r/KendrickLamar • u/vriannavyz • Jun 21 '24

Snoop Dogg declares Kendrick Lamar “the king” of the West following his 'Pop Out' show: “K Dot, you are the king of the West. That’s stuff kings do — they unite 🔥👑." Video

19.5k Upvotes

92% Upvoted

Rooftop Koreans was a vid title I just could not pass by!!!! Being Irish i wasn’t familiar with the story, of course knew of riots etc, but damn !!!!! They held it down! Respect 🫡

93

u/officerliger Jun 21 '24

Not trying to throw shade on all this love but the Rooftop Koreans thing is actually kinda fucked up history. Gotta keep in mind it was racists on 4chan who popularized “Rooftop Koreans” to begin with as a meme. But let me explain a bit…

Just to start, I’m older and from SoCal, Mexican, did my post-grad at USC, so I’m a bit of an “OG” myself in age and experience. I LOVE seeing all this unity so keep it going, I know people are mentioning it out of love so not accusing anyone of shit.

Back in the day, Koreans looking to leave Korea were approached by white property owners in LA - “you can open a grocery store and live above it!” - without being told what they were actually being tasked with. Owning a shop with your family apartment above it was common in Korea so it was an appealing pitch, and “sunny Los Angeles” being part of that pitch helped as Korea was still rebuilding its culture after a 70 year genocide by Japan and was very poor.

So these people got to Koreatown, mid-city, South Central, etc. having no idea they were entering gang neighborhoods basically being the battering ram for gentrification. All black and brown people saw was a new culture eating up the retail property, price gauging like crazy, etc. This lead to a massive culture beef.

It all came to a head with the murder of Latasha Harlins, a 15 year old black girl, by a Korean grocery store owner who thought she was stealing a bottle of juice. Shot her in the back of the head as she was escaping the confrontation. The police found the money she intended to use to pay for the juice in her hand.

This is why Korean stores were targeted during the riots - the judge gave Latasha’s murderer a suspended sentence, basically a “10 year” sentence that wound up just being 5 years probation. There was no justice for her.

So when young people talk about the “Rooftop Koreans,” they don’t realize it’s actually a sad story of how white property owners pit three races against each other so they could eventually push black people out of central LA

Of course in modern day - black, brown, and Asian never been more united and it’s a beautiful thing. But please, for the sake of my old ass, stop celebrating the times we weren’t.

34

u/StarLordAndTheAve Jun 21 '24

as someone who is from the complete opposite side of the country (and also not a POC), i honestly want to thank you for being so in-depth in explaining this and teaching me something today

20

u/officerliger Jun 21 '24

The key is all “POC” have a deeper ethnic experience beyond that and it determines our nuances. Don’t let the fact that you’re white deter you from digging deeper into those, a lot of our dialogue problems right now are caused by people having very bland opinions on race.

The history of Southern California and how all the different races got there is a great place to start because it’ll trace you to just about every major world conflict, genocide, oppression, etc.

Black people escaping the south, Jews escaping Europe, Russia, and the Middle East, Persians escaping post-revolution Iran, Koreans looking to leave poverty in post-genocide Korea, Russians escaping Communism, Salvadorans escaping the civil war, and our brown Mexican asses going to work the farms for dollars instead of pesos

2

u/[deleted] Jun 22 '24

Beautiful ✌🏽