Get Schooled.

Okay, y’all this comic about how amazing corporal punishment is (or as like to call it “beating up children”) got in trouble for racism. They had this wasian character call a black character “f-ing n-ger” with the HARD R bitch. All these Korea-boos were like “they’re talking about Asian racism in the black community” and like no? Shut the fuck up, that makes no sense, because it takes place in KOREA where Koreans are the ethnic majority. I can also tell they have never had a genuine conversation about anti-Asian racism (also my iPad automatically capitalizes Asian but not Black). These people treat K-pop stars like anime characters and children, so I’m sorry if I’m a little doubtful of your genuineness in your argument. I will not argue that anti-Asian racism isn’t in the black community, but it is a lot more complicated than that. These people are not thinking critically enough to understand cross minority bigotry. (Idk why I’m talking about this when we all know they do not mean any of this in good faith)

There is also people who still treat Korea like it’s this island where “it’s not their fault” or “they don’t know any better!” Or “they’ve never met black people” Did you know Korean has slurs for black people? Kinda crazy to make up slurs for this mythical race of people. Koreans are not infants, and it’s crazy how American culture does (remember squid games, and then people completely missing the point made their own versions and children’s games, as if they’re wasn’t an old man ass shot). Koreans have been capitalizing off of black culture for decades. Then you mention this, and people are like “are you trying to cancel New Jeans?!” No! I’m just saying why do they get a free pass to be extremely xenophobic to black people while playing Beyoncé? Like I know all this stuff about Korean culture from just being near K-Pop and K-Drama spaces. I’m not nearly as into it as half of these people. 

 Back to the comic, the chapter goes on about how the town is….BECOMING ETHNICALLY DIVERSE! It goes on about how “pure Koreans” (they’re wording, not mine) are being bullied by their non-pure classmates. Interestingly enough the only kid who is shown to be a bully is Ethiopian-Korean, and I will spare you the details of the ugly drawing style. He goes on to make his classmates act like monkeys (a KNOWN Korean stereotype, I’m sure), and call they’re skin yellow. Then GASP a white Korean man with blue eyes and blonde (more like manhwa silver, but you understand my point) comes to save these poor Koreans from the big bad monk-I mean black person. He talks about how he grew up in East Harlem and if the big bad black people were mean there he would just call them “F-ing N-gers”! Ignoring the fact that he would get jumped for that if he did it a habitually as he claims, he is supposed to be a character that we sympathize with. (Also he supposedly one of the teachers who is less cruel, because let me remind you this is a story about teachers beating up kids). It’s very telling the person who has the closest proximity to whiteness tells off the character the furthest. This comic was one of the biggest on the sites, number one under Thriller (ahhh corporal punishment, so thrilling) and NO ONE was like “hey dude, nix the slur! The chapter was racist enough without it.”

The authors apology (after it was taken off webtoons) was about how they just wanted to talking about how bad bulling is getting to all the minorities who are moving to Korea. They saw that people were being treated badly because of their ethnic background and thought making their character say a slur would be best! It’s also a choice to make the character African. That was a something they chose. Nobody held a gun to your head to do that. It also undermines your statement how this was for all the different cultures in Korea, when you call people who aren’t 100% Ethnically Korean not “pure Koreans”. This comic is being published in Korean AND in English. Although English is a few chapters behind (crazy how not one person saw the Korean version and was like “what?”) I don’t think authors from certain countries need to cater to a certain audience outside their target, but things like this is just crazy. You know it’s going to reach English audiences! You know from in your own damn chapter, that black people don’t like being called the N-word. Why have this at all for you black audience? I don’t think black people need the lesson “stop being racist or I’ll call you a slur” (and black koreans especially don’t need that)

Like they’re at so many layers to unpack here (and like I hesitate to call someone racist based on one chapter of a manhwa released weekly, but like…) They’re is so many unconscious biases, and it’s really a dissection of Korean racism.

(There was no where I could think to plug this in, but African-Americans are different from Ethiopians are different from Ethiopian-Korean people, random Wasian from conservative Manhwa)