No Fire Next Time: Black-Korean Conflicts and the Future of America's Cities

by Patrick D. Joyce

Overview

Why did Black-Korean tensions result in violent clashes in Los Angeles but not in New York City? In a book based on fieldwork and on a nationwide database he constructed to track such conflicts, Patrick D. Joyce goes beyond sociological and cultural explanations. No Fire Next Time shows how political practices and urban institutions can channel racial and ethnic tensions into protest or, alternately, leave them free to erupt violently. Few encounters demonstrate this connection better than those between African Americans and Korean Americans.

Cities like New York, where politics is noisy, contentious, and involves people at the grassroots, have seen extensive Black boycotts of Korean-owned businesses (usually small grocery stores). African Americans in Los Angeles have sustained few long-term boycotts of Korean American businesses—but the absence of "routine" contention there goes hand in hand with the large-scale riots of 1992 and continuous acts of individual violence.

In demonstrating how conflicts between these groups were intimately tied to their political surroundings, this book yields practical lessons for the future. City governments can do little to fight widening economic inequality in an increasingly diverse nation, Joyce writes. But officials and activists can restructure political institutions to provide the foundations for new multiracial coalitions.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780801439414
Publisher:	Cornell University Press
Publication date:	07/22/2003
Series:	2/13/2006
Pages:	240
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.94(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Patrick D. Joyce has taught government and politics at Harvard University, Wellesley College, and the College of the Holy Cross.

What People are Saying About This

Nancy Abelmann

Clear and cogent, No Fire Next Time is extraordinarily well presented, in analytically impeccable prose. The argument made by Patrick Joyce in No Fire Next Time—that political organization (and its attendant ideologies) and city infrastructure (politics and police) are critical parameters in determining and even producing the course of urban ethnic conflict—is convincingly established.

Martin Shefter

Why has violence played a central role in conflicts between blacks and Koreans in Los Angeles, whereas nonviolent demonstrations and boycotts have been more prominent in New York City? Patrick Joyce's excellent book explains how these differences in race relations are grounded in very different patterns of city politics.

Editorial Reviews

"Why has violence played a central role in conflicts between blacks and Koreans in Los Angeles, whereas nonviolent demonstrations and boycotts have been more prominent in New York City? Patrick Joyce's excellent book explains how these differences in race relations are grounded in very different patterns of city politics."

Martin Shefter

"Clear and cogent, No Fire Next Time is extraordinarily well presented, in analytically impeccable prose. The argument made by Patrick Joyce in No Fire Next Time—that political organization (and its attendant ideologies) and city infrastructure (politics and police) are critical parameters in determining and even producing the course of urban ethnic conflict—is convincingly established."

Nancy Abelmann

The central argument here is that interracial conflicts between blacks and Koreans are more likely to be channeled into nonviolent resolutions in cities with strong urban political institutions that better connect city residents to their community and their government. This explains why in New York City, a city with a long tradition of neighborhood-based political institutions, African American-Korean conflicts have not typically led to violence, while in Los Angeles, a city governed by an insular, more remote political class, they often have. Joyce, who has taught government and politics at Harvard and Wellesley, attempts to do both more and less than his title implies. His more ambitious goal is to shed light not only on black-Korean conflicts but also on the more general theme of interracial and interethnic relations in America. However, he largely leaves potential broader implications of his study undeveloped. Furthermore, he has little at all to say about "the future of America's cities." Nevertheless, this book represents a contribution to the growing literature on race relations in America. Of potential interest to academic libraries, as well as public libraries serving diverse populations.-David A. Timko, U.S. Bureau of the Census Lib., Washington, DC Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

In No Fire Next Time, Patrick Joyce offers another possible approach to conflict resolution: He asks the unasked question, what is wrong with conflict? Overall, Joyce offers a fresh perspective on an old, yet unresolved issue that continues to shape relations among native-born and immigrant minority groups in America.... Joyce's book is a long-awaited study that finally offers a complex analysis of community activism among Black Americans within the context of local politics in New York and Los Angeles.... Joyce's book fills a vacuum in current literature and proposes innovative and promising solutions for mediating interminority tensions.

Contemporary Sociology - Angie Y. Chung

Joyce calls attention to local political institutions as important and under-analyzed actors. Future students of urban politics and conflict should heed that call.

Nicole P. Marwell

Some of Joyce's major findings have important policy implications because they teach local community leaders, government officials, and politicians a lesson about how to transform latent intergroup tensions into less violent forms of conflict.

The Journal of Asian Studies - Pyong Gap Min

In No Fire Next Time, Patrick Joyce offers another possible approach to conflict resolution: He asks the unasked question, what is wrong with conflict? Overall, Joyce offers a fresh perspective on an old, yet unresolved issue that continues to shape relations among native-born and immigrant minority groups in America.... Joyce's book is a long-awaited study that finally offers a complex analysis of community activism among Black Americans within the context of local politics in New York and Los Angeles.... Joyce's book fills a vacuum in current literature and proposes innovative and promising solutions for mediating interminority tensions.

--Angie Y. Chung, University at Albany "Contemporary Sociology"

Joyce calls attention to local political institutions as important and under-analyzed actors. Future students of urban politics and conflict should heed that call.

--Nicole P. Marwell, Columbia University "Political Science Quarterly"

Some of Joyce's major findings have important policy implications because they teach local community leaders, government officials, and politicians a lesson about how to transform latent intergroup tensions into less violent forms of conflict.

--Pyong Gap Min "The Journal of Asian Studies"

The central argument here is that interracial conflicts between blacks and Koreans are more likely to be channeled into nonviolent resolutions in cities with strong urban political institutions that better connect city residents to their community and their government.... This book represents a contribution to the growing literature on race relations in America. Of potential interest to academic libraries, as well as public libraries serving diverse populations.

-- "Library Journal"

From the Publisher