Hines Ward’s Korean Mother: ‘People Spat at Us’

The great “who is Korean?” conversation goes on. If South Korea doesn’t change the rules, after all, it didn’t win the Superbowl. Today, the Chosun Ilbo interviews half-Korean Johnny Westover, who did not win the Superbowl, but who has been active in fighting for the rights of mixed-race Koreans:

Active in a group of mixed-race Koreans, he told a meeting Friday he has never seen a half-Korean become a general in the army, or for that matter reach any position of authority in Korea, and asked if anyone else had. “In an era of globalization, where everything is becoming mixed together, Koreans know how to change the color of their hair to red, green or yellow, but it seems they still don’t know how to change the thoughts inside their heads,” he said.

. . . .

He suggests following the U.S. example and making it illegal to discriminate against people on the grounds of race.

The Korean National Human Rights Commission claims that it investigates complaints relating to race and national origin and has aired a few PSA’s about discrimination against mixed-race Koreans, but in practice, laws against racial and national discrimination are unenforced. A lack of political will may be to blame. Bigotry is increasingly bound up with Korea’s nationalist politics and its North Korea policy. Who can forget the violent anti-American demonstrations last September 11th, after which none of the violent protestors were punished, and after which a senior ruling party lawmaker (!) praised the protestors for their “deep ethnic purity.” The Marmot translated another press report quote from the same lawmaker on the same day:

Now is the time to focus our racial purity as energy to bring about intra-Korean
reconciliation and cooperation and peaceful reunification.

For several years now, Koreans have been holding up and putting up signs in restaurants and sporting events barring Americans from even entering (go to this post to see the history of my own fruitless complaints to South Korea’s National Human Rights Commission). In Korea, race, xenophobia, and politics are deeply interwoven. That’s why the ruling party isn’t really interested in prohibiting discrimination. I’ll go out on a long limb and predict the result from the traditionally conservative Grand Nationals, although for reasons that are more Confucian than nationalist.

Now, the headline story. Watch the Chosun Ilbo’s reporter absorb some well-earned humiliation for a predicatably dumb question:

What does Hines think about the Korean blood that runs though his veins?

“Since he was young, he always got along well with the other Korean and Vietnamese kids. It seems like he does have some pride in his Korean blood. But we’ve also been hurt as Koreans. When Hines was in high school, there was an inter-school friendship match for the Korean students. Since he was good at baseball, a school invited him to play. But after the game, when the kids went out to eat, the person who put together the event only took the Korean kids, leaving Hines behind (Ward is of mixed parentage, his father an African-American). After that I told Hines to never hang out with Korean kids. Yet when we went to Korea in ’98, even Korean people who looked educated spat when we walked by. Koreans judge others based on their appearance and their age. Those kinds of Koreans think that they are so special”¦”

This lovely vignette is a great example of how not to win friends and influence people. It’s also consistent with experiences I had, and which friends of mine had. I left Korea in 2002 and haven’t been back since. I have great reservations about going back, particularly with my half-Korean children. I’m sure plenty of corporate executives, diplomats, investors, scientists, teachers, and engineers have reached the same conclusion. With the exception of command-sponsored military, I’m guessing that most foreigners leave Korea when they have children. I could go on and on listing some extraordinarily talented people who should have been valued friends of Korea–and Korea now realizes how much it needs friends–but who instead feel hostility toward it because of its bigotry. Korea will be the hub of little else as long as its own attitudes deter people from forming lasting connections with the place.

Listening to Johnny Westover would be a good start.