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Outside of the workplace Outside of work, black people report diffi- culty getting taxis, even when Koreans and whites get them on the same street. Some say cab drivers go so far as to make illegal U-turns into traffic to avoid picking up black passengers. Some Koreans will refuse to get into elevators with black people, and will often change subway cars to avoid being near black passengers. Ashby tells of one night out with a group of foreign and Korean friends. “There was this one Korean girl, she was in her early twen- ties,” he says. “We’d only been talking for maybe two minutes … and she says, ‘The way you speak is very intelligent. And you’re very nice.’” Then she said, “‘Not like most black guys.’ I said, ‘What do you mean?’ And she said, ‘You know. Not like black-black guys.’” One black woman told Ashby that a Kore- an had said she was “so beautiful” that she couldn’t possibly be fully African-American — “‘because most (black) girls only have a mon- key face,’ she said.” John (not his real name), 26, from Ghana, feels that people from Africa get it even harder than black Americans, and is upset that Afri- cans are often viewed as stupid and primitive. “A lot of (Koreans) are really ignorant about what we have in Africa,” says John, a graduate student in the Advanced Information Sciences and Information Technology Program at Pu- kyong National University. “They find it weird that we actually speak English, and they won- der how we even got here. When they get to know that I’m on a scholarship, they’re like, ‘Wow!’” He says he often comes across Ko- reans who don’t realize there are even com- puters in Africa, much less centers to train computer specialists like himself. John says he and his friends are sometimes barred from public places like bars and clubs. He says he has learned that “no foreigners al- lowed” can often mean no black foreigners are allowed, while white people can enter just fine. Lining up at one nightclub, two of his white friends walked into the club, paid their 10,000 won and got wristbands. He was outside tak- ing a phone call, but when he showed up, the bouncer said foreigners were not allowed. “So I’m thinking, ‘How can you sell (tickets) to the first two people, the guy from Finland and the guy from Spain, but the moment I show up, say ‘No foreigners allowed’? So, is this be- cause of me being black, or because there are no foreigners allowed?” And it was not an isolated incident for him. “Being an African here sometimes, it’s tir- ing,” John says. For many blacks, getting questions like “Do you have a gun?” or “How many guns do you own?” are common. Blogger Michael Hurt, 41, says there is a sentiment that “black people are low, stupid, crass, dangerous” and even scary. “I would go around the corner and people would literally jump,” Hurt says. He says peo- ple who are now his friends would say to him, “When I first met you, I was so scared of you!” Hurt, who is half-black and half-Korean, ad- mits he has a wider build, but that’s not the only reason people are afraid. He says he has white friends who are also big guys, but peo- ple don’t freak out when they see them in the community. One smartphone-recorded video that went viral on Korean and English media in 2011 showed a black teacher assaulting an elder- ly Korean couple on a bus, yelling, “You see these rocks?” and shaking his fist at the old man. He had reportedly mistaken “ni-ga” — “you” in Korean — for racial profanity. While many condemned the teacher for fur- ther damaging black expats’ reputation, Hurt said the incident highlighted the absence of dialogue on anti-black racism here. “Well, there we saw it — an angry black man, yelling and scaring … everybody. Surely he just got up and started attacking people for no apparent reason, because that’s what scary black men do, right?” Hurt had written on his blog, which was quoted by the Los Angeles Times. “Never has there been a discussion, in general, of the fact that black folks like myself get harassed daily on subways and buses and trains, but that never becomes an issue; no Korean thinks to flip on their cell phone to start making YouTube videos (of racism against blacks). I don’t condone this young man’s type of behavior. But I understand it.” Monkeys, blackface and watermelon Media critics have not yet pinpointed the first appearance of black people in the Korean media, but prior to the 1980s, the images of black culture that became familiar to Koreans were of slaves, poor people or tribal Africans, according to Loyola-Marymount sociology professor Nadia Kim. From the 1980s, the media image became more sinister, with a greater focus on black criminality, violence and drug use. This was derived from a mix of both Korean and American media. Media portrayals of blacks can range from professional and benign to ignorant and “shockingly racially offensive,” as pointed out by celebrity blog Oh No They Didn’t. It dubs K-pop as “KKK-pop,” given the slew of acts that have been caught in blackface or mak- ing racist remarks. Big Bang’s Taeyang, for instance, called his friend “Ma NiggA” on an online forum. After getting into the wrong van on a U.S. tour, his fellow boy band member Seungri said he was relieved the van’s owners were white, because if they had been black, he might have been shot. Meanwhile, Girls’ Generation member Taeyeon put her foot in it when she said Alicia Keys was pretty — “for a black girl.” Her fellow girl group member Yuri was asked to “act black” on KBS’ “Invincible Youth.” She complied by rolling her neck, run- ning her finger across her throat and yelling, “Yo! You die!” In November 2013, Miss A’s Min was lambasted when she Photoshopped a picture of American rapper Rick Ross’ head onto a female rapper’s body, crawling toward an image of fried chicken, The Korea Times reported. Koreans also began copying American blackface theater. Matt VanVolkenburg, who runs the public opinion blog Gusts of Popular Feeling, has traced references to blackface back to a 1978 play. Blackface gained popu- larity in the U.S. through vaudeville in the 19th century, though it wasn’t until 1986 when it became associated with comedy in Korea, with TV’s popular “sikeomeonseu” routine. It was stopped before the Olympics for fear of upsetting African athletes, but blackface re- emerged in force in 2003 with the Bubble Sis- www.groovekorea.com / February 2014 30 Edited by Elaine Ramirez (elaine@groovekorea.com) InsIGhT