Korean merchants in the black community: Prejudice among the victims of prejudice

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Abstract
The Korean‐black conflict in the black community in Philadelphia, PA, where Korean merchants are actively engaged in small businesses, is examined on the basis of interviews with community leaders and merchants and data from secondary sources. Manifest sources of conflict between these two minority groups stemming from cultural misunderstanding, communication problems, economic competition, and structural changes due to the settlement of a large number of Koreans in the black community are explored, and deeper sources are examined, originating from a historical prejudice on the part of Koreans; Koreans’ status anxiety arising from incongruence between their previous status and their current one; Blacks’ experience with non‐black shop owners or exploiters in the past; and Blacks’ feeling of powerlessness in stopping the influx of both whites and Asian groups into their community. All these sources of conflict may have developed independently before Koreans and Blacks came into contact, and their resolution thus requires an understanding of deeply rooted sources of conflict that include not only those caused by structural change but also those resulting from historical and psychological dimensions of intergroup relations.

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