Korea doesn’t have the same history with slavery that Western countries have. The racism debate is not ingrained into our culture. Korean children aren’t taught about how it’s wrong to discriminate against skin color because we’ve never lived in a society segregated by skin color.
(rest under a read more because it got really friggin long)
Slavery is a major historical issue. Everyone knows about it. Anyone with common sense knows that racial discrimination is wrong. However, issues such as micro-aggression, whitewashing, blackface… those are all relatively confined to Western debate. Discrimination in Korea is mostly based on nationalism, not on skin color.
This goes beyond the matter of Baekhyun liking those photos (and I’ve heard that those were fake, idk). As Korean culture spreads internationally, people from Western countries try to view Korean actions/culture within the framework of Western standards/history/debates. I see it in k-pop, I’ve seen it in League of Legends, I’ve seen it in my high school principal who came and tried to change the entire mindset of my school in one year without even bothering to learn about Korea beyond its stereotypes. Yes the world is globalizing, but Western and Eastern cultures still have major differences and nuances, and instead of trying to enforce Western cultural standards on Korea, people should be more understanding of those differences.
Yes. Racism is wrong. No one is denying that. And yes, racism can be perpetuated unconsciously in the media. But the difference between Singer killing off Darwin (the only black character) in X-Men: First Class and EXO making jokes about Kai’s skin is that one grew up amidst a debate over skin color, learning about the Civil War and the slave trade and MLK, the KKK, affirmative action, in a diverse society where discrimination based on skin color has been unjustly enforced, and one grew up in a homogenous society who’s fault is that they put too much emphasis on beauty.
Seriously. Come to Korea. You can’t spend ten minutes outside without seeing some sort of advertisement for white skin, clear skin, double eyelids, hair transplants, botox, magical diets, jaw corrections, nose jobs, and the like. The advertisements lining our subway systems BLATANTLY promote plastic surgery. At my school, double eyelid surgery is not unheard of as a graduation present from a student’s parents. Korean’s place an abnormally high value on aesthetic beauty (but that is a whole other essay, honestly). What should be deduced from this paragraph is that Koreans treat beauty almost as a commodity. Obviously there is a preference for natural beauty, but for the most part beauty can be judged, bought and enhanced without great moral deliberation. Skin color in Korea can actually be equated to weight and height. It has a range, there is an ideal held by society as a whole but different people like different points in that range. It can be a sensitive issue to bring up with strangers, and it can also be something to tease friends about.
Should EXO, who has a lot of international fans, know better than to joke about skin color? Yes. But so should lots of other people in lots of other countries. It’s a big deal because a celebrity with lots of fans purportedly did it, and it’s also more understandable because of Korean culture. Group polarization and mob mentality means Tumblr has a tendency to get all high and mighty about social justice issues, forgetting that an average person may very well not be aware of it all. Learn first. Educate second. Hate never.
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