Prof. Bonojit Hussain pens a piece for the Korea Herald about his case, the lack of interest in Ms. Han’s plight and the expat response. It’s a long piece and worth reading on your own, but here’s just a part of it:
But one of the interesting things arising out of this case has been the response from the expat community in Korea, especially some Western ones. I mentioned in many interviews to newspapers and other media, Asian and African migrants face more discrimination than Western expats in Korea. some, especially in the blogosphere.
One blogger called me a “person with post-colonial hang-ups” (Marmot’s Note: That was me), another called me “Cultural Marxist” and then still another blogger declared that “I was searching for racism” in Korea. And another blog conducted an analysis, concluding that the case was a conspiracy by SungKongHoe University, who hired a professional mercenary named Bonojit.
Of course, I paid that nonsense little attention, which had been passed off in the name of “an exchange of ideas.”
Pointing out that Asians and Africans face more serious discrimination in Korea in no way denies that Western expats also face discrimination. It is only to say that the degree and form of discrimination varies between these two groups of expats. It is important to have a dialogue on the grave abuse and discrimination the migrant laborers face on the factory floor. And if one travels to places like Pocheon or Namyangju, its not very difficult to find that these migrant workers are often not allowed to enter restaurants.
I remember hearing some Western expats complain that they were not provided with chopsticks – and instead were given a fork and spoon in a Korean restaurant – and they felt discriminated against. Now, being given a fork and spoon instead of chopsticks and not being allowed to enter the restaurant are completely different, not only in form but also in degree. Again, getting stared all the time on public transport and in public places is also different in form and degree than getting kicked by a bus driver just because someone fell asleep and ended up in the bus terminal (in this case it happened to me last June). However, female Western expats do face very serious abuses and discrimination with a number of incidents of sexual abuse and rape being reported.
He concludes (and sorry to the Korea Herald for quoting most of the piece):
Let me put forth the proposition that even though we are all expats living in Korea from different backgrounds, with different color, creeds and beliefs, we can still find some common ground that will not only be mutually beneficial to us, but also to our host society. There could be bridges built between migrant factory workers and Western expats in general and English teachers in particular, wherein migrant workers’ struggles don’t remain silent and Western expats don’t stop only at campaigning against Anti-English spectrum. But to build those bridges, differences have be recognized and respected, including the difference in form and degree of discrimination faced. And the onus lies with Western expats.
OK, let me start off by saying that personally, I don’t really care about building bridges or finding common ground or joining struggles other than my own personal one to become a productive and functioning member of the society I’ve chosen to live in. Frankly, I find a lot of the bitching tiresome, and the issue of racism in Korea more complex than it is usually treated.
That said, I might suggest to Prof. Hussain that few would deny that Western expat have it much better than migrant workers. Heck, I would go as far as to say that in some ways, Western expats are actually privileged. That my wife — a foreigner from a developing Asian nation (Mongolia) — and I have different takes on life in Korea is largely a product of this fundamental difference. I might even say that on issues like “degrees of discrimination” and Western expat indifference to migrant worker issues, he and I probably agree on a lot of things… rhetoric like “any behavior and language looking down on foreigners constitutes racial discrimination originating from an imperialist point of view” aside.
I also appreciate that Prof. Hussain recognizes that Westerners, too, are targets of discrimination. However, I might suggest to him that when you say something like, “It wouldn’t have happened to me if I were a white man,” you alienate a large number of potential supporters by going beyond saying that “the degree and form of discrimination” varies between Western expats and migrant workers to deny what is a common — and extremely sensitive — complaint by Western expats, including US military personnel (one of the most infamous incidents in USFK history began with a Korean man harassing the wife of a US soldier on a subway). Heck, what happened to you, Prof. Hussain, even happened to me, and I’m notoriously lucky in regards to those sort of things. Anti-English Spectrum, for that matter, seems almost obsessed with the issue of white men-Korean women.
Even the article to the Korea Herald exhibits this same problem. To his credit, he does mention sexual assaults against Western women, and sure, getting a fork instead of chopsticks is infinitely preferable than being kept out of a restaurant entirely, and I’d rather be stared at on a bus than kicked by the bus driver, but some might read this as a suggestion that Westerners aren’t, on occasion, kept out of restaurants or assaulted on public transportation. And besides, Western complaints about discrimination deal with issues far more serious than chopsticks and stares on subways. Of course, if you think Korean discrimination originates from an “an imperialist point of view,” I could see how discrimination against Westerners might seem like an odd concept.
Anyway, Prof. Hussain, congratulations on getting the other guy fined — as I said when the case first broke, nobody should be harassed on public transportation, even if I thought the press coverage (particularly in the West) was a bit silly. But if you were nonplussed by the reaction Western (OK, white) foreigners had to your case, I might argue that it was you yourself who made Whitey an issue in the first place… in an incident in which white people were not a party, direct or otherwise.
(HT to Ben Wagner)
{ 72 comments… read them below or add one }
‘There could be bridges built between migrant factory workers and Western expats in general and English teachers in particular, wherein migrant workers’ struggles don’t remain silent and Western expats don’t stop only at campaigning against Anti-English spectrum.’
you’re dreaming, sir. they don’t give a shit about you.
What an amazingly comprehensive and relevant article. He is a true hero for Korea. Seriously.
I liked the professor’s piece until the last line: “And the onus lies with Western expats.”
So we are going to build bridges together but one side has to do the work? I’m confused.
Commentator “chickenhead” from the GIKorea blog gave a fine deconstruction of Prof Hussein and his probable motives and agenda, which is well worth reading.
This statement would appear to confirm chickenhead’s hunches.
Politics makes strange bedfellows.
This statement also betrays Prof Hussein’s naivete and poor understanding of his melanin-deficient waeguk counterparts. Whitey is only interested in advocating for Freedom of his Dick in Korea and little else, least of which is the plight of 3-D migrant laborers and brown people in Korea.
NetizenKim,
Bonojit Hussain’s views and position on Korea aren’t too different from yours on the US, right?
Also, as to be expected, we hear nothing whatsoever from the woman in question, Ms Han, as Marmot alludes.
Bonojit Hussain’s views and position on Korea aren’t too different from yours on the US, right?
Hardly. I am not a professional grievance mongerer.
I wasn’t talking about the means employed. I specifically said “views and position.”
My views and position are more aligned with that of one Fred Reed.
Obviously that’s what Bonojit is implying, which is why the Marmot’s description of him as “a person with post-colonial hang-ups” is so apt. (Remember, as a rule, Brahmins don’t work — they get the pariahs and the lower castes — i.e., “Western expats” — to do all the shitwork for them.)
I thought he made some pretty good points, and I agree that we whities should do our part to make Korea a friendly place for non-Korean Asians. On this note NetizenKim will be delighted to hear that my Korean friend, Vietnamese-American friend, and I treated a couple of Vietnamese factory workers we met at the bar to a few hours at the rooms salon a few weeks ago. We figured it’s nice that everyone, regardless of nationality, should be able to enjoy the finer things Korea has to offer. Unfortunately they didn’t have any Vietnamese songs on the karaoke machine playlist, but hopefully as Korea continues to open up to the world that will start changing.
At any rate, well done professor! I’m sure that somewhere there’s a racist urban peasant will think twice before he unleashes his libido issues on some hapless foreigner engaged in a conversation with a Korean lady who’d want nothing to do with a pig like him.
I’m not too surprise about this.
As if Indians don’t get racially abuse in other countries. Even Pomy/Aussie/Yankee make fun at Indian.
Bono-jit, don’t forget, someone else said your name was funny.
NK, I’ll tell you again — to Fred Reed, you are “the Diversity”. He doesn’t mean that as a compliment.
I too support Hussain for standing up against unacceptable Korean racism. And believe it or not, whites also get spit at and sweared to on buses and public places on occasion – it’s happened to me – and I wished I had thought about suing, too. If Korea wants to be a world player, they’ve got to deal with their hostile parochials – who sometimes need to get hit in the wallet to pay attention.
‘I’m sure that somewhere there’s a racist urban peasant will think twice before he unleashes his libido issues on some hapless foreigner engaged in a conversation with a Korean lady who’d want nothing to do with a pig like him.’
see what i mean?
Koreansentry,
Where I grew up ‘paki’ was part of our everyday vocabularly as a kid. As a kid. However a middle-age man yelling obscenities at a woman for being with an Indian on public transportation was pretty much unthinkable. Any such guy would be instantly branded a Nazi.
I wonder what will happen in 15-20 years when there are hundreds of thousands of mixed-race kids of immigrant wives, some of whom will be starting to date Koreans. If there are many of these peasant pigs still around it will be interesting to see what happens when the guys with the Korean girls can understand Korean perfectly.
I’ve read and enjoyed many of his columns.
I believe his wife is Mexican, and he’s written about consorting with Asian women in the past. And as for his politics, he’s kind of old school/traditionalist conservative, libertarian-ish, anti-statist, anti-globalist, etc.
So what exactly are you trying to say? How are your views and position aligned with Fred Reed?
Peasant pigs, “ajeossi”… it can be quite interesting, sometimes, to see the disdain people have for the class of people on whose back this country was built. I guess between working slave shifts in the factories and fighting with military dictators, they didn’t have much time to attend diversity sensitivity classes…
Every time NK talks about his undying love for Fred Reed he reminds me of the blind, black KKK member that Dave Chappelle played in the best skit of his show ever.
At least Clayton Bigsby had the excuse of being blind.
I’m surprised so many (well, I guess like 3, but still) people know of Fred Reed. I love the guy’s writing, but he is kind of a big nobody.
Shhhhhh……you may trigger a psychological break in NK’s feeble mind. Not only is he incapable of comprehending mixed-race marriages, but there’s nothing he despises more than the thought of a white man consorting with an Asian woman.
If he finds out Fred is guilty of both, it may send him over the edge.
“Peasant pigs, “ajeossi”… it can be quite interesting, sometimes, to see the disdain people have for the class of people on whose back this country was built. I guess between working slave shifts in the factories and fighting with military dictators, they didn’t have much time to attend diversity sensitivity classes”
I was talking about certain individuals, pigs like Mr Park in this story, not middle-class, educated Koreans like the ones I work with, or younger Korean guys in general.
Plus I’m sure there are many poorer people on whose backs this country was built who don’t think like him.
NK used to cut and paste crap from Fred Reed and throw it into his comments all the time.
Funny he never posted this beauty though:
From the woman’s point of view, American (and in general First World) men also look pretty good. The cold fact is that American men treat women well. In a lot of countries, the men are—I’m trying to think of a polite euphemism for “real dickheads”; one will come to me in a moment. They beat their wives, cheat on them, treat them like chattels. American men don’t. (There are exceptions to all of this, of course, but they are exceptions.) A gringo wants his wife to be part of his life. He will go to dinner with her, take her desires into account, and treat her as an equal. Koreans won’t.
Got that NK? That would be your ideological hero Fred Reed not only glorifying American (and by American, Fred means WHITE) men as fantastic husbands, but he also clarifies the alternative (men “in a lot of countries”) as “real dickheads” who beat their wives, cheat on them, and treat them like slaves. And what country’s men does he decide to single out as the sole example of these “real dickheads” at the end of the paragraph? KOREAN MEN.
Shhhh…if you listen real hard you can hear Netizen Kim pulling all his hair out and frantically searching for a new ideological soulmate. Preferrably one that doesn’t paint his own father as a wife-beating, philandering dickhead.
You know what? Fuck it! I am dropping it all and agreeing with Pawi. He’s right, after all, you know, and bugger old Bojji-nit and his appeals for political correctness, after all its waaaayyy more sinister than showing your fellow man a bit of common courtesy and basic human respect.
Damn it, I want to go back to the 1950s. The era where a white guy like me could walk around the neighborhood, safe in the knowledge that my university place was guaranteed and not about to be taken by some oriental or heathen. Where, if the likes of that stinky pickaninny Hussein dared open his gob I could tell him to get out back finish mowing the lawn or whatever other menial task his on-the-fringes-of-society status would afford him. Where I could safely call the likes of Pawi a “garlic-gobbed savage” and be safe in the knowledge that he’d be unlikely to understand me as the relatively few of his type tended their market gardens.
Yes sir, and none of our bright young things would go off to foreign shores to dangle their doodles in some slant-eyed temptress. No-sir-ee, for there would be some vestigial, 19th-Century law on the statutes that would equate living with a female of the Mongol race as akin to keeping a bawdy house. If anyone did minister to the Golden horde, it would be limited to their brightest offspring in our colonies and kept at a minimum to the glories of Anglo-Saxon culture and the Scriptures in the hope of civilizing them.
Nor would we have to whine like a bushman without a bone about the influx of Samsung or Sanyo TVs, but rather we would be locked into a system of trading with other members of the (white) Commonwealth, trading butter with the Canadians and Sheep with the jolly Rhodesians. Rank Arena or HMV sets would be good enough and the only thing we would buy from the godless, colored rascals would be camphor, tea and the odd trinket for the outhouse.
The politics of the day would be dominated not by a discourse over the possibility of a descent into the multi-cultural hell our Pawi so wisely warns us of, but rather of the joys of a mono-culture (ours) and how the jolly hell we continue to spread it. A man as brave as Enoch Powell would not even need arise as our immigration laws would ensure that some Eastern Hottentot would surely fail, given we could require he pass his test in one of 50 European languages – in his case Manx – which he wouldn’t have heard of, let alone have a hootin’ hope of understanding.
A society where the only vehicles in sight were Fords and GMs and the sole Asiatic conveyance would be the wooden cart in which the aforementioned chinkie transported his runner beans to the local greengrocer. AND, you could rest safe in the assurance that should our yellow mate cut you off with his obnoxious driving habits that you would be well within your God-given, constitutional rights to clip him over the ear, just as brave Mr Park did to that uppity Hindoo!
So there, Pawi, me old china plate, given that I have now swallowed your bromide and recognized the sheer horror of the multi-cult of which you have so valiantly preached against, will you embrace it? Should it be so, kindly bog off back down to the patch and keep the frost off my pumpkins with your coolie hat!
To be fair, Fred Reed is pretty harsh on American “men” as well. He characterizes many contemporary American “men” as being effete, whiny, sniveling, sarcastic homos. He would most certainly categorize you (correctly) as some sort of annoying liberal fag.
In fact, he’d probably say that you two – NetizenKim, the bitter, poon-starving dickhead, and you, the effeminate homo, are perfect for each other.
Man, you guys must take trip to Australia. Indian men are one of biggest target of racial abuse in Australia and they don’t speak up, now they tries their luck at Korea?, country with almost 99% Korean. Even with foreign marriages according to South Korean govt, 1 in 10 will be mixed Korean in 2050, that’s still 90% Korean and other 10% are mixed Korean.
With demography like in Korea, we won’t see truly multicultural society unless more than half of Koreans becomes mixed race. have you guys looked into country like Iran? Iran is only consist of less than 50% Persian people, rest are Arabs and other Middle Eastern people, and yet they are still Iranian and they don’t welcome foreigners either.
aaronm,
I’m not sure what your point is.
The fact that Pawi and other non-whites would have been treated a certain way in the past throughout the Anglosphere and other Western countries, and the fact that Western countries today are a certain way, doesn’t mean that Korea or any other country must be a certain way today or in the future.
International fugitive, “child molester” … it can be quite interesting, sometimes, to see the disdain people have for the class of people who are good movie directors. I guess between being displaced from his country of residence and having his unborn child ripped from the mother’s stomach, he didn’t have time to learn not to bugger underage girls.
Oops, I thought this was the Roman Polanski thread…
Cute.
IHBB, good post. It made my day.
@Koreansentry, granted and both State and Federal governments have moved quicker than an adjuma at a cabbage sale to ensure police enforce the law and to reassure Indians that Australia is safe for them. Kevin Rudd (PM), Stephen Smith (Foreign Minister), Julia Gillard (Deputy PM) and a number of State Premiers have visited Delhi in order to allay fears.
What is little known about the case is that a) over 2o Australians have been murdered in Indian in the last 10 years or so, without Australians conducting the fanfare and criminal violence enacted by Indian male students at rallies against the beatings and b) that the overwhelming majority of the culprits for the violence against Indian students are Lebanese-Australian immigrants and not whites.
@MKAPlan, I run the risk of patronizing you, but seeing as you are dense to the point of bending light, I will explain the purpose of my satire.
Pawi dislikes multiculturalism
Yet Pawi is a relic of multiculturalism
Therefor Pawi is a hypocrite.
aaronm,
Christ, you’re stupid.
Are we missing something here? Did you manage to resolve the Is-ought problem or something? Because if you did, that would be kind of a big deal.
Your retarded pseudo syllogism is, well, retarded. Hurry and get yourself a copy of The Organon before you confuse yourself and others any further.
My original point still stands: “The fact that Pawi and other non-whites would have been treated a certain way in the past throughout the Anglosphere and other Western countries, and the fact that Western countries today are a certain way, doesn’t mean that Korea or any other country must be a certain way today or in the future.”
Re: Whitey is only interested in advocating for Freedom of his Dick in Korea and little else, least of which is the plight of 3-D migrant laborers and brown people in Korea.
There are plenty of white people that fit that description just as there are many who are very concerned about the plight of migrant workers. Gross generalizations are lame.
Dr. Kim, I suggest you re-read The Autobiography of Malcolm X and ponder the use of the word “the white man” and what that really means. You may discover it is not limited to skin color.
@33 At least he isn’t a self described “self hating jew” who tries to break down all decisions into a racial us and them. You seem good with assimilating information but lousy at processing it into something meaningful.
Project much mkaplan? Or are you still protesting too much about being Jewish?
You and NK get off on Fred Reed’s bitter old coot routine, pining for the days when darkie knew his place…and you don’t think you two have anything in common?
Life passed you by old man, deal with it.
Mkaplan,
What part about Pawi longing for a mono-cultural Korea devoid of uppity fer’ners and me parodying same wish for my native land do you not get as satire, especially when if the shoe was on the other foot, Pawi would be getting the exact same kind of treatment as he dismisses as trivial? I know some of you Seppos are irony-deficient, but you, son, are just plain fuckin thick. Can’t you see the glaring hypocrisy of Pawi, an Asian American, railing against multiculturalism in one country (in which he doesn’t live, btw) when he himself is a beneficiary thereof in the land of his residence? For that matter, do you even know the meaning of “satire”, “hypocrisy” or “cat” or “mat” or “bunny” for that very matter?
I’m not Jewish.
If you actually read and understand his comment and mine, you would have recognized that he was actually the one to break it down “into a racial us and them.” His argument basically amounted to saying, “Pawi, you and other non-whites would have been treated very badly in the West in the past. These days, we don’t really treat you like that anymore. So now you and Korea must or should be a certain way.”
All I did was point out that this is not a valid argument: “The fact that Pawi and other non-whites would have been treated a certain way in the past throughout the Anglosphere and other Western countries, and the fact that Western countries today are a certain way, doesn’t mean that Korea or any other country must be a certain way today or in the future.”
You seem good at using vacuous buzzwords and phrases to say nothing at all while attempting to sound insightful.
I learned something new today, “seppo.”
You’ve quoted your own statement. That’s full-on blogphilia!
I’m also not Jewish.
“Pawi, you and other non-whites would have been treated very badly in the West in the past. These days, we don’t really treat you like that anymore.”
Do you think his “these days” are these days or do they include the other days?
I was circumcised on the 8th day, have learned a bit of Hebrew, and generally don’t eat ‘creepy’ things. Also, my son was born in Jerusalem. Does all that make me quasi-Jewish?
Jeffery Hodges
* * *
Robert,
I wonder if you could start ending your posts with a sentence that begins with the words, “My point is ….”
Very good, Mr. Bevers. A full comment and not even a single reference to Dokdo!
I’m not. This git can go fuck the pack animal he rode in on.
You mean, like a camel jockey?
I dunno; maybe he goes for donkeys. I don’t really care. But if he wants the white man to shoulder his burden, then he better damn well play his part and mouth the word “sahib” with real sincerity.
Hardyandtiny’s not Jewish!
Reminds me of the old Monty Python skit: Mr Universe and Mrs. S.C.U.M.
“Oh Mr Universe I want to sit beside you on your eternal thrown” “I too, you’re not Jewish are you?”
I was once accused of being Jewish on this Blog……….
@23
“I was talking about certain individuals, pigs like Mr Park in this story, not middle-class, educated Koreans like the ones I work with, or younger Korean guys in general.”
So someone has to be middle-class and educated to be non-bigoted? Or of a certain age?
Are you implying that the educated are inherently unable of racism?
You sound like them which you disdain.
So we have now three different groups of people pitted against each other in Korea.
(Koreans) vs (Indians/other Asians) vs (Westerners)
The bitter saga continues.
YBS, the peasant pig stuff is a bit harsh. As is the suggestion that middle-class people aren’t racist. Eh.
I wonder what would happen to me if I went strolling down the road in an Arab country with an Arab girl on my arm? Since I love the girl I give her a quick on the cheek to show my affection for her and hold her hand to show her my warmth of heart. Haha. Dream on buddy.
I fear this judgment sends the wrong message to those who are genuinely malodorous. I put it to you that the future Mr. Kimparklee will be dealt an injustice. A verbal assault it but just a moment. An assault on one’s olfactory system is relentless and most unendurable.
I can remember the days when indoor plumbing and water heaters were just a dream for most Koreans; bathing was a once-a-week occurrence. Koreans were ripe. Menstruating women especially so. Adding to my misery Koreans tended to wear the same unlaundered clothes for days. But Korea’s moved onward and upward, and it doesn’t deserve the likes of this lot dragging it backwards. Daily bathing is civilisation!
Much like the long overdue month-long unpaid cultural training classes for English teachers, I ask the authorities enact – quickly! – a proper hygiene programme for the foreigners before being overrun by the unwashed heathens.
If you’re going to have the foreigners running about better they be washed heathens, I say.
sumo294:
Prof. Hussain is probably Muslim judging by his last name, but he is not from an Arab country. He’s Indian, as he mentioned in the article. What is your point?
Depends which Arab country you’re in. The quick peck on the cheek would be frowned on by the more conservative folks. I’ve seen real no-tongue kisses at the airport, but mostly by westerners. The hand holding I see often. Includes Arabs, too. Pommy slags like to fornicate on the beach for the public’s amusement. BTW, not much “strolling down the road” in the Gulf states. Strolling in mall is more like it.
Just a few years ago Korean men and women wouldn’t dare hold hands in public. Now they’re swapping spit in the subway.
I wonder if Prof. Hussain, devoid of a Western expat society that is very vocal in railing against discrimination, would speak up at all?
By that, I wonder if there wasn’t so much ruckus over AES, would Prof. Hussain actually feel compelled to pen this editorial? I’d actually think, “no.” He only feels there needs to be bridge making because a group he perceives being the victims of lesser discriminations (the fork-and-knife versus blocked from restaurant comparison was particularly effective) are…well, effectively whining.
#27.
Phoot!
Australia is the country of the descendants of crime commiters and forced deportees. Who expects reasonable treatments from Australians of bad blood? You?
Korea is quite different from Australia.
Korea has been by the country of one people with some mixtures of Chinese and Japanese who went to Korea to live in peace. My foremost father(of my family line) came from China to this peninsula which is dangled at the end of this big continent. I’m the 2x-th descent of my family line. One generation is 30 yrs. So, the founding father came here maybe at the end of Song period, so as to escape from the disturbances at the center of the continent. He was not deported to this peninsula.
I’ll take “The lamp of the East” of Tagore as I learned at the school. Tagore was a Nobel prize laureate. (※ http://www.froginawell.net/korea/2007/03/remixing-tagore ) Even Tagore admired Korea. Confucius longed for Korea, too, which is located at the dawn of China continent.
So, Koreans are expected to act decently as the lamp of the East. The drunken man shattered this expectation of a naive foreigner, and it’s natural that the Indian be resented by all this. The Indian did well.
Got that NK? That would be your ideological hero Fred Reed not only glorifying American (and by American, Fred means WHITE) men as fantastic husbands, but he also clarifies the alternative (men “in a lot of countries”) as “real dickheads” who beat their wives, cheat on them, and treat them like slaves. And what country’s men does he decide to single out as the sole example of these “real dickheads” at the end of the paragraph? KOREAN MEN.
Shhhh…if you listen real hard you can hear Netizen Kim pulling all his hair out and frantically searching for a new ideological soulmate. Preferrably one that doesn’t paint his own father as a wife-beating, philandering dickhead.
I will allow Fred Reed his conceit and vanity in that regard. Everybody has flaws. I’m rather magnanimous that way.
A typical trait of the American male is to be vulgarly loud, boastful, and self-aggrandizing in a manner that any self-conscious person would find totally embarrassing. Fred Reed’s statement is an example of such. The rest of the world finds it rather crass but are too polite to let you know. Even Europeans find it tasteless and indicative of some hidden insecurity.
White guys don’t cheat or beat their wives? Wonderful. For this you want what? A cookie? I don’t suppose this has anything to do with the fact that if you did beat or cheat on your wife, you’d be ass-raped in divorce court out of your money, house, and possessions. But the way Whitey tells it, he almost makes it sound like it’s due to some inherent moral superiority.
It kind of reminds of something Chris Rock once said:
“Niggas always want credit for some shit they supposed to do. A nigga will brag about some shit a normal man just does. A nigga will say some shit like, “I take care of my kids.” You’re supposed to, you dumb motherfucker! What kind of ignorant shit is that? “I ain’t never been to jail!” What do you want, a cookie?! You’re not supposed to go to jail, you low-expectation-having motherfucker!”
You’re not supposed to beat your wife, you low-expectation-having mofo’s!
White boys always love sucking on their own dicks.
Can you imagine what the world would say to me if I acted just like a White boy? They’ll think I’m overcompensating for having a small penis.
Imagine if I were to go imposing myself on the Black community saying shit like “well, I have a job, never been to jail, and never got a girl pregnant…this is why I am better than a Black guy. BTW, this entitles me to score Black pussy left and right”. The Black community would tell me to go fuck myself and the loudest of them would be Black women themselves.
Yet this is precisely the kind of warped mentality that White boys bring to the Asian community. Stupid, mindless, naive Asian girls fall for this hook, line, and sinker. Clueless Asian boys don’t even know what the fuck is going on and if they do, they’re too chump to say anything about it.
Not only would you be “ass-raped in divorce court out of your money, house, and possessions,” but also you’d be ass-raped in prison by members of ethnic gangs i.e. blacks and Hispanics.
More rapes are committed against men in our prison system than against all women in free and prison society, combined, every year. And white men are especially victimized. The Asian male prison population is very low, but they certainly fare no better and quite possibly worse.
Government itself routinely uses the explicit threat of gang rape in “crime prevention” programs aimed at youth, such as that depicted in the public television broadcast of “Scared Straight” where youth offenders are warned about their fate as sex slaves if they go to prison. Awareness is so widespread that Hollywood movies routinely make light of the pervasive nature of prisoner rape. It’s a common trope of popular culture, everybody jokes about it, etc.
So basically, the Quaker conception of the penitentiary (i.e. humane reform of prisoners through solitude and reflection) has been so perverted that the threat of HIV-infected gang rape of prisoners is now a de facto primary component of the government’s authority. The government is absolutely aware of this, of course. And it’s all informal, of course. Both the threat of losing a huge chunk of one’s net worth, possessions, custody of children, etc. and the threat of de facto cruel and unusual punishment in the form of prison rape form the basis of the government’s authority here.
I don’t doubt that for some, perhaps many or most, white guys, moral status competition plays a big role here. Especially among effete, urban, SWPL types. It’s a way of distinguishing oneself from poorer, lower class/status whites, rural Southerners, etc., that hold more conservative, traditional views and from those from say, more insular and traditional societies like Korea. It’s status jockeying to be morally and socially superior.
@57
Do you really think migrant workers and the Korean civic groups that support them aren’t vocal? Western expats are ‘vocal’ in the English language papers and their blogs, which amounts to little as far as Korean society being aware of their complaints. Anyone who thinks that by ‘building bridges’ western expats would somehow be benefiting the struggle of migrant workers has got it completely wrong. Considering the number of civic groups supporting migrant workers and their media presence, it would be western expats that would benefit. Migrant workers most certainly have it harder (as if that even needs to be said) but you’ll notice that the media generally does not portray them negatively. Thais made up over two thirds of the drug arrests of foreigners last year, but this isn’t something the media concentrates on, something made clear when 34 Thais and 2 English teachers were arrested in April and the Thais were barely mentioned. Little such sympathy exists in the media for western expats.
#27 ” My foremost father(of my family line) came from China to this peninsula which is dangled at the end of this big continent. I’m the 2x-th descent of my family line. One generation is 30 yrs. So, the founding father came here maybe at the end of Song period, so as to escape from the disturbances at the center of the continent.”
Says who? Are you going by your jokbo? It’s epidemic that quite a few Koreans claim some royalty (either Korean or Chinese) dynasties. I wouldn’t go by that. Most non-royal Koreans didn’t even have sur names until the 11th century. Koreans during the Chosun dynasty bought and sold their names to gain prestige as an aristocratic class. There is really no way to find out for sure where your ancestors were from.
NK, you probably ought to take up your issues with the American male with your ideological mentor. Seeing as how he seems to exemplify — and also seems to be quite proud of — so many of those traits that you’ve spent the last few years here lambasting and crucifying, it would appear that an internal dialogue is necessary for you to ferret out the reason why old man Fred (who quite clearly would’ve kicked your old man to the curb when he tried to set foot on our shores, and consequently relegated you to a completely different life forcibly spent among the “real dickheads”) is worthy of your magnanimity, yet some average white boys living in Korea, are not.
mkaplan, you seem to be obsessively preoccupied with the effeminate, effete, fags and homos (your words, not mine) of the world, to a degree that suggests a prior experience may have damaged you psychologically. Did a figure skating coach or a Boy Scout leader touch you in a bad place when you were a boy? Possibly one that was not white, which in combination would explain another of your hangups?
Or maybe a rabbi?
“YBS, the peasant pig stuff is a bit harsh. As is the suggestion that middle-class people aren’t racist. Eh.”
Yes some middle-class people are racist and many, probably most, working-class people are not, at least not beyond ‘Korea #1′ sentiment that’s not much different from the ‘God bless America’ crap you’d get from Yankee dumb-asses. But there is a certain percentage – a minority but a noticable one – of uneducated, racist, middle-age guys in this country for whom the term ‘peasant pig’ is all too appropriate.
Wow, I’m so surprised.
IHBB yet again employs lame sarcasm to say nothing much at all.
Most people know English here. You’re not impressing anyone here with your corny sarcasm. So save it for your illiterate wife. She’s probably never heard these lines before.
You and NK are the most pathetic guys here. NK tries to justify his sexual frustration and poon-starvation by railing against chimeras of injustice and evil, conspiratorial white guys supposedly keeping him down, or something. And you try to justify your marriage to a foreign spouse by demanding that the entire world accept it and your position of moral righteousness.
You guys are perfect for each other. The sexual tension between you two is heavy and palpable. We all can sense it here. You guys should seriously consider getting some privacy and moving your little lovers’ spat over onto Gmail chat or something.
‘IHBB yet again employs lame sarcasm to say nothing much at all.’
you forgot to mention his sarcasm is always laced with cock, pussy, and spooge. that’s a fixation of his.
Re: More rapes are committed against men in our prison system than against all women in free and prison society, combined, every year. And white men are especially victimized.
I didn’t realize you had this depth of experience. No wonder you are so fixated on your comely race.
CM is making a bad comment.
I didn’t claim royalty. The foremost father, who might have been a common man or not, came to this end of the big continent so as to live in peace. I don’t need to claim fact.
I’m the 2x-th in the family line, so if I go back to the times of 30*2x(=800 hundred something years), it’s the end of Song period in China.
http://root.or.kr/equality/family_name/family_name.htm
As u wrote, most non-royal Koreans had become family names until the 11th century.
Mr. Bonojit Hussain, sir, if you’re reading this…
You keep saying “it wouldn’t have happened to me if I were a white man” but that is simply not true. I would humbly suggest you might win more sympathy from white men if you instead began saying, “this doesn’t happen as often to white men” or “what happened to me is a common experience for people who come from South & Southeast Asian,” because most white kexpats instinctively know this is true. Please stop your racist disinformation in the Korean media by spreading the lie that such things don’t happen to whites.
The reason you’ve heard some Westerners “complain that they were not provided with chopsticks – and instead were given a fork and spoon in a Korean restaurant – and they felt discriminated against,” is because in their home countries they have been accused of racism all their lives for equally well-intentioned actions. They are not saying that being given a fork is a major human rights violation that needs to be addressed by society at large. They are complaining because they have grown up in societies with a low tolerance for racism resulting in a low threshold for defining it, and that is why they think you are racist towards them.
“That said, I might suggest to Prof. Hussain that few would deny that Western expat have it much better than migrant workers. Heck, I would go as far as to say that in some ways, Western expats are actually privileged. ”
Um…I think Prof. Bonojit Hussain is well aware of this. That is not the issue here. Korean racism is.
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