cacophonous voices in Bed-Stuy community Like multicultural discourse embracing various positions and rejecting unilateral one, unsettle monolithic perspectives On the other hand, “Black Korea” seems to take a binary opposition frame when it portrays a black narrator and a Korean shopper defining Asians as “other.” According to Will Kymlicka, we are in a “post-multicultural era”(32) Although the discourse of multiculturalism experienced “rise and fall” and retreat, Kymlicka claims that the ideals of multiculturalism remains salient(42) In addition, multiculturalism does not tend to be concerned with exclusively domestic matters Palumbo-Liu proposes “progressive humanism” to avoid “the dangers of narrow civilizational thinking”(126) According to him, it is necessary that multiculturalism should go beyond the boundaries of a certain nation At this moment when ideals of multiculturalism are evolving, the discussion of and “Black Korea” is profitable because it provides us with a chance to meditate on the past which forms and solidifies the foundation of the current racial problems of the US (Sejong University) Hyunjoo Ki 22 Works Cited Blauner, Robert Racial Oppression in America NY: Harper & Row 1972 Chang, Jeff “Race, Class, Conflict, and Empowerment: On Ice Cube’s ‘Black Korea’.” Amerasia Journal 19.2 (1993): 87-107 Choe, Anthony “Ice Cube’s ‘Black Korea’: Racially-Charged Rap.” Yisei 5.2(1992): Cooper, Brenda “’The White-Black Fault Line’: Relevancy of Race and Racism in Spectators’ Experiences of Spike Lee’s .” The Howard Journal of Communications (1998): 205-28 “Death of Latasha Harlins.” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia Wikimedia Foundation, Inc 22 July 2004 Web April 2014 Hooks, Bell Yearning: Race, Gender, and Cultural Politics Boston: South End P, 1990 Hutchison, Ray & Bruce D Haynes The Ghetto: Contemporary Global Issues and Controversies Boulder, Colorado: Westview P, 2012 Jeffries, Michael Thug Life: Race, Gender and the Meaning of Hip Hop U of Chicago P, 2011 Kim, Claire Jean Bitter Fruit: The Politics of Black-Korean Conflict in New York City New Haven: Yale UP, 2000 Kellner, Douglas "Aesthetics, Ethics, and Politics in the Films of Spike Lee." Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing Ed Mark A Reid Cambridge UP, 1997 73-106 Multiculturalism, Ghetto and Racial Conflicts in Pop Culture 23 Kincheloe, Joe & Shirley Steinberg Changing Multiculturalism Philadelphia: Open UP, 1997 Kymlicka, Will “The Rise and Fall of Multiculturalism?: New Debates on Inclusion and Accommodation in Diverse Societies Eds Steven Vertovec & Susanne Wessendorf The Multiculturalism Backlash Routledge, 2010 32-49 Lee, Spike with Lisa Jones Do the Right Thing NY: Fireside, 1989 Lowe, Lisa Immigrant Acts: On Asian American Cultural Politics Duke UP, 1996 May, Stephen & Christine E Sleeter Eds Critical Multiculturalism: Theory and Praxis Routledge, 2010 McKelly, James “The Double Truth, Ruth: and the Culture of Ambiguity.” Ed Paula J Massood The Spike Lee Reader Temple UP, 2007 Palumbo-Liu, David “Multiculturalism Now: Civilization, National Identity, and Difference Before and After September 11th.” Boundary 29.2(2002): 109-127 Pouzoulet, Catherine “The Cinema of Spike Lee: Images of a Mosaic City.” Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing Ed Mark A Reid Cambridge UP, 1997 31-49 Quinn, Eithne Nuthin’ But a “G” Thang: The Culture and Commerce of Gangsta Rap Columbia UP, 2004 Reid, Mark Ed Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing New York: Cambridge UP, 1997 Rose, Tricia Black Noise: Rap Music and Black Culture in Contemporary America Middletown, Connecticut: Wesleyan UP, 1994 Spear, Allan “The Origins of the Urban Ghetto 1870-1915.” Key Issues in the Afro-American Experience Eds Nathan Huggins, Marin Kilson, and Daniel Fox New York: Harcourt, 1971 153-166 Hyunjoo Ki 24 Stam, Robert “Bakhtin, Polyphony, and Ethnic/Racial Representation.” Unspeakable Images: Ethnicity and the American Cinema Ed Lester D Friedman U of Illinois P, 1991 251-276 Vertovec, Steven & Susanne Wessendorf “Introduction: Assessing the Backlash Against Multiculturalism in Europe.” Eds Steven Vertovec & Susanne Wessendorf The Multiculturalism Backlah: European Discourses, Policies and Practices Routledge, 2010 1-31 Zukin, Sharon “How ‘Bad’ Is it?: Institutions and Intentions in the Study of the American Ghetto.” International Journal or Urban and Regional Research 22.3 (2002): 511-20 Multiculturalism, Ghetto and Racial Conflicts in Pop Culture 25 Abstract Multiculturalism, Ghetto and Racial Conflicts in Pop Culture2) Hyunjoo Ki (Sejong University) Multicultural theories fully fledged around the 1980s and the early 1990s Emerging in the 1960s thanks to the Civil Rights movement, multiculturalism has become the grand American national narratives, whose tenets recognize and respect people with diverse racial and cultural backgrounds This period, however, witnessed the eruption of violent and destructive rebellions or uprisings involving racial minorities Racial conflicts and tensions exploded at the moment when multiculturalism was widely practiced in areas including education and public policy revealing that complicated problems are embedded in the urban ghettos American popular culture, specifically addresses antagonisms among different races or ethnicities in Bed-Stuy in New York Although the film is mainly concerned with the collision among races, it lets ambivalent and cacophonous values and ideologies be present in the black community On the other hand, Ice Cube’s “Black Korea” empowers the black community when it deals with the turbulent relationship between black residents and Korean American merchants Simultaneously, it denigrates Korean Americans as gasta raps often target the 2) This work was supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea Grant funded by the Korean Government(NRF-2010-327-A00484) Hyunjoo Ki 26 institution like government or police In short, while attempts to search the ideas of coexistence and juxtaposition through polyphonic features embodied in the film “Black Korea” seems to depend on the dualistic system when it deals with the black-Korean conflicts and as a result it just reveals the chasm between two communities Key words: Multiculturalism, ghettos, racial conflicts, cultural difference, economic structure, , “Black Korea”, coexistence 논문접수일 2014년 3월 27일 심사완료일 2014년 4월 12일 게재확정일 2014년 4월 18일