Also, I am rereleasing the final cut version (as we were rushed for the 4/29 deadline on Twitter right here, so that people can use it for reference. In case you wanted to watch it all at once and not in 140 second bites, the full video is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNSLY-hMnsU…

The George Floyd 2020 protests revived the debate of rioting and its place in civil discourse, and false narratives of the LA Riots from both the left and the right attempted to write the story of the Rooftop Koreans for their own agendas.

Koreans settled in Koreatown during the 1930s as Korean liberation leaders moved their headquarters from SF to Los Angeles. It wasn't until after Hart Celler in 1965 they would come en masse, and after a real estate downturn, Korean immigrants found it attractive to settle.

Koreatown is located 10-15 miles above South Central. Some Korean store owners set up shop in South Central, not for exploitive reasons or with loans from white banks, but from community fund pooling and buying from black business owners.

Running a store in South Central during the late 1980s/early 1990s was a horrific experience, no matter what ethnicity you were. Overall violent crime rates were 3-4x what they are today in Los Angeles, and small business owners were frequent targets for violence and looting.

The Korean American community, while some sympathized with Du and others distanced themselves entirely, never petitioned for light sentencing for Du, court records show. Du's lawyer, a black man, petitioned for a light sentence from the Judge Joyce Karlins, a white woman.

A precursor to the smartphone sparking BLM, an amateur videographer caught the Rodney King arrest on videotape, sparking a nationwide story of ironclad proof of police brutality. Mainstream media would then act to juxtapose the event with the Latasha Harlins murder.

Mainstream black media took cues from white media in attempting to scapegoat the Korean American community for the Rodney King events. For an entire year, the black community was told to get angry and prepare to loot and arson Korean American businesses for retaliation.

Immediately after the Rodney King verdict was read in Simi Valley, a northern part of the city, violence started to erupt in South Central. An assault on the first day of the riots saw nearly every Korean American liquor store in South Central destroyed, as if it was planned.

On the night of the 29th, the Koreatown community realized that the LAPD were not going to come to their aid and that Koreatown was in danger of annihilation. With Radio Korea as a command center, they quickly organized defenses for Koreatown for the coming mobs out for blood.

On 4/30, a war zone broke out in Koreatown. But since most Korean immigrants had forced military training, they were skilled enough to shoot to ward off, not kill looters. Only one Korean American was recorded to have been killed in Koreatown, Eddie Lee, due to friendly fire.

The aftermath for the Koreatown community was total devastation. Already a low income neighborhood, they suffered almost half of the total damage of the entire riots, around $400m in 1992 dollars. Many people lost their entire livelihoods and were forced to move elsewhere.

The LA community never apologized to the Korean American community for their actions during the LA Riots. In fact, current mayor Karen Bass (@Karen Bass) called it a "miracle" that Korean liquor stores had all been burned down as a result, opportunistically for political clout.

With the exception of the Watts Uprising, nothing seemed to come out of the LA Riots and the George Floyd Protests for the black community, except for black LA city officials, media spokespeople and BLM leadership for Netflix deals. Why are we repeating the same mistakes?

The Korean American youth should inform themselves of what really happened during the LA Riots, or they are bound to absorb narratives that make the Korean American community out to be the scapegoat, instead of the actual victims of the riots.