Forget it, Barack, it's Koreatown: Donald Sterling's Rational Discrimination
04/28/2014
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One of Donald Sterling's high crimes and misdemeanors has been discriminating against non-Korean would-be renters in his properties in Koreatown west of downtown Los Angeles. From Sports Illustrated:

Even more bizarre but just as effective at driving away African-Americans and Hispanics, Beverly Hills Properties changed the name of the Wilshire Towers complex to Korean World Towers. A huge banner printed entirely in Korean was hung on the building, and the doormen were replaced by armed, Korean-born guards who were hostile to non-Koreans, again according to testimony given by multiple residents. In August 2003, during the Housing Rights Center lawsuit, a federal judge ordered Sterling to stop using the word "Korean" in the names of his buildings, but the damage had been done."

From Malaysia, President Obama took time out to upbraid the "ignorance" that Sterling displayed during his illegally recorded private conversation. Still, there remains the theoretical possibility that the octogenarian real estate billionaire isn't wholly ignorant about what his Korean customers are looking for. The news videos above and below are from Koreatown in April 1992.

 

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