BTS is often on the mouth of major media publications. Be it inane articles about celebrities name-dropping the group in interviews or condescending pieces that borderline mock ARMY’s acquisitive power, White journalists are well acquainted with using BTS for clicks and clout.
Unfortunately but unsurprisingly, they are not as accustomed to doing more than stalking ARMY to repost threads as articles, and as actually publishing pieces that require research and effort seems like above their capacity, important topics such as the racism and xenophobia BTS experience while navigating western spaces are not only often overlooked but also completely dismissed.
Anti-Asian racism is for sure not a new phenomenon, however, with the sum of a pre-existing hostility and confirmation bias making racists look for content that justifies that very hostility, Asian people have become the scapegoat of the COVID pandemic and the number of hate crimes committed against us, in special against Asian elderly, has significantly increased in the past year.
Yet, ever since the coronavirus hit headlines many laughed at our expense. Asian people became the punchline of very racist and xenophobic “jokes” and although BTS is one of the most successful Asian acts contemporarily, their success does not protect them from comments brimming with microaggressions and hate speech.
From the very start of 2020, on January 26, the day of the Grammys, a tweet that said: “Everyone at the Grammys when BTS starts coughing” [GIF of someone screaming and moving desperately out of a car, shouting “Move!”.] went viral with 22.2K retweets and over 85.3K likes. On February 24, 2020, in an episode of the SiriusXM staple, Salvatore “Sal” Governale was called out for claiming BTS and their staff were “definitely” carrying the coronavirus when they visited the SiriusXM headquarters in New York on February 21 for no reason other than them being Korean.
Not much changed after a year, as on February 25, 2021, the German radio host Matthias Matuschik from the government-funded Radio station BAYERN 3 said that BTS is “just like an abbreviation for COVID-19” and that he hopes “there will be a vaccine against BTS soon.” He openly cursed at them and said BTS deserves a 20-year vacation in North Korea simply for covering a Coldplay song on MTV Unplugged.
Before even getting called out, Matthias made an attempt at saving face saying he isn’t racist as his car is Korean. And well, there’s a lot to unpack there. Starting by how racist he was in both stating that he owns an object from South Korea as if that is somehow equivalent to respecting the inherent humanity of Korean people or that by the fact he actually really thinks East Asians are interchangeable as people easily found in his social media that the car in question is actually from a Japanese brand.
But, to have a whole team prepared to defend your insensitive remarks is an even bigger problem, so let’s take a look at BAYERN 3’s statement, in which the station not only called the racist comments an “opinion that only considers the personal tastes of the host” who judged them “regardless of the band’s cultural background,” but also claimed that the host was “absolutely distant from xenophobia and racism in any form” and did not intend any harm. The only accountability even taken into consideration was that some ARMYs “might have found it” hurtful or racist, for which they offered a half-assed apology.
That the racist comments were deemed no more than opinions wasn’t particularly surprising, but no less hurtful. The statement, full of excuses borderline arguing that comparing South Korean artists to a disease is fair use of freedom of speech, feels very purposeful in making those who were rightfully mad look like people who are easily ticked off by the host’s choice of words rather than the insidious message those comments carried. There was no acknowledgment for his racism and xenophobia, hiding behind past performative solidarity, and rather than apologizing for “hurting” Asian people and making racial comments that intended to hurt BTS’ humanity, they apologized only that “some” of us “felt” hurt.
Calling his statements an opinion makes the disgusting nature of his claims seem acceptable on the grounds that he, and any person who loves to spout the same racist recycled takes, would be open to debate this with ARMY. That if we are this “hurt,” and wish to change their minds we should be mature and do so through debate, as people do when they disagree with others’ opinions. At first glance, this makes us seem unreasonable when they are making a perfectly rational demand, but looking closely, it suggests that vulnerable minorities should be constantly arguing with racists for their right to exist and that at no point that debate should be considered over and won.
Debates are often viewed as two opposing sides finding some common ground in the middle, however, this framework presumes that both viewpoints are valid and equal when in reality not all viewpoints are or should be considered as such. That considering BTS a disease and openly cursing and making racially charged comments regarding North Korea simply because they are South-Korean and covered a song, should be considered a valid opinion and that those who were hurt were only hurt due to their subjective disagreement with that opinion, is abhorrent and unjustifiable. Simply suggesting that such should be tolerated is disgusting and exactly what the station did.
It’s even more distressful that despite BTS having many times donated to COVID-relief and campaigned with the UN during this pandemic they are still subjected to such comments, but as ARMY make a collective effort we can hope for genuine improvement and actual solidarity or, at the very least, a call for accountability after all the hurtful comments.
