"Foreign traders were being restricted to certain parts of the peninsula well before the Korean people learned from the Japanese how to look at the world in racial categories. This makes it harder to figure out whether discrimination against foreigners in South Korea has more to do with xenophobia or nationalism. There still seems to be, as in Japan, a common sense of a certain racial hierarchy, with Koreans and perhaps the Japanese too at the top. But it's a moral hierarchy without much serious conviction of intellectual, let alone physical superiority. For all the loud professions of hostility towards Japan, the Japanese are considered the least foreign of foreign races."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Brian Reynolds Myers, "South Korea's Racism Debate" (August 2011), The Diplomat
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Racism_in_South_Korea
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Racism in South Korea
11 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Racism in South Korea →
Related Quotes
"I was invited to the home of a young Korean couple for dinner and the subject of the children of mixed-race marriage …"
"South Korea, not very tolerant, is an outlier. Although the country is rich, well-educated, peaceful and ethnically h…"
"[South Korea] continues to struggle with minority rights and social integration, especially for North Korean defector…"
"[T]o say that the Korean blood is purely "Korean" is sheer fantasy. A recent DNA analysis shows that 60 percent of Ko…"
"South Korean nationalism is something quite different from the patriotism toward the state that Americans feel. Ident…"
"To a radical Korean nationalist, the division of the nation, the race, is an intolerable state of affairs. So too is …"
"The historical origins and politics of Korean national identity based on a sense of ethnic homogeneity has not receiv…"
"I was seeking to explain anti-American movements that had erupted in South Korea in the 1980s. I was interested in ex…"
"This dispute is over whether nationhood is a product of nationalist political mobilization of uniquely modern dimensi…"
"Korea needs to institutionalize a legal system that mitigates unfair practices and discrimination against those who d…"