Katie Miller Character Analysis

Katie Miller is a bookkeeper and accountant who speaks with great authority on why the riots are justified and what they mean for the Black community. In response to criticism about Korean stores being unfairly targeted and looted during the riots, Miller suggests that Korean shopkeepers should have made more of an effort to get to know the local people who patronized their stores, which were located in a predominantly Black neighborhood. She has little sympathy for victims of the riot and points to the double standard of outrage that emerged aftermath. She criticizes how Paul Moyer, a prominent news reporter who covered the riots, seemed indifferent about minority businesses being destroyed, but was outraged when a store he remembered frequenting as a young boy was targeted. Moyer’s unequal outrage reaffirms how differently the broader society responds to injustices committed against its privileged communities versus injustices committed against its underprivileged communities.