On MLK Day, remember North Korea’s state-sanctioned racism

Today, my multiracial family and I reflected on the debt we owe to the movement that Martin Luther King, Jr. symbolized and, for a too-brief period in our history, led. My children and I reflected on this day by talking about the fact that in the state where we live, within my lifetime, the marriage of their parents would have been unlawful under local anti-miscegenation laws. These, thankfully, were struck down as unconstitutional under the wonderfully named case of Loving v. Virginia.

I also decided to reflect, for just a moment, on the significance of this day for North Korea, the only extant state that incorporates racism in its ideology. What other state makes racial purity a matter of state doctrine? What other government orders the abortion of unborn children, or the murder of newborn ones, because of their racial impurity? What other state’s diplomats speak racial slurs against fellow diplomats from African nations? What other government’s state media would call the leader of another state “a wicked black monkey?”

The history of the world is filled with terrible crimes of discrimination, tribalism, and intolerance. Thankfully, the vast majority of human civilization sees these things for the evils they are. We have progressed, however imperfectly and unevenly, toward greater equality. Hundreds of thousands of Americans fought and died to abolish slavery, and millions more marched to abolish segregation, and in support of the trade sanctions that helped abolish apartheid.

That North Korea remains an exception to this global trend isn’t surprising to those who watch developments there closely. What surprises me the most about North Korea is the small size of the font in which “racism” is written on its tag cloud. One day, a newer and better kind of sanction, leveraging America’s role as the hub of world finance, may help to end North Korea’s state-sanctioned racism, too.