Feel Beauty and 100 Suits for 100 Men team up after threatened boycott, forging a bond amid memories of a painful, decades-old Brooklyn clash. When a Black-run nonprofit raising funds to provide meals for senior citizens got the cold shoulder from a Korean-owned beauty supply chain with stores in Black neighborhoods across the city, the risk of a confrontation ran high. Instead, in a deal celebrated Tuesday in Queens, Feel Beauty will be contributing $2,000 to 100 Suits for 100 Men, which got its start giving people in need business attire for job searches. Feel Beauty’s owners also committed to filling open managerial positions from the local community and participating in quarterly meetings to discuss how better to support the handful of Black- and brown-owned beauty supply stores in Jamaica. The union is “monumental,” declared Kevin Livingston, the founder of 100 Suits. The agreement came in the face of a threatened boycott that area elected officials and business leaders were determined to avoid - echoing a clash three decades ago between a Korean-owned business and Black neighbors in Brooklyn.
And it speaks to local shoppers’ concerns that stores where they spend their money are owned by people who don’t come from their community. Several customers shopping at one of three Feel Beauty locations on Jamaica Avenue told THE CITY they frequented the chain’s stores because of the convenience. Yet they wished more Black-owned beauty supply businesses operated in their neighborhoods. “It does bother me, on a mild level,” said Kellee Nazaire, 42, of Jamaica. Feel Beauty operates 20 stores in New York City, with most outlets located in Black communities, said Charles Park, the company’s owner. The stores carry an especially wide array of hair care products sought by Black women. The shops’ ubiquity in Black neighborhoods made the company an obvious place for Livingston to seek charitable contributions, as he called numerous businesses looking for support. But despite numerous attempts, he got no response at all from Feel Beauty.
Livingston began to plan a boycott, ”tired of the Black dollar leaving the Black community,” he said. Respect was one thing some customers of the chain’s stores felt was lacking. Online reviews for Feel Beauty outlets include numerous postings alleging racial profiling, including claims of being followed around the store for no reason. Park did not respond to an inquiry about these allegations. Instead, he emphasized the partnership with 100 Suits as a long-term proposition. “It is very important that we work together,” Park said, adding that roughly 70% of the company’s employees are Black. The partnership that skirted a boycott was brokered with the help of Assembly members Ron Kim (D-Queens) and Alicia Hyndman (D-Queens), along with the Korean American Association of Greater New York. “There was a situation that was moving up to a crisis, I think primarily because of a lack of communications channel,” said Yoon. Kim, who represents Flushing and Murray Hill, said that bringing both sides to the table made the de-escalation possible.
“Once the group thinking sets in, it’s hard to walk back,” Kim said. The resolution came in a stark contrast to a year-and-a half standoff that began in 1989 after allegations of racism at Red Apple, a Korean-owned grocery store in Flatbush, Brooklyn. A Haitian shopper looking to buy produce ended up leaving in an ambulance. Accounts conflicted on what led to the altercation, and protests raged on until the Red Apple’s owner sold his business. Following the boycott’s end, the Korean American Association of Greater New York helped form a delegation of 25 community leaders to visit Seoul. The purpose of the trip was “to prevent this from happening again and to deepen the understanding between Koreans and the Black community,” Byun Jong Duk, who was then the association’s president, said in Korean. Byun said that the lessons learned - the importance of collaboration and cooperation - are lasting.
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