I am part of the problem and I want to talk about it

For those who frequent this blog, you know that I mainly talk about politics and economics. Or movies as it seems lately. That is because those are the subjects that I know best. But more than that, with the exception of the occasional heated debates that occur on social media, these are subjects that are, at the end of the day, relatively impersonal.

For example, yes, I think that a blanket increase of the minimum wage is disastrous for the poor. There are others who disagree with my assessment; and those debates often go on for an unhealthily long period of time. But, at the end of the day, it's nothing personal. Hell, I'm a blogger. No one in the Ministry of Labor is really going to care about what I or you (assuming that you are not some big shot in government) have to say about the topic, no matter how many hyperlinks you provide.

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And a lot of that is intentional. I have no problems whatsoever with discussing ideas. That's easy. The worst thing that can happen is that someone calls you stupid, and that matters only if you let the opinions of others matter. Besides, to be truthful, it's not like as though my ideas are terribly important to anyone else aside from myself. But on the other hand, sharing my feelings with others? I find that viscerally uncomfortable.

Sure, I can and have expressed anger before, but that's an easy emotion to share. In this age when people are looking for views or clicks or likes or retweets, rage (and if you can't muster the real stuff, faux rage) is one of the easiest things that anyone can tap into. But other emotions like grief... that requires the writer to make himself more vulnerable. And I have never been quite comfortable with that. So I tend to avoid those topics. Even when I wrote about the Sewol tragedy, I focused on the politicization of it -- not the actual tragedy.

But this time, I feel the need to try to get something out. And considering the fact that I am going to talk about something that I readily admit that I know little about and feel uncomfortable doing, I am fully aware that there is a very good chance that I will sound like an ass. So here goes.

By now, everyone already knows the story about the schizophrenic misogynist who randomly murdered a young woman in Gangnam. I don't think we need to rehash the grisly details.

I won't say that I was deeply upset when I first heard the story. Nor was I shocked. I was quite indifferent to it actually. I don't know about you, but I'm a news junkie. And when you consume as much news information as I do, the death of a random stranger doesn't really bother you. There are so many horrible deaths and so many vile acts of cruelty that are perpetrated in the world on a daily basis. So naturally I've become largely desensitized to a lot of violence that I read about.

I think the same can be said about a lot of other people, too. Maybe even you as well. When people say that they're not surprised to have heard that X happened, no matter how horrible X may be, I don't think that most people genuinely had the foresight to know that X was coming. I think most people have been desensitized by so many other things similar to X that by the time X happens, most people shrug and move on.

And that young woman's death was just one of those things for me. I furrowed my eyebrows a bit, shook my head, and then clicked on the next story.

If her death ended there and nothing else happened as a direct consequence of it, at least nothing else that affected anyone outside of her immediate family, I wouldn't have bothered to look through that story or think much about it again. But the protests happened. The hundreds of post-its, the flowers, the messages of grief -- they brought my attention back to the story. The message that got to me most was the one that asked why so many of these perpetrators who commit random acts of violence (RAV), 묻지마 범죄, seem to target women.

According to this article, six out of ten victims of RAV are women.

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So after having read the original article, then reading about the post-its, and then reading about the statistics, I then read about an Australian woman who was raped in Korea and how Korea is not a safe place if you are a woman, especially a non-Korean woman. Not long after that, I read about a Japanese pop star who had been stabbed two dozen times by an obsessed fan because she returned a gift that he had given her.

And that was when I learned something about being desensitized. It's a temporary state of mind. If you keep staring into the abyss, you stop caring about it for a while, even when the abyss stares back into you. But then when you look long enough and you see the rot and the decay that is hiding in the abyss, it does get to you eventually. And it got to me. Just when I thought I couldn't feel worse about what was going on, I read about members of Ilbe -- that rot and decay I just mentioned -- doing what they do best. Trolling mourners. A bunch of classy motherless assholes, those guys are.

It's easy to offer solutions -- harsher punishments, longer sentences, heftier fines, abolishing anti-defamation laws so that perps can be named and shamed so that they can be shunned by society for the rest of their lives, etc. It would be easy because I can then slip back into my "let's talk about ideas" mode of thinking. Plus, no one in the Ministry of Justice is going to listen to me anyway. So it's no skin off my back.

The hard part is that I have to accept that I am part of the problem.

I'm a Korean male in my 30s. I served my time in the Korean Army and I am fluent in both Korean and English (more fluent in English than Korean to be honest). I am a business owner, a blogger, and a columnist. I'll never be as rich as Lee Kun-hee, but I live comfortably. Plus I weigh about 200 pounds. So that means that if I were walking alone in Itaewon pissed drunk, and I have on numerous occasions, I will be left alone. And I have never been bothered by anyone. In fact, no matter how many times I've heard of racist taxi drivers who attempt to stiff their customers from expats, I can say with certainty that no taxi driver has ever tried to stiff me.

If you knew nothing else about me except for that brief description I gave of myself, there would be a good chance that you'd call me a gaejeossi, a term that I find about as endearing as doenjangnyeo.

So, why would I think that I am part of the problem? What has any of that got to do with anything? And why does this make me feel sick? It's because I don't usually feel there is a problem.

To explain, of course there are troubles in my life just like everyone else. But I don't perceive any of my problems to be things that a little work and a little discipline can't resolve. Oh, I'm not the next Robert Koehler? Whatever. I'll just keep doing what I do best and see where things go from there. Oh, boohoo, paying bills and taxes are hard and running a business is even harder? That's when I down a few shots of soju and tell myself to man up because nothing ever good has ever come easy! Yes, life is tough. Wear a helmet and soldier on.

But I never have to worry about getting drugged and gangraped in a seedy motel. I never have to worry about getting killed because someone hates my gender. I never have to worry about some random drunk ajeossi groping me because this stranger somehow feels entitled to my body. I never have to worry that a cop is going to believe someone else's ludicrous accusations and neglect to hear anything I have to say because he doesn't understand a word I say. I never have to worry about being denied entry to any bar or business establishment because my skin is a shade too light or a shade too dark.

And this is a problem because when you don't ever experience the problems that others endure, then those things don't exist -- at least not in your mind. It's not something that anyone can be blamed for. It's human nature to see everything from our own perspectives, to often be blinded to the problems that others face. When people have their own problems to deal with, concerning themselves with problems that others face is not something that a lot of people have time for. And when these things don't exist for you, you don't ever talk about them.

And I think that's why I think I'm part of the problem. I don't talk about the kinds of problems that so many other people face because it's not part of my experience. And I don't think nearly enough people talk to each other.

Yes, people talk to each other plenty on social media. But I think most of the time people talk at or talk over one another on social media, rather than talk to each other. Plus, I think social media is part of the problem (yes, I am using social media to say that social media is part of the problem; the irony is not lost on me). Social media might have made it much easier for people to communicate with one another, but the impersonal nature of it all has it made damn near impossible to talk about anything of substance to our personal lives. So I think the genuine conversations that need to occur are among families -- face-to-face. I just don't think there is enough of that going on.

We know the usual stories. Mom and dad are both busy working. They have to stay late at work. They are tired by the time they get home from work and/or hweshik. The kids are tired, too, because they spent the whole day at school and at a million hagwons. Neighbors don't know each other. Etc. Etc.

Family is vital. But when that most basic and vital of relationships breaks down, it's only a matter of time before society itself begins to break down. I'm no Jerry Falwell-conservative who thinks there ought to be one mommy and one daddy and that they have to stay married with legal custody of their biological offspring for such a unit to be called a family. Admittedly, that's the kind of family that I grew up in, but I recognize that there are other kinds of families. It doesn't matter what the family looks like and how the individuals are related to one another. What's important is that families get together to talk to one another. Otherwise, we get a bunch of kids addicted to smartphones, gaming, and the Internet and the only place where they get to learn about morals is from the comments section of Internet forums and they end up relying on a steady diet of stupid and ramyeon.

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I don't have children of my own (which I am grateful for!) so I don't think I'll ever be part of a parent-child conversation where I get to dispense wisdom to my younglings. But I'm going to stop being part of the problem by talking to others. And this meandering ramble is my opening salvo. I am willing to talk to others and, more importantly, I am willing to listen.

I might not know a whole lot about the patriarchy or the fragility of the male ego or about the problems that women or other minorities face in their daily lives. I might not ever understand some of them. But I'm willing to take part in a conversation. Perhaps you should, too. Talk with a friend, a colleague, a child. Post your own stories on your social media pages or blogs if you can't bring yourself to have a face-to-face conversation. Whatever. Hopefully, this will lead to more people talking to one another and sharing each others' stories.

I think this is vital because I am convinced that the majority of people in the world are good. I just think that one of the biggest problems facing the good people of the world is that many people have become isolated from one another. When enough good people get together, I think these evil cretins will crawl into whatever hole they came from.

And then maybe, just maybe, we can at least start to act like civilized beings who don't get too desensitized to murder.

Random Thoughts about the Free Market, JR Pub, Ebola, and Racism

1) Free Markets don't need no regulations

As a Free Market capitalist, the story that has unfolded around JR Pub's sign about not wanting to admit Africans into their establishment out of fear of transmitting the Ebola virus carries all the attributes of the Free Market that I love.

Despite the fact that Korea (thankfully) does not have an anti-discrimination law, when it was shown that a business owner behaved in a racist manner (whether or not this was actually racist will be discussed later), the public – whether they were actual or potential customers – decided to punish the business owners by doing the only thing that they could do, which is also the most powerful thing that they could do. They chose to spend their money elsewhere. Then the owners of JR Pub took immediate steps to resolve the issue to placate the angry public.

There was no need for an army of bureaucrats or business regulations or legal statutes. It is a great example of the way Free Markets work; or at least the way it ought to work.

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2) So an Ebola patient walks into a bar...

A lot of noise was made about the ignorance that surrounded JR Pub's decision to turn away Africans from their establishment out of fear of the Ebola virus. Some people also correctly claimed that Ebola is spread through the contact of bodily fluids, and is not, in fact, spread through the air or through food.

However, in a hypothetical example, assuming you were minding your own business while enjoying a drink in a bar, if someone whom you recognized as suffering from Ebola walked into the bar, would you still stay in the bar knowing how the virus spreads? Or would you at the very least step outside the building to call the Center for Disease Control and Prevention?

You don't have to tell me what you will do. But honestly ask yourself what you would do in the situation. Personally, even if I knew for a fact that there was no chance for me to contract the disease merely because of the presence of a patient near my vicinity, I would leave posthaste. But that's because I have seen first hand the ugliness and brutality that a crowd is capable of committing, especially after a few too many drinks have been imbibed.

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3) “Sincere” Apologies

According to The Korea Observer, the owner who instructed his staff to put up the sign took sole blame and apologized. He also said that he would give a 50 percent discount on all drinks and food to those coming to the bar on one particular evening and that all proceeds of the night would “go to a charity and those who are in need of help.”

(I have yet to hear anyone explain to me why giving to charity would make things under this present set of circumstances any better, but whatever floats their boat, I suppose.)

However, though this is certainly not a scientific survey by any stretch of the imagination, there was a simple poll that the website's readers could participate in. When asked “Should we boycott the bar over the ban on 'Africans,'” readers could choose between “Yes, screw that apology!” and “No, the apology is enough.”

As of this writing, 780 people were in favor of boycotting the bar and 660 people were in favor of not boycotting the establishment.

Though it is unclear if those who think that the apology is insufficient would have any lasting effect on the business' profit margins, I cannot help but wonder just how much more apologizing they could possibly want.

A part of me is reminded of the way so many Koreans demand a “sincere” apology from Japan over its war crimes. No, I am not comparing actual war crimes to perceived racism. What I am comparing is people's seemingly unquenchable thirst for “sincere” apologies, which all too frequently does nothing more than to allow people to hide behind the cover of perennial victimhood.

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4) On Political Correctness

Has fears over the Ebola virus been blown out of proportion? Even with a Liberian man who has come to Korea about a week ago having gone missing somewhere in Busan (assuming that the man is still even in Korea), a country where there has been a Ebola virus outbreak, it is likely that the fear of the virus is still very much greater than the actual threat of the virus.

But why should any government, university, or pub, or individual for that matter apologize for trying to ensure that they remain contagion-free? The fact remains that even if there is little danger of the virus spreading to Korea, I don't owe it to anybody to have myself exposed to diseases brought into this country, potential or otherwise, no matter what problems exist in other countries or whose feelings might get hurt! In today's overly politically correct culture, not nearly enough people seem to be willing to even entertain such a thought.

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5) Racism vs. Ignorance

But now that we have brought up the topic of racism, what is racism? It is the notion of ascribing moral, social, intellectual or political significance to a man’s genetic lineage. It is one of the most primitive forms of brutish collectivism.

Does anyone have any real evidence to make the claim that the owners of JR Pub are, indeed, racists? Does anyone have unimpeachable evidence that their intent was malicious? In other words, did they put up their sign in order to make some kind of statement about the inferiority/diseased nature/undesirability of Africans? Or was it a decision made out of innocent ignorance? Racism may be intolerable but isn't ignorance forgivable?

But either way, does it matter? If the owners are indeed racists, though they might not have changed their minds, they will most certainly think twice about giving voice to their racist thoughts in the future. If it was a result of ignorance, you can bet that these men, or at least the one who made his employees put up the sign, will have certainly learned a very valuable lesson about avoiding anything that can even be remotely considered to be racist.

And isn't that what is supposed to matter? On one hand, ignorance is rectified.  On the other hand, if they were, indeed, racists, even if we don't respect or like the way other people think, aren't we supposed to tolerate others so long as their actions do not lead to the harm of others?

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6) Predetermined Judgments

In the Asia Pundits article that was quoted earlier, a woman who is a white African was informed that whereas black Africans could not enter the establishment, she could. Others, including the woman in question, were quick to conclude that this was therefore a case of blatant racism. But does it really refute the claim of ignorance? Is it possible that those owners and employees of JR Pub were ignorant enough to have thought that black people were more prone to suffer from the virus than white people?

I was neither there nor have I spoken to anyone involved. So I cannot say one way or the other. But too many people, who were also neither there nor spoken to the involved parties, seem to have determined what had happened.

There are very few epithets that carry as much weight as “racist.” However, armed with nothing but moral assertions and unimpeachable political correctness, which would never be given any serious consideration in any respectable court of law, hundreds, if not thousands of people who have most likely never even met the owners have accused them of being racists.

During the Jim Crow laws in the United States, the idea that you can tell who is good and who is evil by the color of their skin was the law of the land. Since the laws were abolished, and not just in the United States but throughout the civilized world, that line of thinking has been rejected. However, in modern times, as soon as the perceived victims are black, that mentality comes roaring back. That is because the mentality has not really been rejected. It has only been put under new management.

The way much of the public has responded, or at least those who have bothered to respond, has not given me much reason to rethink my position about mobs and their non-thinking tendencies.

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