Discrimination in South Korea and what Americans can learn from it

Globalization can be a racist’s worst nightmare. That is the case in South Korea, where the number of foreign residents has doubled to 1.2 million in the past seven years. Many from other Asian countries such as China and Japan travel there for work or an education. Unfortunately, these foreigners have been the targets of racial slurs and sexual abuse by “full-blooded” Koreans.

Foreign workers in South Korea are often given inadequate safety training and are forced to disclose whether or not they test positive for HIV. Native Koreans, on the other hand, are not forced to disclose that information.

Bonogit Hussain, a 29-year-old Indian man, is a research professor in Seoul. He recently became the victim of racial discrimination when he was seen on a bus with a female Koren friend. A man in the back of the bus began yelling racist remarks at Hussain.

Hussain says he has experienced the racial tension for the past two and a half years.

“Things got worse for me this time, because I was with a Korean woman,” Mr. Hussain said in an interview. “Whenever I’ve walked with Korean women, most of the time I felt hostilities, especially from middle-aged men.”

South Koreans generally want to prevent their women from having relations with foreigners. The reason for this can be related to historical events.

According to the NY Times:

“Centuries ago, when Korean women who had been taken to China as war prizes and forced into sexual slavery managed to return home, their communities ostracized them as tainted. In the last century, Korean “comfort women,” who worked as sex slaves for the Japanese Imperial Army, faced a similar stigma. Later, women who sold sex to American G.I.’s in the years following the 1950-53 Korean War were despised even more. Their children were shunned as “twigi,” a term once reserved for animal hybrids, said Bae Gee-cheol, 53, whose mother was expelled from her family after she gave birth to him following her rape by an American soldier.”

Until recently, South Koreans were taught to take great pride in their country’s homogeneity. According to a 2008 survey, a whopping 42 percent of respondents said that they had never made contact with a foreigner.

Racial tensions and discrimination have become so integrated in South Korea’s culture that the United Nations took action in 2007 and recommended that the country adopt a law deploring the widespread use of terms like “pure blood” and “mixed blood.” The U.N Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination also urged public education to overcome the notion that South Korea was “ethnically homogeneous,” which, it said, “no longer corresponds to the actual situation.”

In the case of Hussain, prosecutors took action and charged the man who yelled racist remarks at him in a bus. This is the first time such charges had been applied to a racist offense.

Because of Hussain’s case, political parties in Parliament have begun drafting legislation that would provide a detailed definition of discrimination by race and ethnicity and impose criminal penalties.

Internationally, there is a lot of focus on racism in the United States. However, racial tensions exist in every single country. When comparing the U.S. to South Korea, one can see how America has come a long way. Although there are still instances of racial discrimination in the U.S., it is safe to say that treating others differently due to their skin color has become a undeniable taboo in American culture.

South Korea has at least begun to take baby steps in the direction of racial tolerance. However, history will prove that the process of filtering out racism takes a great deal of time.