[NB] Sam Okyere speaks out about Uijeongbu High's blackface parody

[reiichi]

39 minutes ago, Aryu said:

But just wait until they go over to the US or the West in general and find out about yellow face and all that. Then, all of a sudden, another country they are not native to needs to "reflect". Yea ok sure, hypocrite.

Black people take offense at blackface because of the discrimination they've faced and are still facing everywhere in the world.

East Asians on the other hand, weren't enslaved or colonized by white people (EDIT : or at least not to the same extent), so the same kind of ignorant display of racism will most likely will be met with condescendance. Not really the same sentiment.

Edited August 6, 2020 by reiichi
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[reiichi]

15 minutes ago, namidaone said:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Century_of_humiliation

Okay, not "never", but you have to contrast that time period with 4 millennia of Chinese history where they're the most important power of the region (and that's indeed why they call it "humiliation").

[reiichi]

1 minute ago, Aryu said:

Well...there were the Japanese concentration camps, Chinese exclusion act (the opposite but nonetheless a racial targeting and othering), the century of humiliation that another mentioned - I know it's stupid to compare oppressions and racism so I am not trying to do that, but Asians certainly have faced some dire situations for their race/nationality.

Yellowface and blackface actually have a lot of similarities. They aren't the same, but both are/were used to caricature, make fun of, other, and use as masks for White actors playing POC. Just look at the yellowface in Breakfast at Tiffany's:

 

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It's just gross. It's not the same as the whole minstrel history, but you'd think Koreans would show a bit more understanding if they knew what went on in other places where they are the target....

But I guess we can assume that they just don't know better  (they sure knew about it when Gigi had her racist scandal where she imitated Asian eyes...)

 

 

I think that the main difference is that East Asians are dominant cultures in their origin areas, and have mostly been occupied by their neighbors (much like what happened in Europe over time) while Africans were deported, called savages and colonized by Europeans for a good chunk of their history. African Americans are all the more sensitive that they arrived in the country as slaves, and are still largely vilified and othered.

Korea has a troubled history full of invasions, but these invasions were at the hands of other East Asian powers, not people with a different skin color and a completely alien culture. It was mostly about nationalism, not racism, and it can explain that Koreans don't really connect with AA experiences, even if they seem similar to an outside eye.