Archive for the ‘Sexist’ Category

Mosaics, Implied Connections, and the “White English Teacher”

Monday, July 6th, 2009

Interestingly enough, the version of the Chosun Ilbo’s story that appear on its site –“한국 유부녀들은 남편 대신에…” 일부 원어민 강사들 비하발언 파문 (English translation from Korea Beat) — went up in a different way from Yahoo’s syndicated feed version of the story, which had added the following image graphic:

2009070114425083234_145014_1[Source: Yahoo News]

Interesting to see these two images actually linked together as a single graphic, which does a great job of linking all foreigners’ apparent sexual desire for Korean women and debauchery to the issue of “sexual groping” that was brought up in the story. This is more than a story, or a series of stories, but are actually parts of a growing meta-narrative in which foreigners (specificially men) are an actual pathological threat to the “innocent” members of society, i.e. women and children.

There is no logical reason to link these two photographs together other than that. And since the issue of sexual groping is quite literally at hand, adding a picture in which you actually see it happening is a very powerful emotional move. Here, we have a white man (and perhaps another off-camera) with his hands all over the flesh of two Korean women, in what is a party atmosphere, in an environment that is private. But that doesn’t matter when that picture is used to depict the “sexual groping” that the article talks about. A mere picture of an adult English teacher in a shot of many students isn’t so powerful, since it simply says that “he is in charge of your children”or “watch out.” There is no sense of direct sexual threat in the left picture.

But with the magic of the mosaic, the two white men, who have nothing to do with one another, who are acting in very different private and public spheres, become conflated into a single “white male menace,” made similar by not just their proxomity to each other in their layout, but by the faceless  anonymity and notoriety assigned them by that mosaic. They are these men, and all white men. Note that the only “sexual grope” is in the picture on the right, ostensibly between consenting adults, but the psychological effect of such lurid imagery is to make the reader feel almost as if s/he had seen the white male English teachers actually groping a child in the picture on the left.

In a sense, and on an emotional level, the white man/men are guilty of lewd groping of Korean girls, regardless of context, at least in the conservative Korean mind, especially one that is full of stereotypes and negative images already. And once that emotional trigger is pulled, the psychological connection between perfectly legal, but perhaps unsavory “sexual groping” in a night club or other private space, and that of perhaps small girls in the public space of the classroom, is made. In terms of the visual and emotional connections, it’s almost as if a grope, and hence, an actual crime had been depicted in the picture on the left, rather than in the picture on the right, taken from a situation clearly that should absolutely be considered personal and private. In the end, the emotional brain won’t really make any real distinctions, because in a fundamental way, it doesn’t matter which picture sexual groping actually took place in — both pictures are, from a certain emotional standpoint, one and the same.

Posted in Extreme Bias, Lack of News Value, Semiotic Sophistry, Sexist | 5 Comments »

The Pornographic and Pedophilic Tendencies of the Chosun Ilbo

Wednesday, June 24th, 2009

[HT to Korea Beat.]

Why is it that one of Korea’s oldest, most sober, and ostensibly serious journalistic outlet is always publishing pictures of underage girls in their school uniforms, or pictures of foreigners in their bikinis at the beach?

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[Source: Chosun Ilbo]

In case you were wondering, if you look at some other pictures, there WERE boys there, too. Except the editors chose to put in a shot of this girl THREE times, I guess because you could see her belly button.

At the same time, last summer, a group of South Asian men were arrested for apparently doing the same on a beach on the east coast (although they were also reported to have “groped” some women, but that wasn’t confirmed as fact in the article). This was called “sexual harrassment” with cameras, however, and set a dangerous precedent, in this author’s opinion.

But why is it that when the Chosun Ilbo continues to publish upskirt shots of underage girls, or graduation celebrations that show their bodies through wet (and hence transparent) white uniform blouses, or foreigners in bikinis without mosaicing or other efforts to preserve anonymity, this is OK? If you are a Chosun Ilbo photographer, you can publish bikini shots and upskirt photos of teenage girls, but if you’re a brown foreigner, it’s “sexual harrassment?”

This doesn’t make sense. And legalities aside, is this really journalism? Or a bunch of old men sitting around, making excuses to dispatch staff photogaphers with telephoto lenses to snap pictures of underage teenagers? This adds to the media enviroment that legitimizes the sexualization of underage girls, and the sexual objectification of women in general. One should expect better from one of the nation’s oldest newspapers. If I want to see skin, I should go buy a magazine that shows such things. I don’t know how Koreans feel, but as an American, I’d be very ashamed if The New York Times photo and multimedia sections wasted time recording teenage girls at graduation spraying one another with water, or had staff photographers with 300mm telephoto lenses taking upskirt shots of underage girls.

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[Source: Chosun Ilbo]

Is this national news? I can understand perhaps one shot of a legitimate story on the problem of girls violating uniform standards that showed how they were sneaking about and doing it. But if you look at the gallery linked above, there are more than 10 shots of the girls in the “changing area”, some of which nearly reveal underwear. Do we need this to get the point? No. As a heterosexual reader, might I be curious about such compromising shots? Sure. But they have no place in a serious, national newspaper. And the sheer number of shots in the photo section of that newspaper that day outnumbered those of real political demonstrations, real news happen domestically and around the world.

Can the Chosun Ilbo really even call itself a completely professional newspaper with this kind of pornographic and pedophilic photo coverage?

Posted in Chosun Ilbo, Lack of News Value, Newspaper, Pedophilic, Sexist | 28 Comments »

The Illogic and Bad Methodology of Lee Eun-ung and the “Anti-English Spectrum” People

Tuesday, June 23rd, 2009

[HT to Sonagi over at The Marmot's Hole.]

Here’s another article written by Lee Eun-ung, founder of the “Anti-English Spectrum” web site and group. He continues to rant on about all the crimes purported to be committed by foreigners in the Kyunghyang Shinmun story “외국인 강사 약물검사는 차별?” (“Are Drug Inspections of Foreigners Discrimination?”) and once again presents a compelling story to the lazy reader, but one devoid of concrete numbers or statistics, when they are readily available.

He mentions the recent ATEK petition and human rights complaint, and from the very choice of title mischaracterizes its origins — the HIV test is the main sticking point, and many legal scholars, along with Korea’s own Ban Ki-moon, agree it is a human right violation, both according to the principles of international as well as principles of Korean law. He doesn’t mention the numbers of HIV+ English teachers allegedly identified, nor the numbers of English teachers caught for drugs. This is because the numbers are against him, and this is telling. The numbers are so low that they would not be worth mentioning to help his case.

In the case of the English teacher allegedly arrested for molesting a child in 2007, why does this not appear in official police records? And had there been such an arrest, given the state of the Korean media and its extreme bias against foreigners, would there not have been some reporting on an actual arrest of a foreign English teacher who had abused a child? Again, where are the statistics? Where are the media reports? And the “tip” being based on a single biased source — the same former girlfriend of an Australian English teacher who called newspapers and also presented a Konglish-ridden, anonymous email written from a Hotmail account allegedly from the ex-boyfriend — this is pretty specious and spotty “evidence” to say the least.

And most of the “incidents” mentioned by this man/organization — while unfortunate — have nothing to do with the law, and the tips seem to come from jilted exes wanting revenge. Such as the man who slept with a woman, who later found out he was married back home — what gives this man the right to “pursue” or “investigate” this individual, or interfere in private matters? The fact that the person in question is a foreigner? Or that he apparently gave her a venereal disease? Do such things not happen between Koreans? And even if what he had done had been illegal, what gives private citizens the right to follow, chase, or “investigate” other private citizens? Report them to the police and be happy you did your civic duty.

But this man encourages people to “take action” against foreigners. Based on what? Their personal behavior? Preferences? Because you don’t like the way one dressed? This line of thinking is extremely dangerous. If a foreigner does an immoral thing, this is a sign of what ALL foreigners do? If a Korean or Koreans do something, it can never define a pattern. Even in the crime statistics, exactly 13 of nearly 20,000 E-2 visa holders were arrested for doing drugs. This does NOT jibe with the media accounts of “foreigners gone wild”, but then again, none of these media accounts actually presents the numbers. Isn’t that interesting? Most of these yellow journalistic stories about foreigners cite apocryphal stories, from anonymous or unconfirmed sources, with no police reports or records, and they do not agree with the Korean government’s own crime statistics on foreigners, which the government DOES keep and track. (Sorry, Assemblywoman Choe Young-hui — you’re wrong on that count.)

Even the “English Spectrum” site that this Lee Eun-ung bases his entire raison d’etre upon was a single, sarcastic, and fictional piece that the vast majority of foreigners in the discussion also attacked the author for writing. It was not taken seriously by anyone. No one “used” it. It was not used as a guide to seduce Korean children, no more than most people in the foreign community have ever even heard of the “Secret Sites” apparently selling guides on how to seduce Korean women (‘한국여성 性的비하` 비밀사이트 성행). It’s the same logic as “Anti-English Spectrum” — hold the entire foreign community responsible for the acts of a few, or even a SINGLE idiot.

Such behavior is, in a word, racist.

One wonders how Korea would have reacted if, because of serial killer Cho Seung-hui, the United States started labeling all Koreans in the US as “ticking time bombs of murderous rage caused by excessive academic pressure and a distorted Korean culture based on post-colonial violence that stems from a male-bonding sub-culture of required military service and hazing in the service of what is essentially a hierarchical culture that is used to decades of brutal dictatorship and uses corporal punishment and torture in its official institutions.” Hey, it’s based in fact, within Korean society, right? And now, in America, there are cases of Korean male students murdering, abusing, or violating American kids (Cho Seung-hui and Hanse Park and Sung Soo Kim), right?

So, according to the KOREAN logic, we should hold these individuals as responsible representatives of the entire group, right? During the same time period that Lee Eun-ung is talking about (from around 2005-2009), according to RECORDED statistics and RELIABLE news reports, Korean students in America have murdered 32 people, sexually molested many others, and are suspects in the kidnapping/murder of another. Now, even according to Korean government statistics and even within an irresponsible yellow media, there have still been NO murders committed by English teachers, no injuries, and no cases of sexual molestation. NONE. Even the yellow media reports have never produced a name of a foreigner, or an actual arrest of a foreigner for committing such a crime. They talk about them, but never prevent specifics — because they can’t. So, acccording to the Korean logic, the United States and the rest of the world should hold ALL Koreans responsible for the actions of several crazy ones, and close the borders to them. Perhaps we should require all Korean nationals coming to Korea to undergo psychological testing and wear tracking devices so that we know they cannot commit these crimes? They committed them before, and that means alll Koreans are prone to commit such crimes again. That is the Korean logic in this situation, the logic employed by the “Anti-English Spectrum” man, and all the others.

Because if foreigners can earn such a reputation from zero to even a few cases and have restrictive laws made regarding them, then after dozens of murders, rapes, and molestations committed by Koreans, shouldn’t the United States call all Koreans a “danger to the American people?” If one thinks about this logically, the fact of the extreme racist bias in the Korean media and a population that accepts it without question is obvious.

Pieces such as the ones mentioned above prove this point only too well.

Posted in Extreme Bias, Hearsay/Rumor, Kyunghyang Shinmun, Lack of Cited Source(s), Lack of Evidence, Maeil Kyeonje, Newspaper, Sexist, Specious Source, Stereotype, The "Anti-English Spectrum", Unbalanced Interviews, Unfounded Generalization | 12 Comments »