6-9-25

I’m about to tell you a great story…..one of those urban legends that is actually

fact…..a story about real folks doing real things during really bad times……so sit

back and listen in amazement as I tell you the story of the Rooftop Koreans…..

If you’ve watched the news for any length of time over the past 48 hours you may

have been as shocked and maddened as I was to see video of law enforcement

being assaulted…..vehicles burned…..rioting and looting….and the flags of foreign

countries being waved over it all…..and this is not in the streets of Gaza…..this is

not some third world tinpot government facing an uprising of the masses…..this is

Los Angeles, California…..and the angst on the streets is literally protesting against

illegal aliens being deported…..added to the fray is the fact that liberal officials

have been making this whole situation worse…..Gavin Newsom is challenging

Tom Homan to come arrest him….LA Mayor Bass is once again decrying the idea

of law and order and refusing to cooperate with federal authorities……the City of

Glendale just canceled its ICE agreement overnight in an act of appeasement to

the rabble in the streets…..Maxine Waters went out to the protests and yelled

insults at police and dared them to shoot her…..and none other than Presidential

wanna-be Vice-Liar in Chief Kamala Harris issued a written statement in favor of

the “largely peaceful protests” and encouraged it to continue…..and once again,

with feckless, reckless and respectless elected leaders the golden state catches

fire……

But this isn’t the first time……California, and LA in particular, have been the scene

of epic events of civil unrest…..and I don’t mean just people expressing their

views…..I’m talking about riots….destructive riots…..the kind where property is

destroyed and people are killed……riots, that are the result of lawlessness and bad

leadership……but every time something like this happens there are people who

will stand in the gap for their communities…..men and women in blue, citizen

soldiers of the National Guard, and first responders, are all heroes during times

like this……but sometimes there are also those groups of citizens who decide that

enough is enough…..common folk who get tired of being tired and decide to draw

their own proverbial line in the sand…..and that my friends is what happened in

the 1992 riots when a group of men became legends and are known to this day as

the ”rooftop Koreans”……

In 1992, Americans watched South Central Los Angeles go up in flames on the

news. Tensions inside the neighborhood — a mix of racial minority demographics

long plagued by urban blight — reached a boiling point after multiple incidents of

racial violence….all hell broke loose when white police officers detained and beat

a black man named Rodney King…..In April of 92 a jury acquitted the officers and

rioters took to the streets in a racially charged period of mayhem…..acts of

violence became the norm…..looting and burning of buildings were daily

occurrences…..leading up to this time the immigrant community from southeast

Asia had grown tremendously and there had been a growing resentment by black

activists against the influx of Koreans who had legally immigrated and begun

setting up their own businesses in south central LA…..Angry mobs targeted a

Chinese immigrant named Choi Si Choi and a white trucker named Reginald

Denny and beat them during on live TV during coverage of the riots…..it was black

residents who saved the victims and pulled them out of harm’s way…..but it still

added to the chaos……The 1992 L.A. riots lasted for five days. ….According to

resident accounts, law enforcement did little to quell the unrest. …..the LAPD was

unequipped to contain the looting crowds, they pulled back and left South Central

residents on their own, including business owners in the Koreatown

neighborhood…….over the course of the violence 60 people were killed and over

$1 billion in property damage was done…..forty percent of the damage done

occurred against Korean-American stores and businesses…..but a group of Korean

Americans decided to stem the tide……they had immigrated lawfully to America

to build a better life for themselves and their families….they had staked

everything to build dry cleaners, restaurants, shops and newsstands…..and they

watched as angry mobs yelling epithets against them set fire to their dreams…..to

this day the Korean-American community in LA refers to the riots as “Sa-i-gu”

which translates to “April 29”…..much like the nation refers to the terrorism of

2001 as simply “9/11”…….but the Korean American community wasn’t going to

take it lying down, and it was apparent that the authorities had no means of

controlling the streets……so they armed themselves…..they did….the word went

out on a Korean-language radio station that volunteers were needed in LA’s

Korea-town…..and they turned out in droves….images still abound of Korean

men….many of whom had served in the South Korean army before they

immigrated standing on the rooftops of their businesses armed with everything

from shotguns, hunting rifles and AR-15’s……and they stood their ground…..and

they stayed there for days……they used walkie-talkies to communicate back and

forth across the buildings……multiple times there were warning shots fired at

potential looters…..but the records of the events don’t record a single person

being killed by one of the rooftop Korean guards…..but their properties were

saved…..their stubbornness, and honor, and sense of doing what was necessary

has made them the stuff of legend and the source of memes for

decades……During the whole series of events the Korean American, and even

non-Korean Americans, in the community supported the efforts of their citizen

militia…..they brought food and supplies…..they were much loved…..it was about

protection of property, but it was also about preserving life, and a way of life……it

was about empowerment….it was about deterrence and not allowing evil to have

its way….it was about self-reliance and proving that they could stand up under

duress…..

In the end, it took President Bush activating a US military presence and sending

15,000 troops into south central LA to quell the riots…..but the damage had been

done…..and a legend had been created……the Rooftop Koreans…….

documentaries, news stories, graphic novels, and even coffee mugs….they have

been immortalized as a symbol of what happens when good folks get pushed too

far and feel like their government is letting them down…..they’ve been extolled by

defenders of the Second Amendment as examples of what an armed citizen can

do to deflect and dissuade crime by standing, armed, in the gap……but I have to

wonder, if there is still that level of citizen commitment…..are we going to see

rooftop Koreans, or some sort of similar stand, taken in today’s melee?.....when

pallets of bricks are being delivered to protestors…..and Mayors, Governors, and

former Vice Presidents, cynically call on the protests to continue……what happens

when good people feel pushed too far…..

government has a purpose….. the founders intended for the a govt to provide for

the common defense, to establish the rule of law, to ensure that life, limb and

property are protected…..There are some things that govt’s are designed

for….fighting our nations wars, establishing trade with foreign nations, protecting

the vulnerable by means of police and fire departments, ensuring equal justice,

enacting the laws through representative bodies of elected citizens…..

But I also believe that the value of the private citizen….the private effort….is what

makes this country so great…… We should never desire to be a nation of low level

non-producers who reach out to govt for the next stimulus check, the next

handout, the next excuse why I don’t have to go to work…..a nation where

productivity is stymied by so many regulations that folks just give up

trying….where taxation becomes so onerous that people choose not to produce

just to avoid govt reaching into their wallets again…..and most importantly,

perhaps….we should never consent to being a nation where lawbreakers have

more sway that law-abiders….where illegal aliens have more rights than legal

citizens…..we should never approve of anarchy, or agree to lawlessness…..law

enforcement and civil order are essential services of government….they are….and

when government fails to provide those essential services….to include law and

order…..what’s a citizen to do? You can become a victim….or you can stand……

Stand like a Rooftop Korean……staring down the enemies of your way of life and

daring them to cross that line…..

And that’s a wrap for the Rightside Way!