So, a Canadian, his Korean wife and their infant child get into a car accident in Gwangju…
32-year old Mrs. Kim, who lives in Gwangju, was very upset on Children’s Day. She was in a car accident with her Canadian husband and their five-month old child and the other driver called insulted her husband by calling him a 양놈 and that he wished all 양놈 would die, then insulted their child for being mixed-race, then said she and her child die also.
Wait, I thought stuff like this didn’t happen to white people. I mean, given a fork instead of chopsticks, maybe, but this?
With a husband who had already applied for Korean permanent residency, calls their child by a Korean name and wishes to continue living in Korea, Mrs. Kim wants to take a legal response but “there is no law punishing racially discriminatory language” so it could only be prosecuted as criminal insult. Mrs. Kim said, “So can we guarantee that something similar won’t happen in the future… I hope that people recognize the need for a law that will reduce the racial discrimination that multicultural children experience growing up.”
What follows is the Hankyoreh essentially lobbying for thought crime “hate crime” legislation that would ban racist speech, although why you’d need an additional law besides existing defamation laws, I’m not really sure.
{ 167 comments… read them below or add one }
So what has nationalism achieved?
A Xenophobic and racist country where children are taught from a young age that “Koreans are number one” and all other foreigners are scum.
Introduce the new law, however for it to work, there would need to be witnesses who are willing to state they saw and heard the person saying the insults. That will be difficult.
Racists are assholes. People hurling invective, racist or not, are assholes.
Should it be a crime to be an asshole? I would argue not. Maybe that makes me an asshole.
First, they came for the assholes…
1. All lawyers are assholes. A common misconception is that lawyers become assholes at the swearing in ceremony. Take it from me, they’re assholes as early as law school orientation.
(20_reasons_not_to_go_to_law_school)
She’s doing the right thing.
I commend them for resisting the urge to knock the guy’s teeth out in the presence of their kid.
@SomeguyinKorea – My view is quite different. I think that rather than lobby to make hate speech illegal, the couple should instead push to make it legal to beat the crap out of people who are assholes. Quick, easy and cathartic.
Defamation is about financial damage through injury to reputation. In the West, truth (and opinion versus fact) is a defense. In Korea, it’s not. (Or so I’ve read.)
Criminal insults are — or once were, and should be — based on the idea of preventing violence. Hence the term “fighting words” — a misnomer, in that (as I had to explain to numerous black kids earlier in my career) a white kid using the n-word does not make it OK to hit him. But that’s the idea. The U.S. has gotten away from the idea of preventing violence, and has moved toward preventing hurt feelings. Conservatives hate such laws, because they tend to hate minorities and gays. I don’t have a problem with them, and think it would be a smart move for Korea to prohibit racial insults.
By the way, how does restaurant and hotel reviewing work in Korea? May only favorable opinions be published? Or are there simply no food critics?
The correct quote is this: “First they came for George Santayana. However, they did not remember the past, so … they came for George Santayana.”
I agree with Brendon, who might or might not be an ‘Donkey Ho-Tay’, but we should be free to call him one even if he isn’t.
Once we start outlawing insults, people with the thinnest skin will govern how we speak.
And I, for one, am not willing to let such thin-skinnied, subjectified, wuss-brained, p’litic’ly correct, reality-challenged rights-mongers tell me how to talk.
If that’s alright with everybody . . .
Jeffery Hodges
* * *
Yes… as opposed to liberals, who like free speech (unless it’s “racist” or “homophobic”) because they love communists and Muslim terrorists and hate America.
OK. Just out of curiosity, though, what’s your take on the National Security Law? I mean, surely, if you think racist insults are beyond the pale, voicing support for a genocidal and, yes, racist regime that actively promotes class warfare and with which the ROK is still technically at war has to be criminally sanctioned, too, no?
The fork thing cracks me up every time.
Oh, and words are just words, they’re not a big deal.
Most Koreans are pretty generous and open-minded. Ignorant jerks like the adjoshi hurling insults are not in the majority and are dying out. Some people are like that and should be censured rather than prosecuted. Perhaps the courts could simply print the offending jerk’s name in the papers as a form of punishment along with a description of why he is a jerk.
I had not heard of the Guk-ga Bo-an-beop till now.
I looked it up on Wikipedia, and am glad to know it.
According to Wikipedia, more than half of Korea’s citizens think the law should be repealed. Also that as recently as 2002 a soldier was convicted for telling other soldiers that the U.S., not the North, was responsible for Korea’s partition. That case, and especially his 2-year imprisonment, sounds extreme; but then I’ve never been in the ROK Army. I guess my take, as a foreigner interested in Korea, would be to respect the wishes of the majority of Koreans who want the law repealed, as there doesn’t appear to be any reason for me (as an American) to oppose their wishes.
I’ve answered your question seriously. I hope you meant it seriously. I take it you didn’t like my remark about conservatives hating minorities and gays, but fear and hatred have been the basis of GOP politics from Nixon’s Southern strategy through Lee Atwater and Willie Horton and Karl Rove to the Teabaggers and Andrew Breitbart. That’s just a fact; and there is no left-wing counterpart or equivalence. Opposing futile wars and torture abroad and deploring the crushing of civil liberties in the U.S. does not equal love for communists or terrorists or hate for America, and I know you are too intelligent to seriously believe otherwise.
Brendon, though, I’m not so sure about.
He just has a crush on Palin… which is disgusting.
I think conservatives dislike such laws because they restrict individual freedoms. I found an interesting diagraph the other day, from an interesting website.
Regarding the guy screaming racist obsenities, my first thought was that the other guy (and girl) should toughen up a bit. Shit happens. But then I thought about it a bit more. If it were me on the receiving end, I’d be inclinded towards violence, particularly if my kid/wife was copping abuse. And I don’t think it’s right that a man should be booked for reacting to a pretty provocative (non-physical) attack. So I’m not sure how it should be handled. Police discretion?
While I agree that an anti-racism law is going a bit too far, I applaud the Hankyoreh for taking a strong stand against racism in Korea.
hoju_saram,
That’s an excellent (though somewhat chaotic) graph.
The caveat though is that it really applies to the US left-right spectrum. Other countries will define left/right in broadly similar but different ways. For instance, in South Korea, the nationalists tend to be on the left, and the main demarcaters are things like the attitudes towards the US and North Korea and you have “ironic” things like conservatives supporting big public works projects (like Four Rivers) and liberals opposing them. In general, religion doesn’t figure too strongly in Asian politics at all.
Also, most political scientists agree that the left-right spectrum is not a 1-dimensional line, but a two-dimensional (or even multi-dimensional) plane to account for different views on economics, personal issues, foreign policy, etc.
Most people over-simplify and say “Mao, Stalin, Kim Jong Il and Pol Pot were leftists and Hitler, Mussolini, and Pinochet were rightists,” usually in an effort to defame supporters of the opposite party. In reality, none of those tyrants bear none but the most superficial relationships to mainstream left/right politicians in any modern democracy.
Only political hacks and people who blindly support political parties/politicians fit comfortably on a 2D line.
being bitched out like that would make me furious, only because it’s not the first time I’d heard things like that. I don’t try to blend into the crowd, but I don’t try to stand out either. I know some commenters here report they’ve never been insulted because of being a foreigner, but seriously, their Korean comprehension must be pretty low, or they hide in Itaewon.
The little things build up. Maybe I need to release that stress in more productive ways, but wow, to have my kid insulted like that? I’m not sure WHAT I would do. If I had a kid.
From experience, I can say that when Cholla Adjoshis get angry, nothing is sacred. They don’t mince words in Gwangju, that’s for sure.
Of all the ironic things that do exist within the left-right political divide in Korea, I would not have classified this as one. Four Rivers fall under the policy of heavy contruction, a very “let’s build our way to prosperity” at the cost of destruction of natural environment and rank low in the eco-scale and most lefties are environmentalists to varying degrees all around the world.
Sure, that’s one way of looking at it…
But I meant from an economic perspective. Conservatives are generally opposed to large-scale government intervention in the economy, especially in regards to massive public works projects, whereas liberals are generally in favor of government-stimulated economic activities. One would think that a conservative would be strongly opposed to the project on those grounds.
Going back to the topic at hand, the word origin of 양놈 with respect to the Japanese usage, made me ponder. While it is derogatory 洋놈 from the way it’s developed from the Chinese character, especially with 놈 attached, 서양놈->양놈 it also must have had some converging influence with the Korean word 양아치(looked up in the dictionary meaning 거지(beggar) which was surprising, I always thought it had more of the connotation of 건달/깡패, similar to the way the Japanese now use the word 양키 (yankee) to describe young gang members or 비행소년, though originally it was also what the Japanese used to describe the Americans (or Westerners) in a derogatory fashion.
양공주/양색시 was probably another derogatory way it was used at one point to denote the GI girlfriends/brides.
Milton I guess it depends on how you literally interpret the word 토목공사 (or literally earth,wood construction from the Chinese)= civil engineering or public works.
For the lefties (I am actually wondering if the four rivers actually has much of an ardent support even among the righties outside the immediate government circle and the companies involved) they think that project falls under the 토목공사(civ eng), I’ve just seen some pro-4rivers website (just now just the heading) trying to convince it’s *not* a 토목공사 for this reason.
If anything, I would say that the departure from the vanilla model of left-right wrt 4rivers could be construed from the fact that one would expect the traditionalists conservatives (old men who smoke long pipes) should be concerned about things like “diverting waterways” which might be against some natural “ki” or “chi” of the land, or that the “ancestors would be turning over in their graves” but this is stretching it because lefties are really into their “ki” s and “crystals” as well.
This is a thread that requires voting…
“I think conservatives dislike such laws because they restrict individual freedoms.” — Hoju-saram
Maybe that’s true in Oz, but not in the U.S. American conservatives have no problem curtailing civil liberties in the name of the War on Terra’, or with restricting individual freedoms when it comes to drug use or porn or offensive song lyrics or building a mosque near Ground Zero or anything else conservatives don’t like; and they also have no problem imprisoning the highest percentage of their fellow citizens in the world. Just don’t mess with their guns or their right to call gay men fags.
“I don’t think it’s right that a man should be booked for reacting to a pretty provocative (non-physical) attack.” — Hoju-saram
Except that the whole reason why we have criminal justice systems is to prevent breaches of the peace. The state simply cannot condone violence; and trust me, you would not want to live in a land where police have the unfettered discretion to decide when to enforce the laws.
“Conservatives are generally opposed to large-scale government intervention in the economy, especially in regards to massive public works projects, whereas liberals are generally in favor of government-stimulated economic activities.” — Milton
This is certainly true in the U.S., as long as you are talking about useful things such as roads, bridges, schools, libraries, airports and air traffic control, high speed rail lines, or keeping many thousands of auto industry workers employed. But if you’re talking about spending trillions of dollars for futile wars based on lies or a complex network of redundant agencies and industries whose job is to spy on U.S. citizens, or the vast array of new state and federal prisons needed to house all the Americans locked up for drugs, that’s OK with them. Reagan and Bushes Sr. and Jr. all had record high budgets, record high budget deficits, and record high U.S. debt.
U.S. conservatives champion individual freedom (for things they like to do), and oppose all federal spending (for the things they don’t like).
So much tendentious horse puckey in WackoBoy’s last, I hate to cherry-pick, but…
Record until Barry Hussein came along with a determination to get serious about building a socialist utopia (while continuing the neocon-inspired military adventures in foreign lands) and blew them all out of the water.
Do us a favor, oh colossal-idiot-of-all-time, stop speaking for American “conservatives”. You know not of which you write. Maybe we preferred George Bush to the alternative (John Kerry, good grief!) but that doesn’t mean we loved everything George Bush did. And anyone who criticizes Bush for spending like a drunken sailor (the Medicare drug bribe for my Dad and his cohort was disgusting) and doesn’t want to puke over Obama’s four-times-greater deficits can go fuck himself.
That’s you, by the way.
WeikuBoy — While a discussion of the Democratic Party’s historic support for segregation, its voting record on the Civil Rights Act; its proud history of running corrupt urban political machines; its cultural elitism and arrogance; its love of racial spoils politics; how liberal heroes like Roosevelt, LBJ and even Kennedy abused human rights at home and abroad in the name of national security; the Democrats’ record on issues of censorship and free speech (see the Fairness Doctrine, DISCLOSE Act and net neutrality), or even its voting record on the Patriot Act (hey, don’t get me wrong — “roving” wiretaps can be fun when its your guy in the White House) might provide great flame war fodder, the fact still remains that as much as US conservatives apparently hate freedom of speech, the only person above who has expressed admiration for banning offensive speech is yourself (see #6). Now, I suppose I could use this as the basis of a rant about the liberal “nanny state” mentality and how US liberals want to turn society into a great big left-wing circle jerk like “the university” or any coastal newspaper not named the Wall Street Journal, but not only would that not be helpful and not particularly relevant to this thread, but I also prefer to believe the bulk of liberal voters — poor misguided souls they may be — and even the bulk of Democrat politicians are honorable men who support the positions they do out of well-intentioned political convictions and a world view that simply differs from my own.
That said, feel free to continue as you were — I enjoy reading political diatribes as much as next guy.
Well said, Mr. Marmot. Though you forgot to mention that the two greatest war crimes in history—the first of which happened three score and five years ago today—came at the hands of a Democratic president.
PS: Just to be clear, my criticism of the Democrat record on the Fairness Doctrine, campaign finance and net neutrality was not code for “black.”
Woa. Such a forceful backlash from high powers. Suddenly, I don’t know why but I am humming the “True Colours” song. “I see your true colours, that’s why I love you so don’t be afraid, just let them shine…”
This is actually very topical as there is a current 민간인 사찰(spying on civilians) scandal in the S.Korea which has not had airtime on the Hole.
Yuna, I hope your not suggesting that investigating netizens and following around the wives of troublesome GNP lawmakers is not the appropriate business of the Office of the Prime Minister’s office of public ethics.
But I *AM*, Robert.
Especially, if the cases such as a civilian(not employed in politics or the army) being investigated for putting criticisms or questioning stuff about the government or the president on one’s own blog(e.g. scrapbooking BBK scandal material on one’s private blog of 20,30 readers, or expressing anti-views on certain policies no matter how stupid) turns out to be true.
Also from the seriousness is in the number of cases involved (if it indeed it turns out to be a few thousand).
In the case of the painful “netizens”, I don’t think there should be *any* control/investigation over the netizens by the government, especially not under any mumbo-jumbo “cyber-security” law, certainly not in the case of “opinion-spreading” (maybe uploading a virus in the defense computer system is a different matter).
I do think that slander/libel cases can be brought forward in civil case, on an individual basis.
The biggest prolem i ever encountered in Korea was some ajoshi in a shiktan who seemed disgusted with my request of a pepsi instead of a beer to go with my fried chicken, other than that we have always been mostly completely ignored, which is just fine.
Racist insults are annoying (unexcusable in presence of a child) but yes hoju_saram is right, people should thicken up…
What i find really annoying is the constant barrage of silent, disgusted overt stares we get around here (not to mention in Switzerland and Germany), if you hate something or somebody at least drop the hyocrisy and be open about it
Indeed. Stop poking the bears Weiku!
I’m conservative. I’m a minority. I have gay friends. Am I a confused soul?
Here’s C and J and D on what some dub as “Youngpo gate” – note, *not* MBC PD 수첩 or 한겨레.
I think I pretty much got the diagnosis as a Korean left-leaner (I don’t even know if I am) that a.I’m naive and easily duped, b.crazy c.both (or something similar I cannot remember) that I can poke without reserve. Poke, Poke
As for the conservative/liberal divide in politics is concerned, I’d say there’s been a fairly equal amount of nastiness and incompetence on both sides of the fence – until you throw Kissinger into the equation, who single-handedly sinks the Republican end into the nadir. The guy ought to be in prison.
“and doesn’t want to puke over Obama’s four-times-greater deficits can go fuck himself.”
You’re talking about the bailouts, right? But, didn’t the poop hit the fan in the summer before the presidential elections?
Check the dateline.
http://articles.sfgate.com/2008-11-26/news/17127041_1_loan-guarantees-trillion-taxpayers
You’re essentially blaming Barack for the mess that Dubya left behind.
…and the inauguration was January 20th, the following year…Nearly 6 months after the first bailouts.
Also a theme i find mildly interesting is how a society can exactly define what constitutes “hate” or racist speech.
For example if i say something like:” I hate the fuckin Krauts cos their piss-colored hair is disgusting and i think they’re nothing but a bunch of obese, drunk redneck shit” this is clearly a racist, hateful comment but if i rephrase the same concept in a more satinised way, somethin like:” German people are really unattractive due to their generalised weight problems, their pasty features and their drinking habits. Also i believe their culture has overall an extremely poor influence on European society, as it seems to be based on nothing more than cheap trash tv, football and really boring repetitive techno music” is this still hate speech ?
Do the lack of direct insults and a bit more of articulation push negative generalisations about a culture and a specific group of people into acceptable territory ? And also how you define what constitutes a gross, offensive, racist generalisation in absence of death threats, swearwords etc. ?
That’s why i’m for absolute freedom of speech (combined with a State authority endowed with strong monitoring powers)
No hate speech law? Great. Leave it as it is. It shouldn’t be a crime to call someone names. Children fear being called names.
I got an early introduction to the dangers of classifying hate speech and taking legal action against those who speak it.
I was a student in Cally. There was a homeless guy who hung around this restaurant on campus. He was mentally ill. Usually talking away to himself and generally pretty checked-out. He was generally cranky and irritable but harmless. Saw him around for months. The campus had anti-hate speech rules. One day the homeless guy made a comment to a lesbian about something and called her a dyke. This employee of the restaurant, who was probably sick of the homeless guy hanging out , ran over and pointed and yelled “That’s hate speech!! That’s hate speech and that is NOT allowed!” He was VERY agitated.
He called the campus cops, who came and were in the process of reluctantly taking the homeless guy in. I don’t know if he was formally arrested or what. But the image of the accuser has stuck with me. He was much more disturbing to me than the homeless guy or anything he did.
I’m sorry that the couple put up with such mean abuse. But there are jerks in the world, and you have to be a little tough to get by. Let’s not rely more and more on big brother to fight our battles for us. The price will be too high. It’s censorship at root, and censorship is a very slippery slope.
Better than being cynical and staid. Or a LMB-lover.
I think I would only draw the line when one incites “steel-capped retributions” on the German people for their extremely poor influence, and until then, one is just expressing one’s opinion. Incitement is the key. Opinion-spreading is still on this side of the fence.
Is that a sort of a vote? Can I save it for when we get the rating system back? because I so desperately want that vote, because I so want to be the Prom Queen.
Forget hate speech meatspace laws, let’s get the Marmot to start cracking down on witless trolls.
Yuna it makes sense but again grey areas exist in determining what constitutes incitement, i.e. if i say “Let’s exterminate the fuckin Yanks” that’s clearly incitement, if instead i just express joy for 9-11, is that still an incitement to violence ? Too many grey areas, better not mess with freedom of speech at all
And as for the debate over the spending sins of our two pathetic, bought and paid for, corrupt political parties, it’s definitely a case of trying to tell two identical twins apart. If either really represented the people, we would be past the point where one medical event can completely , financially wipe out an upper middle class family or anyone else below that economic level. What a terrible fear for all American families to live with, and it’s not a new fear.
Do I detect a hint of 닭살? Maybe you are cynical after all.
C’mon calling for people ban it is at best kinda tasteless and useless and it is giving way too much importance to the above mentioned witless troll
“I’m a lot drunker than you, so it’ll be a fair fight.’
– The Caine Mutiny (one of the all-time greats)
“Record [deficits and debt] until Barry Hussein [Obama] came along with a determination to get serious about building a socialist utopia” — Ut Videam
Whatever; but they said conservatives are fiscally responsible, while Dems spend like drunken sailors (in Brendon’s phrase). And that’s just not borne out by the facts, at least not in my lifetime. The opposite is true. Clinton-Gore actually balanced the federal budget; but Bush Jr., like Nixon, Reagan and Bush Sr. before, blew it all. Like drunken sailors.
But dropping the two bombs on Imperial Japan were war crimes? Really? Well, to put it mildly, I disagree.
@Brendon: Sure, I’ll stop speaking for conservatives, if you stop speaking for liberals. I support Obama’s continuation of Bush-Cheney policies FAR less than you (I’m guessing) supported the Bush-Cheney wars of choice and curtailment of civil liberties, etc., in the first place. And if you think Bush-Cheney betrayed conservative ideals, you ain’t seen nothing like the disillusionment liberals feel for Obama less than two years in.
@Robert: I hate to say this, but you sound just like my late grandfather, who (bless his heart) on all major holidays railed against Dems for their sins in the 1930′s, 40′s and 50′s. Isn’t there a statute of limitations on being tarred and feathered simply because of the fact that no respectable white Southerner, no matter how conservative, would join the Party of Lincoln until the great realignment following the 1964 Civil Rights Act, and that, as a result, historical anachronisms such as … Georgia’s Zell Miller (Thanks, Wikipedia! I couldn’t remember that silly little hooter’s name) continued to embarrass the Democratic Party into the 21st century?
Seriously, Robert, I admire — tremendously — your sense of humor and knowledge of Korea; but isn’t it possible that, like Brendon, you’ve been away from the U.S. too long? Because the Democratic Party I know, in order to compete with the Republicans’ advantage in money as the party of the corporate rich, has long since sold out to the very same corporate interests. We the People — a once-great nation of middle-class farmers, factory workers, shopkeepers, and school teachers — now have no voice, and no choice. Zero. Zip. Nada damn thing. The Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave has been subcontracted out to Halliburton while you were away, and our jobs have been shipped to China and India, Vietnam and the Philippines. In the very near future we happy few will all be regarded as visionaries for getting out while the getting was good.
Hint? I blockcased the word.
Hojusaram, Gangpeh, as much as it pains me to admit this (that I like anyone), I like you both so can I just point out that you guys got your wires crossed at some point with Gangpeh attributing some remarks of another hoju saram to Hojusaram by mistake.
“Let’s exterminate the fucking Yanks at this time on this date by this method, you in?” would be an incitement if evidence can be secured with intent to carry out, but I am sure there are clear legal definitions in such cases. I am more concerned with the government’s choice of enforcing such rules at their own discretion against much less.
I know, but it would be nice if certain commentators like yourself simply weren’t here anymore. Just saying.
I agree with Mr. Koehler and Mr. Carr on this this one. And I don’t see this as a partisan issue. Americans happen to place an incredibly high value on free speech.
While I advocated for Naver pulling certain post from AES’s website (the majority of which were pulled, by the way), the issue there was an organization distributing racial propaganda that promoted racial hatred and discrimination, which is prohibited under Korean law (via the ICERD treaty). http://www.rjkoehler.com/2009/11/20/naver-wont-shut-down-anti-english-spectrum/#comment-352977
Shouting racial obscenities out the the window of a car is not the same thing. That said, under Korean law it can certainly be punished. I think this case goes back to the discussion on Prof. Bonojit Hussain.
http://www.rjkoehler.com/2009/11/27/bonojit-hussain-gets-1-million-won/#comment-353655
The prosecutors used “insult” (제 311조 (모욕죄)) in that case to successfully punish the man who racially insulted Prof Hussain . The same could be done here.
But my heart goes out to that family and I think Mrs. Kim has every right to advocate that Korea take a different perspective than the U.S. on “free speech” issues.
Take, for example, France and the US’s different perspectives on Yahoo! auction of Nazi memorabilia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LICRA_v._Yahoo!
While I think the U.S. court made the correct decision (under US law) to allow Yahoo! to continue selling Nazi memorabilia through its auction site (169 F.Supp.2d 1181 (N.D. Cal. 2001), I also respect and agree with the La Ligue Contre Le Racisme et L’Antisemitisme’s (LICRA) decision to sue Yahoo! and the French court’s decision in their favor. That may seem like an inconsistent perspective, but I think the US court in that case had a similar view. While ruling in favor of Yahoo!, the US judge went out of his way to make clear that:
“This case is not about the moral acceptability of promoting the symbols or propaganda of Nazism. . . . This Court is acutely mindful of the emotional pain reminders of the Nazi era cause to Holocaust survivors and deeply respectful of the motivations of the French Republic in enacting the underlying statutes and of the defendant organizations in seeking relief under those statutes. Vigilance is the key to preventing atrocities such as the Holocaust from occurring again.
Nor is this case about the right of France or any other nation to determine its own law and social policies. A basic function of a sovereign state is to determine by law what forms of speech and conduct are acceptable within its borders. In this instance, as a nation whose citizens suffered the effects of Nazism in ways that are incomprehensible to most Americans, France clearly has the right to enact and enforce laws such as those relied upon by the French Court here.
In particular, there is no doubt that France may and will continue to ban the purchase and possession within its borders of Nazi and Third Reich related matter and to seek criminal sanctions against those who violate the law.” (169 F.Supp.2d 1181 (N.D. Cal. 2001)
http://eric_goldman.tripod.com/caselaw/yahoovlicranov2001.htm
With a new (and sizable) generation of so-called “mixed blood” Koreans growing up in Korea there may be a special need to enact laws to make certain their rights are protected.
You like gangpe? We can’t be friends anymore.
Agreed and i think the American Constitution is actually the best tool ever created to prevent the Government from comitting too many discretionary abuses, despite the fact i’m ready to admit that the actual limitation of the freedom of speech (Holocaust deniers being on top of my list) of some people would not make me twist in my bed at night.
Other than that, it’s the internet some shit always get swapped but it’s harmlesss shit
I find it amusing when white boys get their panties in a twist about things that I have dealt with since the age of 10 growing up in the inner-city Bronx.
Life’s a bitch sometimes…but do you really want to live in a world completely devoid of dumbfucks and assholes ? They remind us of what we don’t want to be, that’s another reason, to go back on the topic, while i cherish freedom of speech so much.
Sorry for the idiotic question (weather volatility is killing me) but this is a joke, right ?
NK: actually from what i’ve read here most people seem fairly unconcerned with the ajossi moment of lunacy and they’re suggesting this couple should basically ignore the thing and move on, am i misreading/misunderstanding something ?
PS
Define white boy, not even whites can agree on a definition of whiteness
#42,
“I was a student in Cally.”
You did Cally, too? Damn, that girl got around.
NK. panties, that’s 빤스 for you guys. A Korean-American cousin of mine always used to complain that his mum would call out to him in front of his 16 year old friends, “종훈아! 팬티 가져가” to take his neatly folded washing upstairs, and he was worried that his friends would say “what you wear panties?”
Incidentally, I think it’s “panties in a knot” and only in the original British expression it is “knickers in a twist”
“Agreed and i think the American Constitution is actually the best tool ever created to prevent the Government from comitting too many discretionary abuses… ”
…or so you say.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Crow_laws
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mccarthyism
Someguy,
I was. And that joke kinda sucked, sorry to say.
Looks to me that the jury is in and that the vast majority of this august body of bloggers are all for the right of the Aj to scream and holler.
Netty Kim, I promise you that noone gives a fuck that you grew up in Brooklyn. So did a tree, and she was probably tougher than you. Hell, Carl SAGAN grew up in Brooklyn. Where you’re from doesn’t matter.. it’s who you are that I care about. All you proved today is that you have the same shitheaded racist tendencies as the Cholla Rolla. Purify.
By the way, my comment @51 is now out of moderation and ready for reading. Should anyone care to read what I have to say in response to the onslaught from Ut Videam, Brendon, Robert, et al.
#63
It’s the Bronx, not Brooklyn. I have no idea what the hell “Cholla Rolla” is. Reading comprehension, Mofo.
The most asinine whine in the world is that of the victimized white boy who resorts to the facile use of the ever belabored Race Card.
Well you can go on all you like, but don’t expect roses if you’re going to start race baiting on this blog.
Let’s take a look at this morning’s news:
1. Glen Beck on Faux News describes the Obama White House as like the Planet of the Apes. [Note for non-Americans: the use of terms such as ape for African-Americans is a career-ending insult equivalent to the n-word; and all Americans, including Beck and his Faux News bosses, know it.]
2. A colonel in the U.S. Army is refusing to go to Afghanistan because in his words Obama has not proved he is a natural born citizen of the U.S. Like our resident ODS sufferer Brendon, there are “Birthers” in the Army. This week it was reported that Faux News viewers disproportionately believe that Obama is not a U.S. citizen and is therefore ineligible for the presidency.
Sadly, racism and insanity are the bread and butter of U.S. conservatism.
While I am all for free speech, the moment that this guy suggested that her child should die I do believe a line was crossed and this was a bit too close to a threat (particularly if the kid was in the car with the family). If somebody suggested that my five-month child ‘should die’ for being mixed race, there would be a serious boot to the skull. This goes beyond people needing to ‘thicken up’ as was mentioned.
#65, can I be the first, in true MH-Kyopo fashion to suggest the alleged racial abuse you claim to be constantly the victim of is a figment of your imagination. I would also invite you to fuck off back home should you not like it, as you seem to be implying to the white boy in question here.
#69
Let me break it down for you, since you white boys are new to this whole racism thing, especially on the receiving end.
When you are part of the majority, say back home, most of the time racism is merely an abstraction. You think minorities tend to be whiny, forever playing the race card, and prone to victimization.
When you are no longer the majority, living in a foreign country, what do you do? Whine, play the race card, and become victims-in-training.
You white boys want to have your cake and eat it too.
And it’s no big secret that many of you harbor many prejudiced feelings towards your host nation. And it shows. Well then. What does around comes around. You’ve made your beds, now lie in it.
“trust me, you would not want to live in a land where police have the unfettered discretion to decide when to enforce the laws.”
so thats why you left korea!!
You’re a fine one to talk about harboring prejudiced feelings towards your adopted country. Moreover, your constant use of the phrase ‘white boys’ tells me that there is a dangerous, brooding hatred for a certain ethnicity. You’re likely another Cho Seung Hui in the making.
i think pawi is the next cho sueng-hui since he’s such a spazz. netizen kim is probly going to be the next rev. moon since he’s such a bullshitter. you’re probly gonna be the next khalid kelly bro http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUN6uX5Dr3w
@68
Good point. Looking at the article though it seems as if the driver expressed a “wish” that all “양놈 would die,” and although the translated article isn’t very clear (“then said she and her child die also”) I’m assuming this was also expressed as a “wish”.
I hadn’t realized it was a car accident, which presumably involves the exchange of personal information (names, addresses?, etc.). If the driver was attempting to intimidate the family and added any other info like “and now I know where you and your son live,” etc. then it may very well have risen to the level of a threat. But without knowing the details it’s hard to say.
Of course in the US threats are not considered as free speech. And US courts have expanded on what constitutes a threat. Cross burning are a case in point. While cross burning had generally been as considered free speech/expression in the past, the US Supreme Court in Virginia v. Black made it clear that a cross burning could, in some cases, rise to the level of a “true threat” and legitimately be prosecuted as such.
http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/virginiavblack.html
Interestingly, Justice Clarence Thomas, who is generally viewed as an extremely conservative member of the Court, would have us go further. He believes “there is no need to analyze [cross burnings] under any of our First Amendment tests”. He stated that “In our culture, cross burning has almost invariably meant lawlessness and understandably instills in its victims a well-grounded fear of physical violence….” Prohibiting cross burnings, in his opinion, “prohibits only conduct, not expression. And, just as one cannot burn down someone’s house to make a political point and then seek refuge in the First Amendment, those who hate cannot terrorize and intimidate to make their point.” (Virginia v. Black et al., 538 U.S. 343 (2003)) See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_v._Black
In any event, I think valkilmerisiceman makes a valid point in suggesting the exchange between the racist and the family may have gone beyond an issue of free speech.
Hey, a question: Is everyone at the Obama White House black?
No. That’s what YOU THINK they think. Unless you’re a mind-reader, you’re pulling this out of your ass.
Who EXACTLY are “you white boys”? You can’t possibly mean ALL of them, unless you really are that big of a fucking prick.
NetKim – What I can’t understand is, if the streets of the Bronx hardened you so much, as you often claim, WHY are you such a whiny little bitch?
This is kinda intellectually cheap, i mean calling somebody a potential mass murderer just because he/she harbours some feeling of hatred for some ethnicities. I harbour feelings of disgust for many cultures and nations (races per se much less, a black Croat is to me a piece of shit slav not a n__), but trust me i have no interest in goin’ on a killing spree against citizens of such nations, and i’m fairly sure NK has no intention to do that either.
I, like most people, am intelligent enough to understand that somehow we all have to find a way to coexist, despite the fickle dislikes created by our brain. Coexistence, that’s the keyword: we don’t need to pretend to like each other, we don’t even need to respect eachother, we just need to restrain ourselves enough to preserve our common home and make it an acceptably safe place to be. That’s why i’m not against venting racism, it is better than keepin’ it hidden to rot anyody’s brain.
#78
Hear, hear.
The 80s called, and they want their long dead and buried slang back, especially since you don’t know how to use it correctly.
Sonagi, I ‘ve heard it in 90′s and as recent as the 00′s Is it the spelling? Should it be spaz with a single z? Seems to be a devolution in the British and the American usage anyway.
I guess those who are quick to use the Cho Seunghui card, they think calling a Korean American a potential Cho Seunghui would make it a hurtful insult, when it’s not and shows ignorance on their part.
If they are trying to play on what they perceive to be the Korean herd nature of misguided guilt, it’s a cheap antic which fails on those who have no sympathy for “whiny white boys” in the first place who would know that Cho Seunghui was a mad man with problems.
Agree that the Cho Seunghui remark was cheap dig. But just to clarify, so as to get inline with politically correct discourse at the Hole, are we saying that it’s ok to generalize about “white boys” being whiny or whatever when some “white” individual does something or says something “bad,” but when it comes to Koreans generalization is off limits since “bad” Koreans like Cho Seunghui don’t represent the race but was just a “man man with problems”?
“
manmad man with problems”As far as I recall speaking for whiny white guys you denied such events as that described in the topic even occurred. Now you’re speaking for KA’s too.
You really are versatile at speaking for everyone
To Yuna that is, not mad max.
Arghaeri, mad as a hatter in drag and still bucking for that section 8! ^^
I’m not saying white boys whine. To those who describe such incidents as “whiny white boys” Cho Seunghui insult would not have much impact was the point.
And yes, I stated it never happened to *me* when I was out with my non-Korean friends, but I never said it didn’t happen to others, i.e. that it never happened at all.
Let’s not go down this road of putting wrong things in people’s mouths again, which was a specialty of a select few.
Invoking the name Cho Seung-hui is the Godwin’s Law of K-blog threads.
#89
We shall call it “Sonagi’s Law”, after the person who discovered it.
Getting back to the OP, it is obvious that this is a classic case of road rage.
It is unfortunate that the “other driver” went ballistic and insulted the 32 year old Mrs Kim, called her Canuckistani husband a “yangnom”, and so on.
Here in the Land of the Free and Home of the Brave, We The People are much more nobler and would never resort to such baseness. If a no-speaky Englishy Korean immigrant was involved in a motor vehicle accident with a Generic-American, I can assure you that cooler heads will prevail. The Generic-American would not be tempted to unleash a few choice words playing upon the notion that “Asians can’t drive”, since of course, no such stereotype exists in our enlightened country, the fact that the immigrant cannot speak English well would not be a source of further irritation, and no one would be told to “go back to their own country”.
Oh no, we are far above such savagery, not like xenophobic, nationalist Korea.
If you want to know if you’re a douchebag, just scan your posts through the last 2 months. If you’ve referenced Cho Seung Hui as an insult against Koreans or any Korean, then you test positive. You’re a douche. There’s no denying the results.
You mean like flee the scene and hop a plane back to Korea to avoid the prosecution? http://www.rjkoehler.com/2006/04/06/hyundai-official-flew-to-korea-after-fatal-hit-and-run-in-la/
That’s not the issue.
Nor is that the issue.
Of course it’s not “the issue,” it merely a question posed to comment 91. Did you miss the squiggly thing at the end of the sentence?
Likening any Korean or group of Koreans to Cho Seung-hui is a K-blog specialized logical fallacy known as reductio ad Cho Seung-hui as distinguished from Sonagi’s Law: as a thread on Koreans and foreigners gets more posts, the probability of Cho’s name appearing approaches 1.
i would have simply explained to him how he is a nice cest pool of japanese, chinese, mongol blood since him and his fellow men of this pissant country could never stop or prevent those dirty foreigners from coming in and taking the land, the women and whatever else they wanted!
then i would have said well its funny because my kid will speak at least two languages fluently (english and korean) and more if we so desire to teach them where as your dumbass will spend thousands of dollars that you dont even have on your kids english education for years and at the age of 25 they will be able to put together one or two coherent thoughts!!
nice return on investment there you racist f’ing, 3 inch penised moron!!!!
If I read correctly, this story is not about white boys getting their “panties in a twist,” but rather, a KOREAN WOMAN doing so (“reading comprehension, Mofo”).
Perhaps Net Kim is simply referring to the people on this thread expressing sympathy for the woman and disapproval of the ajossi as somehow “playing the race card.” Does this really qualify as racial victimization on behalf of white people? It’s a bit of stretch.
Here’s a quick lesson: when a Korean bumps into a white dude, forcefully pushing him out of the way, and the white dude walks off thinking “That guy is racist,” THIS is racial victimization. There is no evidence that the Korean’s actions were racially motivated. The race card exists only in the white dude’s mind.
Now, same situation, but the Korean, as he’s shoving, says “Dirty 양놈. I hope you die.” Now, if the white dude thinks this guy is racist, he’s absolutely right. In fact, he’s a little dumb if he thinks otherwise. The race card has been laid down, and not by the white dude.
I’ll leave determining which of the above scenarios best fits the incident in question to your own rational powers.
To all of the native/non-native Koreans here,
If this was a Korean-on-Korean verbal assault, with the same set of players and the same things said, more or less, how would you have handled it?
I tell you one thing, I’d be on the fellow like white-on-rice if he insulted my wife and suggested what he did about my wife and kid.
What does any of this have to do with a Korean screaming invectives at another Korean?
I know you think “white boys” complaining about being racially targeted is funny (and I guess it’s also funny to be wished dead), but how funny is it that his Korean wife and Korean child were also screamed at and wished dead? Fricking hilarious?
I’ll defend Net Kim a bit by saying that both of the scenarios I outlined in my comment at 97 really do happen. There are plenty of white people walking around Korea, thinking every bad thing that happens to them is the result of xenophobic racism. Not in this case, obviously, but it certainly happens.
However, just as it’s wrong for white dudes to cry racism whenever they get cold mandu, it’s equally wrong to assume any white dude crying racism is mistaken. As I said, BOTH scenarios happen.
Yuna, 2010, “I’m not saying white boys whine.”
Yuna 2009, “Stop complaining, you white men, boo hoo..”
Feh. I don’t care about mandu, but when they put corn on my pizza, I know it’s because they want to stick it to the 양놈.
Free speech, freedom of thought and opinion are important. I think the racist piece of shit Korean has the right to his twisted and foul ideas and right to express them. I also think that Canadian chap equally should have the right to put that foul creature in hospital. I think the Canadian was very cool headed, if someone made threatening remarks like that to my wife I’d be likely to beat the son of a bitch to a bloody mess. That doesn’t make me special, I think most husbands and fathers would find those revolting, hateful remarks infuriating, very provocative and incitement to a giving the slimy racist twit a damn good hiding..
On another note why do Americans and Koreans always talk about everything that happens here in terms of how it relates to America? It really is rather strange. The world is a far bigger place than those two countries, and the sickening story here has absolutely nothing to do with the US. There are racist pricks in every country and both sides of the political spectrum. The right has racist scum like the ‘birthers’ and FOX new watchers in the US , and the communist scum up in NK are racist buffoons as well. Neither the left or the right have a monopoly on holding sickening views on race. The only people who seem reasonable on issues of race (and many other issues) are the liberals.
@ NK # 91: unlike others i do appreciate your occasional dry sarcasm, so i’ll tell you a little story…
Come circa mid-May 2009 it was a very hot and sunny saturday morning, me and my kid were just marching happily toward the local gelateria when i suddenly realised i had little cash in my wallet, at the ATM kiddo asked me if he could punch my pin code, of course i let him do it.
Of course he was also bein’ a little slower than an adult would be, well the person behind me in line was a Northern African lookin’ immigrant who just parked his tow truck to get some cash, probably he was in a rush to go to work.
The little bit of time my child made him loose sent him ballistic and he started gesturing at me yelling things in some really broken Italian. Needless to say i got really angry myself and i happily told him what his dark brown skin color reminded me of and other obscenities, before we all walked away.
Now i’m not trying to excuse the questionable example i provided for my child but i really wonder why so many immigrants (of every ethnicity) feel the necessity to behave like him, i mean if he asked me politely to let him get ahead of us cos he was in a hurry it would have been no problem.
That’s why when i’m in Korea, or any other place abroad, i try to be extra-polite even with people who don’t fully deserve it, it is just fair to act a bit more formal when you’re the guest in some other person house.
PS
Please don’t lump me in the white boys club, i’m the ultimate self hating raice traitor white
man, I can’t believe I just read through 109 posts of variable quality.
Just so I could say, I once again find myself wondering how so many can complain about their time in Korea when I get treated so well. But I am here for a brief sojourn, not the long haul and I can remember when I was here for a longer period and not getting paid in a job that was mind numbing and I was doing two peoples work. The stares did get to me from time to time. So maybe my perspective is distorted.
But this Korean woman is not complaining. This is an actual incident and the feeling of victimisation and helplessness must have been hard to deal with. Saying that someones child should die is not acceptable by any means, should it be punishable by law? Maybe. Life is good and easy for most of us white guys, but the problem in Korea seems largely to be when things do go poorly there is very little protection for people whether Korean or foreign, unless they come from a very privileged back ground. That is what concerns me the most.
If it is said in front of the child in a manner the child can hear and understand definitely yes, freedom of speech applies to equals, adults who can defend themselves…saying thinggs like that is child abuse
Well, on second thought fisticuffs aren’t the first response I’d use, I should think. I would remind said ajosshi, in my best remembered Korean, that we are in the Eastern Land of the Courteous (Righteous) and that if he has a problem he should discuss it with me like the yangban which he is. I would then ask him if he’s feeling poorly, because he’s clearly not acting as said yangban.
Gangpeh, irony is that you are annoyed by the things that NetKim is sick of whiny white boys complaining about. The passive aggressive stares are the normal. The average ajumma and ajeoshi don’t know how to look friendly those stares are given to everyone, it is just they stare at you more frequently because of your funny italian nose and your ridiculously hairy chest. Please dude the top button is there for a reason.
And Yuna that comment about Cho SeungHi is not helpful. I have dealt with many very mentally ill people. They can not get a college education, they can not properly plan out what he did. I wish people would stop placing the blame of these things at mental illness. Clearly there is far more going on, personality, circumstance, race all contribute. He may have been dpressed but so is 25% of most populations at one time or another. Blaming this stuff on mental illness places a stigma on mental illness that makes it harder to look after. Him being “mad” is not excuse or cause for that. I know this doesn’t address wankers invoking his name when a KA says something they don’t agree with. Even if it is netizen kim.
Ink: ehm you got me wrong the stares of hatred/disgust we get are in Italy, in Korea we just get completely ignored you got it the other way around
oh i got no hair on my chest …my nose is pretty noticeable tho 
I had a sneaking suspicion it was that way, you just don’t seem to be the type to be annoyed by stares. I just couldn’t work out why you would get those stares in Italy.
Weikuboy is either a bald-faced liar or just a useful idiot. What respect I had for his evaporated as he self-outed…
All this talk of conservatives as evil racists was put to rest by the facts that it was democrats who owned slaves, started the KKK, created the Jim Crow laws, lynched blacks/jews/catholics, opposed Civil Rights legislation, and in fact still support voter intimidation a la the Philly case against the NBPP. The Bush family were never conservative, regardless of the Journolist meme. And McAmnesty makes Lindsey Graham look conservative.
Obama’s reckless spending does make Bush look Conservative by comparison; but that’s a false measure.
The fact is that blacks and hispanics have been savagely disadvantaged by the current democrat-engineered economic disaster–in order to keep them on the “plantation”… Note how the only corruptocrats on trial are Rangel and Waters, while the whites like Dodd and Frank continue in power…
Good modeling of conflict resolution there, Pop.
Well shit happens, asinine behaviour happens, i doubt there’s one single person on this planet, even the most generous and sweet-natured, who, at least once in their lifetime, didn’t act like a sorry sack of shit and this leads me to another, admittedly very mildly, interesting story:
Here in the beautiful sub-Alpine belt an interracial couple can feel pretty much as welcome as a delegation of Southern Baptists at the Riad International Airport…last June we went to my kid end of the school year dinner, needless to say pretty much nobody even bothered to mumble some hello, nobody except one mother and her husband, who chatted to us the whole night. Those 2 are famous for being kinda uneducated and loud and kinda vulgar…well somehow it is often the simplest people who turn out to be the most normal and warm
I’ve never uttered an expletive or insult during any interaction with a stranger, and my family and friends are all civilized people who know manners and do not escalate conflicts. You stooped to the level of the man who yelled at you, in front of your young child, no less.
The thing about invoking Cho Seung-heui is that he was neither a madman nor mentally ill; in fact, his story mirrored that of many.
Parents, intelligent economic migrants from South Korea, reduced to running a dry cleaners. Sister, smart, pretty, popular, successful. Seung-heui, destined not to be the “little prince” he would have been had his parents remained in Korea, can’t handle that and slowly allows his anti-social persona to build, until he acts out his revenge fantasy upon the society he blamed for his personal failures.
Some people definitely need help on this thread with their hate issues, and I don’t mean Gangpeh.
Labelling Cho Seunghui as some sort of representative scenario of kyopo gone wrong instead of a looney basket case shows serious (hate?) issues towards a group of people on their part. Read the wiki on his family and the record of mental issues on the guy and then see if you can repeat 90 percent of what you’ve written above without making it sound like you are writing a work of fiction. The only difference had he been raised in Korea might have been the lack of availability of guns. As there are plenty of anti-social Cho Seunghui’s in Korea which has fuck all to do with being raised as a kyopo.
@118 agreed, and no need to even bring any wiki stuff into it.
Perhaps, but only up until the point where he went on a violent murder spree. At that point he completely distinguished himself from any other gyopos to whom you seem to be wanting to compare him.
NetKim, a vicious troll with a history of low personal insult and a track record of hatred for whites gets whacked with a pointed barb and you all spend the next 100 posts wailing how wrong that was, culminating in Yuna’s patented brand of tripe? Fuck me, you lot are a pack of sorry cunts.
I didn’t realize our distinguished attorney was also a qualified psychologist specializing in mental health issues for Korean immigrants.
There’s a familiar pattern there, that’s all I’m sayin’.
Yes, and all the male Korean immigrants naturally have dark hair, brown eyes, and generally like spicy food, might get made fun of extra in school, and generally do better in math than English. That’s another pattern. But suggesting that Cho was just like the other male Korean immigrant and not an exceptional nutjob because he shared these same traits is pretty weak.
What you are saying about a pattern is worthless once you consider that none of the other male Korean immigrants who followed your “familiar pattern” went on killing sprees. Dogbertt, were Cho’s actions seriously not enough to distinguish him from other troubled male gyopos in your mind?
Of course, he’s distinguishable because he acted murderously on his inner rage, unlike the ones (who shall remain nameless) who are content with venting on the Interwebs.
I’m more interested in what made him decide to go through with his fantasy, so we can learn how to nip these kinds of things in the bud.
If any of you in Korea follow the news, a similar incident played itself out in Connecticut last week, albeit with a Negro shooter rather than a kyopo.
@ setnaffa 112 & 113
Wow. Seldom in the course of human events has so much Stupid been stuffed into four short paragraphs. I take it you get your information from Faux News and El Rushbo, so I won’t attempt to counter your blazing ignorance with actual facts, which I know are meaningless to you and your ilk.
I would like to explain, for the benefit of non-Americans, a wrinkle that might otherwise leave y’all perplexed concerning “our” political parties. Abraham Lincoln was a Republican. So for a full century after the U.S. Civil War (aka Treason in Defense of Slavery), white Southerners would not join the Republican party. The Democratic party of FDR was truly a big tent, as we say, holding conservative Southerners and northeastern liberals alike.
That all changed in 1964, when LBJ, a white Southern Democrat, led the passage of the Civil Rights Act (and other pieces of progressive legislation around that time). Civil rights were bitterly opposed by conservatives in his own party, many of whom bolted; and it then for the first time became acceptable for white Southerners to join the Republican party. Most did, and most do.
Not all left, however, at least not right away; and as late as 2004 the GOP was able to trot out an old white Southern Dem named Zell Miller to trash the Dem presidential nominee, John Kerry, for being too liberal (in the course of which Miller actually challenged TV pundit Chris Matthews to a duel — ! — thereby giving us a good insight into his mindset). Robert Byrd of West Virginia, who actually was a KKK member in his youth, recently died; and he might be considered as the very last of that breed (though in fairness he spent the rest of his life making up for his early sins; was a true Dem in the LBJ mold; and West Virginny ain’t really in the South).
It is often observed that if Lincoln were alive today, he would be ashamed of the racism and right-wing extremism of the Republican party. It’s also true that if FDR were alive, he wouldn’t recognize the Democratic party, so awash in corporate cash. (Not “Democrat” party; and if an American refers to the “Democrat” party it’s a sure sign of wingnuttia a la Faux News and El Rushbo.) Trying to tar and feather Dems today with the sins of the (white conservative Southern) Dems of yesteryear, as Robert le Marmot and now setnaffa have done, is about as fair and accurate as criticizing the U.S.A. today for the sins of slavery within the old Southern states of the Confederacy. Today’s Dems are far too busy dining with lobbyists and attending fundraising dinners to care about race; and even today’s GOPs are much more interested in wars, surveillance, and shifting the tax burden from the rich onto the rest of us to truly care much about race. Yet the Republicans have been VERY effective in using race to pander TO racists in order to win elections, starting with Nixon’s Southern Strategy (based on the cold calculation that there are more white racists than black voters in the South and elsewhere) right up to today’s Tea Party.
Sorry for the long length.
We’re still talking about Cho Seunghui because it’s a sensitive topic for Koreans / Korean-Americans, and therefore a good tool for certain people a use for cheap race-baiting. Mass murder in the US is hardly a kyopo phenomenem, so the race-card is irrelevent.
Au contraire, my antipodean antithesis — we are now seeing in the U.S. the re-emergence of mass murder where the killers acted out of pure race hatred. So the “race-card” as you put it is very much relevant.
“Sorry for the long length.”
As a whiny white boy living in Korea, i find myself having to say that much more than i did in the west, just another complaint to add to the growing list here.
#128,
Well (p)layed, sir.
Ok, but here’s my problem: did Cho Seunghui’s essential Koreanness play a large part in his rampage? I don’t think it did.
Also:
I think is way off. Mental illness has many shades and colors. The guy clearly had severe emotional and mental problems. This was the reason he snapped, not because he was Korean.
Actually, I believe the calculation was not that there were more white racists than black voters, but rather than there were more white racists than there were blacks who would vote Republican.
…something that netkim has done on plenty of occasions.
i hope you got some ball-taps in bro. http://www.wthr.com/global/story.asp?s=11568681 dude sounds like he deserved some
It’s nice to anyone especially if you’re in foreign land, but this happens all the time in Canada, Australia, New Zealand and U.S to Asian minorities. Big deal! I even have some loser calling me “All Asian should die”, I didn’t even other to sue the guy, it’s not worth it.
As you pointed out 99.9999% of them remain faceless, harmless anonymous commenters on the interwebs
Agreed and not only in the US, but what we’re gonna do about it ? Gettin’ really strict with immigration ? Agreed but this instead kinda scares me:
What is your solution practically ? Keeping in check every delirious commenter on the internet ? Banning some kinda violence-inciting entertainment ? Locking up every person who has fantasies of hatred so we can fill up the prison system (or the psychiatric wards) with among many: frustrated kyopos, lonely dudes into black metal, skinheads into hardcore punk music, otaku whackjobs, assholes who snap badly when pickin up money from the ATM and so on ?
To quote Mr. Carr, first they came for assholes…
Be honest with yourself. You would be ignored as the most hate-filled person here trumping Netizen were it not for some people forgetting to ignore you and bring up your Cho Seunghui-level remarks from time to time.
Oh bugger off, you take everything I say out of context.
Another Inter-Chelsea will come…again they will be butchered on and off the pitch, oh c’mon don’t take my allusions out of contest
Naah, I love you, you dirty wop! Would love to have a beer (or one of those poofy little glasses of weird-colored liquor you fellas drink) with you one day if the opportunity. You won’t get much of a wind up from me about the soccer, I mean I like the game but true to my roots I am much more of a rugby fan, more so since I took a six-month stint developing the game in Asia a few years back. Give me some stick about the Wallabies if you really want to get under my skin.
I’ll leave you alone aaronm, and endeavour to take everything you say within the context. Actually, it was Dogbertt who surprised me more, but no doubt it was also within the context, as was my own “white men boo hoo” remark which was dug up from the recesses of hell, of against brown racism vs against white racism in Korea.
i wouldn’t mess with him. dude’s a one-man sleeper cell. he could be activated and go off at any moment.
If you are referring to Dogbertt, you couldn’t be further from the truth. I had the good fortune once around 5 years ago to enjoy a wonderful Russian meal with the guy in Dongdaemun and found him to be a very engaging individual.
No doubt, you were within the same context.
Sorry, I did promise. I’m buggering off now.
To further go off topic i have the feeling for a series of reasons that Thai people hold the highest rugby potential in Asia
Arrrggh last June when Korea played Nigeria i had the disgraceful idea to buy a few bottles of Jinro from a local Asia store and some bottles of some shitliquor we Alpine inbreds call Grappa. That is some nasty shit made out of fermented leftover grapes, definitely not something you wanna mix with Soju.
To top it all i indulged in one of my fusion cuisine experiments serving the kimchi i prepared a few days earlier, based on another nasty piece of mountain food: some strange, very sour lettuce we call Radicchio (some shit similar to chicory), meshed with definitely too much chili powder and salt.
Few minutes into the dinner my poor mom-in-law, a person who can generally handle her Brandy pretty well, completely fucked off to the point i had to carry her to her bedroom on my shoulders…wife ended up djing playin’ unforgettable pieces of Korean music like the opening theme of TaekwonV and old Black Hole songs. The Eastern European inhouse nurse of our geriatric neighbour rang our doorbell and spent 10 minutes railing on and on about the noise.
Apparently we also stank the whole floor, quite a few neighbours complained to the point the poor security guy, a Philipino dude, the day after came a few times to inspect the attic area to make sure nobody hid a corpse there.
Multiculturalism can be an exhausting experience…i wonder how the same experience would have played out in some high-rise apartment in the Songpa
I’d put my money on the Kazaks as they have given a good account of themselves in the latest round of the A5N. Korea needs to open the game up to outsiders, as the Japanese have if they ever want to get anywhere. The Thais, not sure about them, but their system is said to be mostly played through the military, something that is a good development model and something I attempted here, but was unable to for matters of politics. For an emerging SE Asian rugby powerhouse, though, look to the Philippines, where they have utilized the overseas and mixed members of the community.
“was also within the context, as was my own “white men boo hoo” remark which was dug up from the recesses of hell, of against brown racism vs against white racism in Korea.”
Rehashing again Yuna, the context was a certain Indian gentleman’s claim that a white guy would never experience that kind of treatment in Korea, and a rebuttal by certain gentlemen of the white variety who had in fact experience same, and your well i’ve never seen it happen, so I’ve got no sympathy for whiney white guys and lots of sympathy for this guy who I also never saw it happen to.
#146 That’s right, Well done! clap clap. Round of cheers.
It’s not necessarily just from “not having it happen to me” – I just have no sympathy in general because I am a cold-hearted bitch.
“We’re still talking about Cho Seunghui because it’s a sensitive topic for Koreans / Korean-Americans, and therefore a good tool for certain people a use for cheap race-baiting. Mass murder in the US is hardly a kyopo phenomenem, so the race-card is irrelevent.”
This is essentially correct, but where I’d beg to differ is that it’s no longer such a live issue for Koreans. It isn’t for me anyway, which is why the baser folk here seem so desperate when they mention Cho.
Lots of spree killings and what not have happened since V-Tech which itself happened over 3 years ago. Yet, some folk here are still grasping at that straw. What about those other killers, the ones who are American and white? We can point to any one of them and claim that they fit some “familiar pattern,” and thereby, psychologically, lay suspect the entire white male race. Yet no one is bringing that card up, because it’s ridiculous. Now imagine if we did bring that card up and had to refer to the cases that were 3 years old and getting older. That would be pathetic. Wouldn’t it?
“Dogbert” fits his own murderous, hateful profile, I’m sure. Indeed, a psycho. Or maybe just average, normal, emotional, depraved, and completely boring.
Netizen Kim definitely doesn’t seem like the kind of person who’d kill anyone, let alone over 30 people. Of course, we can’t gauge someone’s humanity from their textual behavior on the net alone, but I simply don’t see it from his posts here, all of his “white boy club” sarcasm notwithstanding.
I do however think aaronm and dogbert are the type to engage in murder, to be murderers. I’m quite serious. Aaronm had that avatar which was a picture of a guy in Thailand banging prostitutes. What kind of creepo would want to be associated with that? And dogbert seems like your typical cold-blooded murder, racist and full of snark and disconnect toward other human beings. One sees this mentality even in his post about the “negro” who killed 10 people the other week here in the States.
I’m serious. I wouldn’t trust these creeps with my back turned. I’m just being honest.
My money’s on hoju saram: the youngish, brilliant, ladies charming, vain, organic foodie with a slightly bossy and pedantic personality, the perfect type to have a hidden dark side.
Another good candidate could be IHBB: again another gen-xer, wordly, West Coast raised, with a streak of righteous indignation blurted out in the shape of quick, poisonous witty remarks, i can’t help picturing him with kinda longish hair and trendy designer spectacles…another perfect candidate for genocidal behaviour.
Dogbert or Aron ? NAAAH too ovious
PS
DISCLAIMER: in case you didn’t notice i was kidding
Times like this I miss the rants of wjk.
“Wjk” had the soul of a rapist. One of those psycho, self-righteous Christians who would break down and lapse into all kinds of heathen hypocrisies. He’d act all godly one minute and then, when pushed, would beat a girl and rape her the next.
That’s the vibe I got from him. Just a terrifying creeper and a hypocritical pile of loggorheal junk. But I can’t in good faith be so bold about persons I have never met. Like others have noted, there is a disjoint between one’s matching a certain psychological profile and actually killing (or raping) someone. My point is that everybody would fit some kind of profile if we looked into it. It’s incredibly stupid, not to mention classless, to try to hole one person in with another like Cho Seung Hui.
For the record, I don’t get killer vibes from hoju_man or ihbb. But maybe they are hiding decomposing bodies in their basements or freezers or planning their blitz against some gathering of people somewhere. Who knows. I don’t like guns so maybe I’ll concoct a bomb and blowup a bunch of vegan hipsters at a house party. Yes. It’s true. I am the next Cho Seung Hui..
Exactly… that’s why I miss him in a conversation like this… and as a bonus, he’ll find some way of throwing a hot dog down a hallway (comment wise) by somehow working in penis references.
Netizen Kim definitely doesn’t seem like the kind of person who’d kill anyone, let alone over 30 people.
I stopped doing stuff like that a long time ago. Too messy.
I’m the next Genghis Khan
Hallyu is the next Manga
NetKim is the next Mark Mobius
Dogbertt is the next Joseph Paul Franklin
Yuna is the next Kwak Hyun Hwa
wjk is the next wjk
the Marmot Hole is the New York Times of the Asian century
and your dealer must be a very rich man
I love that movie Gangs of New York.
One of the best lines from that movie was this,
You see this knife? I’m gonna teach you to speak English with this fucking knife!
Back then, the newcomers learned their English in a hurry.
There was once a time in America when the Pollacks, Jews, Micks, Wops, and WASPs raised hell in the streets of New York. After about a hundred years of doing this, the Pollacks, Jews, Micks, Wops, and WASPs got most of their pent-up Old World ethnic hatreds out of their system. But back then, off-color remarks were settled with the clash of steel, fist, and blood. Today, white people form tedious committees to analyze the legal ramifications of freedom of speech. Their proposed solution to racism is to bore everyone to death. One realizes that they just don’t make white people like they used to. Hence, my use of the word “white boys”.
We Korean-Americans who arrived in the New World at the dawn of Political Correctness missed out on a sepia-tinted Golden Age period of America’s past.
I would prefer it if you drop the “We Korean-Americans” and replace it with “I”.
NK,
You weren’t around for the L.A. Riots, huh? That’s the problem with you East Coast KAs… you fellas think history always revolves around you and your own little Brooklyn cubbyhole.
#156
I would prefer it if you drop the “We Korean-Americans” and replace it with “I”.
Ah yes, you’re right. I shouldn’t speak for all Korean-American. Next thing you know, I might be referring to myself in the third person within my own body of work.
If you really really and i repeat really miss the good ole uncompromising white folks as they used to be may i suggest you a vacation in Moscow, Russia ?
Shouldn’t be too different from the mean streets of New York circa mid ’800
“I’m serious. I wouldn’t trust these creeps with my back turned. I’m just being honest”.
Right you are! You should come and join one of our high-brow discussions over the best way to dismember a corpse!
The only blokes I’ve seen exhibit a violent streak here are gangpeh, wjk and pawi.
You’re quite the little drama queen.
Kind of like you, when you refer to those who are not fellow atheists. Know thyself, kyopo.
How many times have you been stopped and asked to show proof of legal residence lately, boy?
I see some real fun posts here I’d def give two thumbs up. Too bad I don’t have the button to click. Keep ‘em comin’ brothers.
Seouldout:
Pawi wouldn’t hurt a fly, the guy has clearly an heart of gold, wjk is in a league of his own, i call it onirical poetry
Who is anything like their online persona, FFS? People thought that I was actually the guy in the Naughty Nigel avatar I used to sport, the one that ABCDEFG is too dense to realize the significance behind my using it here.
@Jieun K
I second that. The whole Cho Seunghui middle section of the thread actually warrants two middle-fingers. But overall, what a great collection of Internet humanity.
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