I’d honestly feel better to hear someone calling us dog eating chingchong than this tankie shit. At least they’re open about being racist and there’s some truth to it.
lmao the phenomenon where women put on makeup that makes their face look white predates any American involvement in Korea by ages. Also, the same is true for China, does it then mean that Chinese women look up to America? truly impeccable logic
Also, the same is true for China
It’s not even a uniquely Asian thing. Sun tanned skin meant that the people had to work in the field while light skin meant higher status. If anything, tanning as a beauty trend is the relatively recent development.
The history of white skin in Korea is still kind weird though right? I think it’s American exceptionalism to pretend it’s all America’s doing but capitalism has definitely taken up the white skin cause in a big way in South Korea lol
https://pulitzercenter.org/stories/popularity-skin-whitening-sparks-debate-south-korea
The industry is wild
The history of white skin in Korea is still kind weird though right?
Not as weird as other cultures where lighter skin is preferable. I wouldn’t even blame is as a capitalism thing as a lot of cultures have skin whitening/bleaching for centuries.
you’re right, capitalism has definitely contributed to its rise in popularity. nevertheless, this phenomenon is ancient, and not limited to Korea
It’s amazing how tankies think everyone else is so incredibly stupid and gullible
…but not them
Nuh nuh, you see unlike us sheeples, THEY are true freethinkers, totally independent from influence of wealthy oligarchs!
Tankie/Campist attitudes towards South Korea are truly disgusting. As if in an ideal world they’d all simply have been content to be the permanent playthings of the Kim dynasty - if not for that meddling America.
Who wouldn’t want to live in the workers’ paradise of North Korea? The evil Americans have deprived the poor South Koreans of this great privilege!
Sorry if this is ignorant but is anyone willing to explain to me what makes this racist?
Saying that a part of asian culture (which has existed long before the US) is to create the appearance of being caucasian is racist.
and also the whole erasure of South Korea as an identity and culture
Was the initial comment about that? There’s no context so I don’t even know what’s being discussed.
It’s a common tankie talking point where they believe South Korea (and any country friendly with the US) is a US puppet, hence them saying “American enclave”
So when they think of South Korea as a country, they often think of it as just the US. This is racist because it erases a country’s identity.
OK, this makes sense. I’ve noticed this a lot with Ukraine where the interests of Ukrainian people are just completely ignored as if they’re completely irrelevant. A dangerous side effect of campism.
It’s negative generalizations about everyone from a specific country/ethnicity.
I found a good reply on old.reddit that goes into the slippery slope of generalization > stereotype > prejudice > overt racism: https://old.reddit.com/r/AskSocialScience/comments/nqoas/what_is_the_difference_between_generalizations/
Oh so generalizing that all South Koreans are ignorant/materialistic, is that what was meant?
I can definitely see how that could be racist although I also see people making statements like this all the time and they’re rarely called out. But maybe they should be.
I guess I’m still confused because the quoted text isn’t really a generalization. It’s not totally clear to me what is being said there but I’m not picking up the racist undertones in that section. But maybe OP was responding to the whole comment as you suggested.
There’s a lot of stupid generalizations there: SK is an american enclave, “their” lives evolve around … And the other nutter who was saying that “their wives” put on make up to look white. It’s stupid generalizations and profound prejudice, but it’s not overt racism (I think). On that slippery slope scale I posted earlier of: generalization > stereotype > prejudice > overt racism, they are at the stage of prejudice. So it’s not overt racism, but it shows a racist mindset (Imo).
I’m usually on this community’s side, but SK was literally created to be a capitalist utopia to fight against communism when the initial goal of defeating communism (NK and china) was no longer an option. If tankie triad users managed to avoid pejoratives and aggrandizing North fucking Korea for 5 seconds, they might have been able to make a point that others could physically tolerate listening to.
North Koreas emergence was much the same, except as just a bulwark against capitalism/the west. South Koreas institutions and policy can absolutely be criticised, but it is full of real people now who have their own lives. The notion that its devoid of modern culture and media, just a US surrogate is quite a repulsive one.
Same with Taiwan.
I mean for sure, but saying a country that has been colonised before is still literally part of the colonising nation kind of denies it and its people their agency. That’s the problematic bit. But yeah, if they tried to be respectful for a second, the influence the US has had on SK would still be an interesting topic to discuss.
The ironic part is that China colonized the Korean first people on a bunch of separate occasions over the centuries. Some of the most racist things I have ever heard anyone say was Chinese people talking about how all Korean Culture is just dumbed down Chinese culture. Literally super racist “look how cute the savages are trying to imitate us” shit that would get you a massive fucking side eye anywhere in the western world, except it’s an extremely mainstream trope in China.
If the Korean peninsula is a colonial state, then it is North Korea which has the older imperialist influence.
Capitalism and Leninism are equally bad. There’s no argument the ML can make that south Korea would have been better under the rule of the north. Objectively, despite the problems south Korea has. And there are many. They’ve done much better for their people. You can whine that the west has kept the North down with embargoes and sanctions. But you only have to look to china. For all their flaws to find a group that despite brutalizing and oppressing their people has done much better for them. Simply because the north is held thrall to a nepo state of cultish personality.
I think Korea would have been better off deciding its own future.
There was a moment in history where a communist North Korea could have really succeeded but due to both internal and external factors it obviously didn’t.
Would that be before or after Kim Il Sung decided to be a totalitarian despot?
Depends on when you put the demarcation point for that, but the North had a higher quality of life than the South for quite some time. South Korea was under its own dictator for much of the post-war period. Its economy didn’t really get going until the 1980s. It was mostly agrarian until then.
The only time when the North had better quality of life than the South was when they were being massively subsidized by the USSR. When the Soviet economy collapsed and the foreign income stopped, North Korea collapsed too. It was never a functional economy on its own merits.
The only reason western Europe shaped up so well in the post-war era was because the United States massively subsidized it. So what?
Pretty much. I did start out by calling SK a capitalist utopia. The western Germany strategy is pretty good.
The only similarity between this two country as of now is capitalism-run state, the whole culture is entirely different. Kinda silly to agree with tankie just because of the history.
Is it really? From what I know it is xenophobic, ultracapitalist nation obsessed with purity and celebrity worship. Sounds like where America is headed.
xenophobic, ultracapitalist nation obsessed with purity and celebrity worship
Sounds like china.
