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Eternally classy, those K-netizens. I’m exhausted of the blackface show racism and I’m white... imagine how frustrating it must be. Good on Sam Okyere for speaking oit, and on those supporting him. Shame on the bigots attacking him. @SSEq0U91tMeeSsC/1291376397542334464Permalink On twitter.com
♻️ 13 Retweets ❤️ 14 Favorites Mood -3 🙁
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For me, though, the bigger issue is that this stuff is allowed to happen in classrooms. Like, where was the teacher? How did the teacher react? The school has said they'll take action... after reviewing the social media response. Which... really? Why does the SNS response matter?Permalink On twitter.com
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Of course, there's all kinds of unanswered questions: maybe the teacher wanted to object but wouldn't get support. Maybe teachers don't get any sensitivity training like what's insisted on in universities. Maybe the teacher was a passive racist who saw nothing wrong. Who knows?Permalink On twitter.com
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But to me, it seems pretty obvious the school should be reacting more like, "Oh, good grief, this is not appropriate for a school event," rather than, "Oh golly, this got discussed online, we should do something."Permalink On twitter.com
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And yeah, the defensive netizen response is revolting. But utterly unsurprising. To be fair, I had students who didn't get what was wrong with this stuff till we talked about it as part of a class, with readings, discussion, and watching a film (Spike Lee's Bamboozled).Permalink On twitter.com
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Even after watching it, I had students who insisted (a) that the "yellowface" in Breakfast at Tiffany's was "wrong and offensive and racist" but who insisted blackface in Korea media was totally fine. Some people will refuse to learn. But lots did come around, once informed.Permalink On twitter.com
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Notably, all of those individuals who did change their view told me they had never discussed it seriously in any class or with any instructor. Some were literature or culture or media majors. So some sympathy and outreach is worthwhile. But some ppl. are just stubborn/ignorant.Permalink On twitter.com
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Oh, and I should note that there was always a quiet (usually quiet) minority who already recognized that it was racist and spoke out against it, and were sometimes quite frustrated with classmates who argued against the obvious.On twitter.com
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But all I'm saying is that there are obviously people here in their 20s who, yeah, really don't know better, and are willing to learn and recognize this. Their education has, up to that, failed them. Their media has failed them. But they're willing to hear.Permalink On twitter.com
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There was only a minority who seemed determined to defend the use of blackface performance in Korea as "not racist" or "not so bad" or "fine because not intended for non-Korean audiences" or whatever. They were loud, but they were a minority, and one that shrank before my eyes.Permalink On twitter.com
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(In some cases, anyway.) Which to me means that the biggest problem here is that, despite the lip service to "moral education" in Korean schools, stuff like racism doesn't seem to be getting addressed in anything like a sufficient or reasonable way.Permalink On twitter.com
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There's bigger issues within the system that probably work against that, like pressure to cram a lot of academic material into kids, and the infamously conservative social environment faced even by teachers who would want to innovate or reform the curriculum in these areas.Permalink On twitter.com
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But... that's beyond the scope of a thread of tweets.Permalink On twitter.com