1. Group members : Kyu-seok Sim, Ha-Yeon Kim, Daeyoung Yun, Hyunmoo Lee
2. Topic : Living as a black in Korea
3. Subject and Purpose of Our Research
As the world is becoming closer and more diverse, South Koreans are experiencing incoming foreigners like they have never before. And as globalization became so obvious, many types of race, religion and nationality are flowing into Korea. As a part of this inflow, nowadays it’s quite common to see black people in many streets of Seoul. Due to this increase in diversity, the Korean society is starting to suffer from some racism problems that seem to come from the misunderstanding about different race, their culture and how to treat them right.
The object of this research is to relieve this ignorance of the black subculture by confronting the common stereotypes that the Koreans have against black people and introducing the subculture in a right way. And although racism on black people has been a familiar and traditional problem in western societies, it’s quite a brand new issue to Koreans and therefore much more future problems might be lurking in the dark. So through this research, we also hope to make some positive influences on preventing some future issues that might occur.
4. Stereotypes of Black people.
1) Black people are violent, aggressive.
2) Black people are not educated well.
3) Black people are strong physically.
4) Black people have great sense of music.
5. Black people are dirty
6. Black people are poor.
5. Plan
We are going to research into the subculture, black people living in Korea, by interviewing some of them.
We are planning to contact 2~3 black people and interview them until the end of second week of July.
Our interview is going to consist of questions about stereotypes of black people, such as we listed above, and personal experiences of some other stereotypes that interviewees have experienced in Korea. Also, through the interview, we want to know what black subculture in Korea is and what its unique characteristics are and so on.
6. Preliminary Research
1) Magazine Article : Korea's black racism epidemic
by Dave Hazzan on February 11th, 2014, GROOVE
Summary:
This article handles about the story of black in korea in various perspectives. There are many examples of experiences that black people have suffering from difficulties of living in Korea. And it tracks the reason why they’re in trouble, where these discriminations come from historically, culturally. And coming to present, the article says the things will be better slightly, but still some problems will remain. From this article, you could get some overall knowledge about black racism, a negative aspect of being in a black subculture in Korea. We recommand you to read the whole article. But if you don’t have the time, you can read only the part of <Monkeys, blackface and watermelon> section to <'Raised' racist> section. This part handle a story of unusual black discrimination from media and track the reason for the discrimination.
Link : http://korea.stripes.com/news/koreas-black-racism-epidemic
2) News Article : 'How black is he?'
by Casey Lartigue, Jr. on June 16, 2015, The Korea Times
Summary:
Even highly educated people can discriminate against black people.
Casey Lartigue, Jr, who graduated Harvard University, had teaching experience in Yonsei University and worked at high profile organizations in both USA and South Korea, is black person. He talked about discrimination he experienced during 1990s in Korea. A Korean professor who is a fan of him has been recruiting him to join her university. To get hired, he had to prove that he is not perfectly black, and also that he is close to white people to faculties. Because of their thinking that black would fight with white people.
Link : http://koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/opinon/2015/06/137_180980.html
3) Blog post : Being Black in South Korea
by Timah on June 26, 2013
Summary :
The writer of this blog post, Timah, talks about living in Korea as a black person in kind of a neutral tone, which is different from many other posts saying in a negative perspective. According to the writer, if you are okay being black in America, then you’ll also be OK in Korea. Some people tend to think it’s much more difficult to be black in Korea than be white foreigners, but the writer disagrees with that idea based on her personal experiences. She thinks that some white people exaggerate difficulties of being black in Korea.
Link : http://livetravelmore.com/being-black-in-south-korea/
4) Youtube Video : Black in Korea: Positive Experiences
Summary :
“Black in Korea: Positive Experiences” is a video posted on YouTube by a blogger and a former English teacher in Korea. The clip shows an interview with another YouTuber called MiaMor, also a former English teacher in Korea. She shares her completely wonderful experience of being in Korea as a black woman and gives her thoughts on what type of people are more likely to suffer from the stress of being in a foreign culture.
Link : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tAhV6DHI0V0
