What the ... racist cartoon?!?!?

It is kind of funny how no matter how hard you try to ignore something it always pops up. Take the Korea Times. I tend to ignore it unless REALLY bored or, more usually, a friend sees something and passes it on to me. You would think that it would be hard for a rag like the Korea Times to keep showing their ass but somehow they always seem to find a way.

How have they done it this time? Cartoons again.

This cartoon depicts a Westerner sticking his "big nose" in Chinese affairs. A "big nose" is a pejorative in Asia for Westerners.

In some respects it reminds me of how the "Jewish nose" was used in Nazi propaganda. How it is still used today. "All Jew's have large hooked noses." "All Westerner's have big noses. "

I wonder how South Koreans would have liked a cartoon about Kim DaeJung bowing down to North Korea, kowtowing to the Dear Leader or the Japanese? Would they like to Koreans caricatured as buck toothed, coke-bottle glasses wearing, dog eating farmers? They would find it racist and insulting. Odds are they would react the way Koreans usually do. Badly.

Of course, any such depiction of Kim DaeJung would have been extremely racist using racist imagery of Asians to denigrate someone.

Is it surprising to see racist cartoons in Korean papers? No. Just like it isn't surprising to see racist shit on Korean television. Or to encounter it in their society.

Yes, there is racism everywhere in the world. I just find that it is more pervasive and tolerated in South Korea. Where racism is usually espoused by fringe elements (tea baggers, KKK, etc) in the West it is fairly main stream, open, and tolerated, in South Korea. Look at CYJ English Academy in Seoul and their ads which have been up for years. Cultural tips put out for EPIK that actually tells you Koreans are racist. Then you have such overtly racist bullshit as Koreans using blackface ... can you say Bubble Sisters?

I read on the net about one person who saw similar sort of shit over the Chuseok holiday on Korean TV. A Korean comedian done up in black face eating watermelon. It was supposed to be a parody of Michael Jackson. (Too soon?)

Korea Times thanks for once again showing your insensitivity, stupidity, and racist ways. No matter how high you have raised the bar of stupidity you somehow always find a way to raise it higher. Fucking mooks.

Speaking of bad reactions ... I wonder if this will get as visceral a reaction on the Marmot's Hole as the opening of the latest Simpson's Episode got?