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ters. The K-pop girl group began with an image that was based entirely on blackface, including their album cover and all their videos, until a relaunch in 2006. On Jan. 23, American rapper Snoop Dogg tweeted an Instagram photo of himself pos- ing with a Korean in blackface. The cutline read: “Stunt double. Hahahahahah. This nigha here!!” (There is writing in Korean behind the duo, suggesting the picture was shot either in Korea, or in a Korean office somewhere.) As of press time, the identity of the Korean in blackface was unclear, but the assumption around the internet is that it has to do with an upcoming video Psy was shooting with Snoop. Whether the blackface character was meant to be a joke, a media stunt, or a commentary on previous Korean blackface incidents is unclear. Beast, Big Bang, Girls’ Generation and Su- per Junior have all used blackface in their vid- eos, on photo shoots or in comedy routines. In one comedy show in 2010, Beast member Lee Gi-kwang devoured a piece of watermelon while in blackface. Professor Kim Eun-mee, dean of Ewha Uni- versity’s Graduate School of International Stud- ies, says that while many K-pop artists like Park Jin-young and Psy respect and collaborate with black Americans, the ones who make racist remarks are acting out of ignorance. “I don’t think it comes out of deep malice or deep-seat- ed prejudice,” Kim says. “I think it’s the young trying to show off they’re cool and they’re hip, and I think that comes from that. I hope.” Motley, the teacher from Chicago, acknowl- edges that K-pop borrows a lot from black culture, which is why she finds the genre’s racism particularly irritating. Motley says there are always videos of K-pop women mimicking black women, “doing the neck roll, wearing big earrings, popping their lips. You always see something.” In the music video “The Baddest Female” (2013), 2NE1 star CL sports a stiff leather baseball cap, track pants, gold chains and even a gold grill on her teeth, all the while dancing up a hip-hop storm. Such instances would be more tolerable if respect were given where it was due, says Motley, but “a lot of K-pop stars are mimicking us, without having us in their vid- eos, without giving any acknowledgment. “It’s difficult because when you see the stars performing, you recognize that this comes from (black) American art forms, and our music and our dance, and yet we’re insulted at the same time when they put on a commercial or TV show where they’re making fun of us.” Korean advertisements have mocked Afri- cans as well. Last year, Korean Air had to apol- ogize after running ads promoting direct flights to Nairobi, Kenya, which urged Koreans to “fly Korean Air and enjoy the grand African Savan- nah, the safari tour, and the indigenous people full of primitive energy.” KyoChon Chicken ran a commercial in 2010 advertising that if you are ever washed up on a desert island full of angry black people who want to boil you in a pot, you should deter them by giving them some fried chicken. And last year, cigarettes branded “This Af- rica” featured monkeys roasting tobacco on the box, and on billboard ads, the monkeys pretended to interview each other. The BBC quoted the parent company KT&G as saying, “We absolutely had no intention to offend any- one and only chose monkeys because they are delightful animals that remind people of Africa.” Though the billboards were removed, the ciga- rette packs with the tobacco-roasting monkeys remain on the shelves because the company said it did not find them offensive. In 2013, the National Human Rights Com- mission of Korea monitored 35 Korean tele- vision shows and found that many programs “showed racial or cultural stereotypes or used discriminatory remarks against immigrants.” The NHRCK pointed out one show that fea- tured a character arguing about a black person — “(their) skin is dark, so I thought that the people are also ‘dark,’” the character said, re- ferring to personality — and another show on which a cast member likens “a traditional Afri- can dance to King Kong’s dance.” The local drama “The Golden Bride” (2007- 2008) featured a subplot about a Korean who goes to jail in the U.S., is terrorized by black in- mates and returns to Korea with post-traumatic stress disorder. And in September, a cartoon by Bounce Kim on nate.com featured Dominican LG Twins pitcher Radhames Liz being lynched by the Ku Klux Klan for accidentally beaning a Korean player and then pitching three strikeouts in a row — known in Korea as a “KKK.” There are many more examples: billboard ads for whitening cosmetics that say “white is beautiful, black is not,” and ads of Africans throwing spears during soccer matches with African countries. A study in the scholarly jour- nal Language & Literacy found that Korean ESL textbooks overwhelmingly profiled white and Western artists, including only white writ- ers. In addition, a television station popular in some private academies, Africa TV, has been lambasted as portraying Africa as a continent of dancing, shoeless natives. 31 Last year, cigarettes branded ‘This Africa’ featured monkeys roasting tobacco on the box, and on billboard ads they pretended to interview each other. The BBC quoted the parent company KT&G as saying, ‘We absolutely had no intention to offend anyone and only chose monkeys because they are delightful animals that remind people of Africa.’ Though the billboards were removed, the cigarette packs with the monkeys roasting tobacco remained on the shelves because the company said it did not fnd them offensive.