Kpop and Race

Considering the amazing inroads the Hallyu wave have made into the many corners of the earth, it is amazing to think it has amassed so many passionate fandoms, and honestly reminds me of soccer in the way these fans devote themselves to their fandoms. But peel back the air brushed veneer of this craze and you'll see the ugly truths, whether it be cultural, coporate, or media centric.

There seems to be a rather large contingent of (mostly) female fans who seem to be too focused on the Korean pop culture, and appear to take these slanted and fantasized views of South Korean at face value. However, no matter how unhealthy this infatuation with Korea is, many of these fangirls don't realize that there lies a very dark secret under this: the misappropriation of black people, and culture.

While it's easy to first point at the many instances of blackface in Kpop (Most notably G-Dragon's "supposed" controversy), I certainly have read accounts of black people getting nasty glares and derogatory comments. Not even famous black people get special treatment, with the most notable case being (Former?) Pittsburgh Steelers player Hines Ward (Who is, interestingly enough, half Korean). It's easy to forget however that even though South Korea has advanced greatly since the 1990's, very little has happened in terms of multi-culturalism. Aside from a few Euro/American/Canadian people, and the aforementioned black people, its the Koreans, and nothing else.

On the other side of the coin is the somewhat fantasization of white people by Koreans themselves. Korea is by far the most Americanized country in East Asia, and the fact that they take the American beauty ideal (Granted, many other nations are starting to adopt it as well) and twist to mind-numbingly insane heights is scary. Just take a look at your favorite female idols. Rail thin, and pretty much borderline anorexic in some ways.

I remember reading a book about the Rwandan genocide of the mid 90's. Basically, the root cause of the genocide was the work of a man named John Hanning Speke, and his "theories" (IE, bull) on the native groups, the Tutsis and the Hutus. Apparently drawing conclusions that one group was scientifically built better and had better genetics, the later Belgian colonists used that to their advantage in their colonial policy, leading to the genocide many decades later. While South Korea may not have genocide, it still is very guilty of izing a group (Whites) and pretty much ting on another ethnic group.