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South Korea's first black model faces widespread racism

Sadly not surprised. Japan's take on MMA fighter Bob Sapp was a constant source of WTF double takes.

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W
How could youbrespect yourself when you get a paycheck for something like this?
 
Mmm. I would characterize it as more for GAF using Asians as a wedge against/between other communities of color, and using healthy scoops of model minority-ness.

A lot of animosity towards Asians in those threads are quite apparent however.

I've run into the "Some families may be Chinese in the past, or some families may be Japanese in the past. But my family is PURE Korean. See I have the "Whatever Physical Characteristic Can Be Attributed To Only Koreans and Mongolian People." That means we are 100% Korean." But that's just dealing with people, I'm sure most people will acknowledge on paper that the genetic background is varied, but the self-identification of being "Korean" is especially strong amongst Koreans.

I never looked at this issue as a purely "genetic" one. People brought up the strict adherence to a homogeneous culture. I'm pretty sure any country that came as close to cultural genocide as SK and survived would have this mindset as well.
 
[boots];243182241 said:
A lot of animosity towards Asians in those threads are quite apparent however.



I never looked at this issue as a purely "genetic" one. People brought up the strict adherence to a homogeneous culture. I'm pretty sure any country that came as close to cultural genocide as SK and survived would have this mindset as well.

Oh absolutely, GAF has an issue across the board when it comes to Asians. I like to nail it to specific behaviors, because the common response is "I'm not racist." and that scope only being overt racist actions/speech.
 
South Korean pop culture steals so much from the black American community and then they turn around with disdain for black people. It really is amazing.
 
Boss★Moogle;243179961 said:
The thing is, I see a lot of people on GAF blaming slavery solely on white people as if US slavery is the only time slavery ever happened. Slavery has been around since the earliest civilizations. Even the earliest records of Mesopotamia mention slavery and ancient Sumerians weren't exactly white, in fact white people as we know them did really exist back then. So whites didn't invent slavery, man did. All races and ethnicities have owned slaves and all races and ethnicities have been slaves, that is the sad reality of the world.

Also reading GAF I think some people believe whitey just landed on the African coast with some nets and brought back slaves. Slavery is Africa was very big business and the majority of slaves taken out of Africa were sold to whites by black African kings and warlords, so it's important to realize that many slaves were already enslaved before even leaving Africa.

It's funny cause I was reading the Macron thread earlier and somebody said this:


By just reading the Wikipedia article linked you can learn that Musa I of Mali had thousands of slaves and with additional research you can learn that most of the Mali Empire's wealth was not from spices but rather the slave trade.

Whites seem to have this terrible rep on GAF but having traveled all over the world I can honestly say that, generally speaking, whites are some of the most accepting people when it comes to race/religion, sorry if that statement offends certain people here but I really do believe it.

It's a matter of supply and demand. Of course slavery has existed for millennia in various historical societies around the world. However, the difference is that white Europeans are responsible for unknowable human misery by creating the trans-Atlantic slave trade. The demand of slaves was created by white European colonists committing genocide on Native Americans, conquering their land and enslaving their people, who fell victim to European diseases and did not survive their forced bondage in commercial plantations.

In order to fill the need for cheap labor, the European colonizers turned to the African slave trade, which yes, did exist prior, but in a much more limited and ritualized scale. I had a chance to visit Cape Coast Castle in Ghana, which was one of the slave trade capitals, and learned about some of the atrocities that occurred there. The British colonizers of Ghana enriched local tribes (namely the dominant Akan) by paying them to capture slaves from rival tribes. The British kept the captured slaves in cellars beneath their forts, where they stood chained man to man, up to their ankles in their own excrement, waiting for the next slave ship to arrive, which could be months at a time. The slave castle I went to had a Church built right above one of these cellars, with a trap door right outside the Church, where the British could look down on the enslaved Africans before they went inside to pray. What they prayed for, I can only imagine.

If you think that "whites" are the most accepting people when it comes to race/religion, you simply haven't traveled enough.
 
[boots];243182241 said:
A lot of animosity towards Asians in those threads are quite apparent however.

I think for myself, it's the frustration that many Asian countries don't want to talk about their issues. Many would rather look the other way just to save face until it becomes a powder keg waiting to explode.

Obviously, it's a cultural difference, but I, as an American, see that side of a collectivist society and it makes me grimace.
 
Mmm. I would characterize it as more for GAF using Asians as a wedge against/between other communities of color, and using healthy scoops of model minority-ness.

[boots];243182241 said:
A lot of animosity towards Asians in those threads are quite apparent however.

I've noticed this as a disturbing trend from white folks, both on the internet and in real life. White conservatives love to use the model minority trope to divide Asians from other minorities, praising us as "one of the good ones". White liberals use the model minority trope to talk about how racist Asians are and talk about "Asian privilege", as if we were part of the oppressing class. In the meantime, we're denied our own voices and representation in the media, and used as a convenient scapegoat for white folks.

CHINA DON'T CARE. Asians are the true racists! They eat dogs!!!
 
Do want to be condescending, but I mean I find it's a shame that SK still have racial problems, or they ignore their roots or they are living in denial. Both aren't a good way of living.

If you didn't mean anything by it, it's all good brother. I'm not arguing with any of this, but your previous post is not congruent with SK's memory of ancient and modern events.
 
[boots];243183702 said:
If you didn't mean anything by it, it's all good brother. I'm not arguing with any of this, but your previous post is not congruent with SK's memory of ancient and modern events.
I'll try to be more careful, since english it'slike my third language, sometimes it's hard to convey the tone. Sorry if I insulted you.
 
I've noticed this as a disturbing trend from white folks, both on the internet and in real life. White conservatives love to use the model minority trope to divide Asians from other minorities, praising us as "one of the good ones". White liberals use the model minority trope to talk about how racist Asians are and talk about "Asian privilege", as if we were part of the oppressing class. In the meantime, we're denied our own voices and representation in the media, and used as a convenient scapegoat for white folks.

CHINA DON'T CARE. Asians are the true racists! They eat dogs!!!

It truly galls me how liberals preach about racism from their high horse while demonizing us as the true enemy to black advancement.

I'll try to be more careful, since english it'slike my third language, sometimes it's hard to convey the tone. Sorry if I insulted you.

And now I feel guilty as hell... How about we just end it with me apologizing to you

I'm sorry for the crappy reaction I posted. Didn't realize you weren't a native speaker.
 
[boots];243184176 said:
It truly galls me how liberals preach about racism from their high horse while demonizing us as the true enemy to black advancement.

The average white liberal is kinda like Bill Maher. He has progressive views towards certain topics like gay marriage, but is low key racist and prejudiced against certain ethnicities or religions. When it comes to Asians, white liberal talking points are extremely problematic. It's always about how China pollutes the environment, how China oppresses Tibet, how racist Asians are to other people. When you respond with rational facts like how America pollutes almost twice as much per capita compared to China and how terrible and genocidal America has treated its minorities, you get gaslighted or told that you are practicing whataboutism.
 
Why do so many East Asian cultures seem vile towards the idea of foreigners or outsiders in their country? I hear some really bad stuff.
 
The average white liberal is kinda like Bill Maher. He has progressive views towards certain topics like gay marriage, but is low key racist and prejudiced against certain ethnicities or religions. When it comes to Asians, white liberal talking points are extremely problematic. It's always about how China pollutes the environment, how China oppresses Tibet, how racist Asians are to other people. When you respond with rational facts like how America pollutes almost twice as much per capita compared to China and how terrible and genocidal America has treated its minorities, you get gaslighted or told that you are practicing whataboutism.

I think Americans tend to think of Chinese people in China as if they are all participants in the Chinese government. So all the bad things we hear about the government we assign as traits of the Chinese people.Which is strange because we don't do that with Russians.
 
The average white liberal is kinda like Bill Maher. He has progressive views towards certain topics like gay marriage, but is low key racist and prejudiced against certain ethnicities or religions. When it comes to Asians, white liberal talking points are extremely problematic. It's always about how China pollutes the environment, how China oppresses Tibet, how racist Asians are to other people. When you respond with rational facts like how America pollutes almost twice as much per capita compared to China and how terrible and genocidal America has treated its minorities, you get gaslighted or told that you are practicing whataboutism.


It's even just bullshit like "I heard street vendors all use gutter oil to cook food and it gives you massive diarrhea". There was that exact debate in the whole thread about Bangkok removing street vendors from its Main Street. Blanket statements like that shouldn't be okay for but for some reason it's people think it's fine.
 
This doesn't seem to be the case at all? Not even close. You either see the culture appropriated, while erasing the human itself that originated the stuff they're adopting such as clothing, language, or mannerisms. Outright racism, as some has posted in here. Or disdain like in the case of this model.

Where are you seeing a run on tanning and skin darkening products?

No they just white-wash them. I still have no actual clue what color Kai is because he is always white-washed in photos to the point where looks slightly gray.
 
Why do so many East Asian cultures seem vile towards the idea of foreigners or outsiders in their country? I hear some really bad stuff.
They generally don't have a history of foreigners doing good things in their countries (even their neighbors) until recently. It takes time to open up
 
The average white liberal is kinda like Bill Maher. He has progressive views towards certain topics like gay marriage, but is low key racist and prejudiced against certain ethnicities or religions. When it comes to Asians, white liberal talking points are extremely problematic. It's always about how China pollutes the environment, how China oppresses Tibet, how racist Asians are to other people. When you respond with rational facts like how America pollutes almost twice as much per capita compared to China and how terrible and genocidal America has treated its minorities, you get gaslighted or told that you are practicing whataboutism.

At my old job once, taking a break with a group of mainly white so-called liberals, when one of them cracked a joke about all the cats in the area disappearing after the new chinese place opened. The rest of them laughed. I was disgusted and disassociated myself from them after that.
 
[boots];243184176 said:
And now I feel guilty as hell... How about we just end it with me apologizing to you

I'm sorry for the crappy reaction I posted. Didn't realize you weren't a native speaker.

Don't worry man, I understand you, that's why I apologized.
 
Why do so many East Asian cultures seem vile towards the idea of foreigners or outsiders in their country? I hear some really bad stuff.

Broadly speaking, history. For one particular point: In some unfortunate regard, this kind of disdain for foreigners and outsiders is a common default for humanity, and an unintentional side effect to Europeans having those large, globe spanning empires was that they created an otherwise unusual level and range of diversity within themselves. Consequently, confronting issues of race and/or ethnicity relations has been much more at the forefront as a political force within those countries, most popularly shown through the American Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 60s.

East Asia neither had such empires, nor were they part of them. The closest analogues are: China with a continual land territory that, while expanding and receding back and forth over the centuries, is broadly similar to what they've been for millennia, and Japan in the late 19th and early 20th centuries as they expanded across the western Pacific, and then lost most of those territories within the same century - if not within a few decades of obtaining them. So they remain highly homogenous, and simply put, a diverse population is one of the biggest incentives towards trying to treat all people equally, because it becomes an essential issue. Mind, it is worth noting, as many have pointed out, that western nations haven't exactly had a totally good grasp on this stuff either, so yeah, don't be surprised that other parts of the world have their own problems, however specific to the cultural circumstances therein.

Then you can add in, as KillLaCam alludes to, the more specific regional histories in terms of foreign diplomacy and interaction. Reminder: China's biggest relation with the British Empire was being beaten down and forced into a position of humiliation for not wanting to buy the drugs that Britain was peddling into China because most other British goods simply didn't appeal, while we had gone absolutely nuts for their tea.
 
Boss★Moogle;243179961 said:
The thing is, I see a lot of people on GAF blaming slavery solely on white people as if US slavery is the only time slavery ever happened. Slavery has been around since the earliest civilizations. Even the earliest records of Mesopotamia mention slavery and ancient Sumerians weren't exactly white, in fact white people as we know them did really exist back then. So whites didn't invent slavery, man did. All races and ethnicities have owned slaves and all races and ethnicities have been slaves, that is the sad reality of the world.

Also reading GAF I think some people believe whitey just landed on the African coast with some nets and brought back slaves. Slavery is Africa was very big business and the majority of slaves taken out of Africa were sold to whites by black African kings and warlords, so it's important to realize that many slaves were already enslaved before even leaving Africa.

It's funny cause I was reading the Macron thread earlier and somebody said this:


By just reading the Wikipedia article linked you can learn that Musa I of Mali had thousands of slaves and with additional research you can learn that most of the Mali Empire's wealth was not from spices but rather the slave trade.

Whites seem to have this terrible rep on GAF but having traveled all over the world I can honestly say that, generally speaking, whites are some of the most accepting people when it comes to race/religion, sorry if that statement offends certain people here but I really do believe it.
It's true slavery existed a long time before even the America's were discovered, but the slavery in America is where it was taken to extreme levels. Slaves in many parts of the world had some rights and they were not dehumanized. They had ways to gain freedom and they were able to have possessions. The level of abuse and injustice that was being taken in the early history of the America's was staggering and almost unbelievable. It's because of slavery in America that the idea of race was invented to separate the free from the slaves(that is blacks). In many parts of America as long as you were black, you were a slave. No way to free yourself or escape for these reasons. If you go back 400 years ago the concept of race didn't exist(at least not it's current meaning). You should also read on racial formation as it went into details about racism in the US.

Let's not even go into scientific racism that occurred all over the west in the past 3 centuries that were started by white people. They believed because of their physical features and skin color, they were superior. What your post demonstrates is the level of ignorance that a lot of Americans suffer from, especially white people. Go read about racism and slavery in the United States before posting this ignorant post.
 
It's true slavery existed a long time before even the America's were discovered, but the slavery in America is where it was taken to extreme levels. Slaves in many parts of the world had some rights and they were not dehumanized. They had ways to gain freedom and they were able to have possessions. The level of abuse and injustice that was being taken in the early history of the America's was staggering and almost unbelievable. It's because of slavery in America that the idea of race was invented to separate the free from the slaves(that is blacks). In many parts of America as long as you were black, you were a slave. No way to free yourself or escape for these reasons. If you go back 400 years ago the concept of race didn't exist(at least not it's current meaning). You should also read on racial formation as it went into details about racism in the US.

Let's not even go into scientific racism that occurred all over the west in the past 3 centuries that were started by white people. They believed because of their physical features and skin color, they were superior. What your post demonstrates is the level of ignorance that a lot of Americans suffer from, especially white people. Go read about racism and slavery in the United States before posting this ignorant post.

His post is rooted in a lot of White Supremacy talking points. It's the reason there's been an noticeable recent uptick by American history scholars in this belief that Irish were Slaves in America and the Irish, Italians, Jews, Greeks, Eastern Europeans weren't considered White at one point in time.

The whole point is to minimize the damage done to Blacks and say get over it, because we treated other White people that way and they got over it, and made it in our system.

The same is done with the model minority myth.
 
So, not only are we downplaying anti black racism to black people here, we're now also telling Korean people that they have no idea what they're talking about when they discuss Korean attitudes when it comes to anti black racism and or racism in general.

GAF threads regarding race have always been embarrassing, but over the last six months or so, maybe more, they've gone way over to the other side.
 
So, not only are we downplaying anti black racism to black people here, we're now also telling Korean people that they have no idea what they're talking about when they discuss Korean attitudes when it comes to anti black racism and or racism in general.

GAF threads regarding race have always been embarrassing, but over the last six months or so, maybe more, they've gone way over to the other side.
I don't think people actually wanna understand the situations anymore. It's just about outrage and arguing
 
W
How could youbrespect yourself when you get a paycheck for something like this?

He was the spokesperson for the brand for a bit.

He was also on the packaging of other flavors as well, and was in a couple commercials.

I'm pretty sure to Japanese people it was just Bob Sapp eating a banana, but from an American POV it comes across as racist because of the historical context. I think Bob Sapp should've mentioned it, but I don't think the ice cream was sold in America so he prolly didn't care how it looked.
 
I have a friend (black) who's been teaching (professor) at a SK University, and he's had some rather interesting stories. It got more dicy the further you got out of major cities. He pretty much said, that "it's not as bad as it used to be"... And I'd hope so after what he was telling me about.

I honestly didn't think it would have been as bad, as I had planned to visit SK sometime in the future, since Japan was a great experience for me.
 
TBH, it's expected from such a homogeneous country. It's sad that we seem to be labeling the country as a whole to be racist when it's easy to see parallels from my experiences as an Asian child growing up in America and experiences of foreigners in SK. America has had the privilege(?) of being a multicultural country for hundreds of years and yet we still have so much more work to do. So expecting SK to be any better is a bit unfair.

Economically, SK may be a first-world country but their societal standards are still suck in the 60's for many people, especially the older generation. Unless that is addressed, issues like this will never be properly resolved. IMO, it's similar to the issues we see in America.

My parents who immigrated to America vs. my extended family in Korea have drastically different views on civil rights, gay rights, etc. Although my parents still resent the racism they experience, they are able to appreciate the viewpoint that American life has provided them.

We should be able to have informative and constructive discussion given that we have experience living in multicultural/multiracial communities. It's sad to see threads like this reduce these issues to blanket statements.
 
I have a friend (black) who's been teaching (professor) at a SK University, and he's had some rather interesting stories. It got more dicy the further you got out of major cities. He pretty much said, that "it's not as bad as it used to be"... And I'd hope so after what he was telling me about.

I honestly didn't think it would have been as bad, as I had planned to visit SK sometime in the future, since Japan was a great experience for me.
I actually enjoy my time in Korea more than Japan haha.

The only negative thing that happened to me in regards to being a foreigner (im Black too) was that I couldn't go to certain bars or clubs. But I've had that happen everywhere even Japan.

Black people are fine in Korea. The only way to change things like this is for people to interact with foreigners.


Japan's first half black model went through similar (I'd say worse) things as the Korean guy did too. Bu
https://youtu.be/BsHBlLvvlgo

Japan's gotten better at race relations (can't think of a better word for it ) but they had the advantage of having more foreign visitors/residents for a longer amount of time when compared to Korea
 
I actually enjoy my time in Korea more than Japan haha.

The only negative thing that happened to me in regards to being a foreigner (im Black too) was that I couldn't go to certain bars or clubs. But I've had that happen everywhere even Japan.

Black people are fine in Korea. The only way to change things like this is for people to interact with foreigners.

yea, people are blowing this shit out of proportion. and as I said before, the whole "not being allowed" in certain bars and clubs applies to all foreigners, not just black people, white people, but asian people, even korean american people as well.
 
I have a friend (black) who's been teaching (professor) at a SK University, and he's had some rather interesting stories. It got more dicy the further you got out of major cities. He pretty much said, that "it's not as bad as it used to be"... And I'd hope so after what he was telling me about.

I honestly didn't think it would have been as bad, as I had planned to visit SK sometime in the future, since Japan was a great experience for me.

I'd be interested in hearing a little more about what kind of things your friend went through. I like a lot of things about SK and Asia (East of China) in general, but I'm not going to be in a rush to donate to their tourism industry if it's that bad.
 
I'd be interested in hearing a little more about what kind of things your friend went through. I like a lot of things about SK and Asia (East of China) in general, but I'm not going to be in a rush to donate to their tourism industry if it's that bad.

you got actual black people here who've been there telling you "it's fine" yet you want to hear stories from someone's friend to change your opinion on it?
 
I'd be interested in hearing a little more about what kind of things your friend went through. I like a lot of things about SK and Asia (East of China) in general, but I'm not going to be in a rush to donate to their tourism industry if it's that bad.
Watch youtube videos of black people's experience in countries like Korea or Japan. They can be more educating than reading from gaf member's friend's experience.
 
yeah watch youtube...to learn stuff...for some...reason..

you got actual black people here who've been there telling you "it's fine" yet you want to hear stories from someone's friend to change your opinion on it?

"yeah dude it's fine" is vague. maybe he wants some details.
 
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