Some thoughts on racism and anti-Blackness in the fandom

    

Kpop is based on Black Culture

  We need to talk about Black American culture and how it is appropriated by a lot of Kpop groups and disrespected by other groups and fans yet BTS and TXT have a strong appreciation for the culture. Quite a few other K-pop groups have been called out recently for racist behavior and many have been called out for cultural appropriation. In the beginning of their career, BTS had some issues with cultural appropriation as well but, it was addressed and immediately changed after debut. Every time another group or artist in Kpop is called out for racism, some anti brings up RM's pre-debut locks or kinky permed box cut he had at debut. Even the garbage Kpop tabloids go back and do posts about his hair from the past when other groups mess up. Guess what? We do not care. He corrected it by changing hair styles and has never done it again and has acknowledged several times that he has made mistakes in the past. He hasn't exhibited any other racist behaviors since then like others who have used the n-word on video when rapping songs by Black artists or held parties where the theme may has well have been "how can we be racist to Black people today." Other groups/artists make generic canned apologies and continue to act like trash in the faces of Black fans. Antis have made mountains out of molehills and tried to make innocent things into worse while ignoring rappers in other groups saying the n-word and wearing cornrow and box braids (the kind specific to Black culture). BTS pays the proper respect to Black artists and the culture as influences and it's time the fans start doing the same.

     Recently an "ARMY" thought it was cool to make a post talking about how much they didn't like the "barking" trend that ARMYs do at concerts. They see it as annoying and disrespectful. Well the "barking" trend is rooted in Black culture. It goes back to the 80s and 90s. People bitched about not liking it and were calling it weird and disrespectful when it's the opposite. It's a way to show appreciation for the performer. It's not a sexual thing and it's not negative. It's crazy how Black Americans are expected to learn about other people's cultures across the world and I see my Black moots being respectful to things we don't always get but, some of you all take every opportunity to bitch about things you don't understand without asking someone who may know better than you or looking it up yourself.

  The "barking" as it has come to be called was not about being a dog or calling the other person a dog. In Black slang calling someone your "dawg" isn't even offensive. It means they're your bestie. Someone you can trust. Is Hobi going to get slammed now because you actually listen to him call his friends his 'dawgs' in Hangsang? You don't deserve to enjoy hip hop culture or Kpop if you aren't going to learn the origins. It's funny how all members that have done solo shows where fans have done the "woot woot" cheering ("barking") have enjoyed it. It's not about what fans who push these anti-hip hop culture opinions want. Don't like it? Shut up because no one cares. Go stan a group not based on Black culture then and you can keep your desire for proximity to whiteness and white things and your secret racism. 

     As K-pop continues to borrow and in some cases appropriate Black culture, there are going to be things that filter over to it that some fans don't get. That's not an invitation to be ignorant and make statements rooted in anti-Blackness about it. You don't get to center yourself and make whole ass posts on what you don't like, expecting ARMY to stop doing it because it's harmless. Your whiteness, Asian-ness, or Blackness that has been muted by your surroundings (including some biracial people who lean heavily into whiteness to assimilate), none of this gives you a pass to be anti-Black about things you don't understand that are becoming a part of Kpop. Just say you like Black culture as long as there isn't a Black face on it because that's what is really going on. I blocked a lot of people on that post about "barking" including the person who made the post because she was told by several people in the comments where it comes from and backtracked to not liking it but not caring if people did it. Well no one cares. Not a single fan asked you. You saw discourse because someone else posted that they didn't like it and you piggy backed off of the response they got and made the same post because you wanted attention. You got it too. When you double down on ignorance when things are explained to you instead of stepping back and learning, you get blocked. Complaining in the chat about being blocked afterwards makes me laugh and I realize I made the right decision. It costs nothing to admit that you were wrong or at the very least admit that maybe it's not a conversation you should involve yourself in. While I'm on the subject, can we stop with the engagement bait "unpopular opinion" posts? I thought we agreed long ago on Threads that that mess was just tacky. 

     Throwing shoes at the feet of the performer is another sign of approval that comes from the Black community. Hobi has been seen doing this before. It comes from street dance culture. The swag surfing that Yoongi did in Chicago during the D-Day Tour with his dancers is another part of Black culture. When we say we're the blueprint we mean it. That's true whether you like it or not. 

     Kpop song lyrics even have AAVE or African-American Vernacular English, or Black slang. Sometimes the words are used in the wrong context but they're there nonetheless. Words like "ops", "baddie", and "slay" are all from Black culture. There is literally no room to hate Black culture but listen to Kpop. It's weird to put it mildly. 

Disrespectful Treatment of Black Women BTS Collaborates With

     One thing we have noticed as Black fans that is gross is how the women BTS collaborates with are treated differently. Before I get into this I will say that no one deserves to be treated badly period so this is not hate or shade to any of the non-Black artists I mention. 

     When Umi collaborated with Tae on her song "Wherever U R (feat. V of BTS)" I had someone comment on a post I made about her. The comment was calling her a clout chaser. The commenter, one of my moots, a multi who is a Tae bias, later deleted their comments but I keep receipts. This is a white woman who is calling a Black/Japanese woman a clout chaser for promoting her song that Tae collaborated with her on. This is not Tae's song alone. He's the feature here no matter how much ARMY or solos or stans want to focus only on him you can't erase her and you shouldn't. She has also collaborated with other Kpop artists since then. Asian culture is her culture too because she's half Japanese. A white woman is the last person who should have any opinion on her collaborating with an Asian man. 

     I mentioned that she's Asian and has every right to promote her song and asked the commenter if she perhaps needed to evaluate her opinion because she may have other reasons for not liking Umi outside of her thinking of her as a clout chaser. She deleted her side of the conversation. Calling a Black woman a clout chaser for promoting her own song is stupid. Plain and simple stupidity because if she doesn't do it herself her label probably won't and Black women are the most disrespected group of people in the US. I am one so I know. Things like this are proof. I will come back to this point in a minute so put a mental pin in this. Umi was called a clout chaser for promoting her collaboration with V. For doing her job and promoting her song she was called a clout chaser.  <sticks pin right here, hold that thought>. 

     This person is still following me and I follow them and I haven't noticed anything else seemingly racist from them so it may be that they are just a V bias that took their stanning of him to a toxic place. I found out on TikTok that the Umi hate at that time had gotten bad. I didn't know because I didn't see it on my socials besides that one comment. I don't have Twitter and I wasn't on TikTok then so I didn't see it. Sometimes people need to just stop and think before they comment or post. Not all opinions need to be shared. What did she think I was going to do? Agree with her. Nope! Umi is a sweetheart flower child that sends love and light and spreads it and has not been problematic. The only people being hateful to her seem to be Tae solos who make up scenarios and try to drag her into their shipper delusions with that other girl from that one girl group (not mentioning because it's not worth it). I've since seen that she has been accused of some delusional crap by toxic shippers and that other fandom and I'm glad she addressed it. 

     Now lets go back to that pin I asked you to hold. So Umi was accused of being a clout chaser for promoting her song with V. Fast forward to Jhope ft Glorilla on "Killing it Girl." Glorilla was accused of not promoting the song to the liking of a certain group of "ARMY." Now ain't that something. One Black woman collabs with a member of BTS and she's doing too much and another Black woman collaborates with a different member of BTS and she's accused of not doing enough. I don't think it's about what they are or aren't doing collab wise. I think it's about racists wanting to say something negative about Black women and not coming right out and saying, " I don't want them working with Black women." That would be too straight forward and obvious and they know they'd be called out for that and blocked. 

     Meanwhile Alyssa (a white dancer) who danced with Jhope during the "Killing it Girl" promotions got more respect in my opinion than Glorilla who was actually a part of creating the song with Jhope. Alyssa got her share of hate from psychos too and that was terrible but there was a large part of the fandom that treated her like she was the artist and she's not. People started to follow her socials and follow her to the airport to wait for her as she traveled. That sounds like they were stanning her which is weird behavior. Since when do dancers become idols and collab artists get treated like crap? Get it together. GloRilla deserved more respect overall for her work with Jhope, period. 

     Megan Thee Stallion did the "Butter" remix with BTS and performed with them on stage at one of the shows for Permission to Dance LA. For the most part ARMY loves Megan and she's loved and welcomed by the fandom. That performance was iconic and ARMY that were there they were blessed to be able to catch that performance live. There were comments hating on her though and her outfit which was just due to jealousy and racism. She was wearing more fabric than what some less endowed women Kpop artists wear on a normal basis but because she is a curvaceous, tall, beautiful Black woman, jealous "fans" took to the comment section to complain and show how absurd they are. BTS is grown men not little boys and even if they were she was wearing more clothes than people typically do on a beach. Nothing about her costume was inappropriate. People just use shields to their racism. I bet if Halsey wore the same thing no one would have said a thing. No shade to Halsey though because I like her but the reaction to these 2 strong women who both have worked with BTS is very different throughout the fandom.  

     Racism within ARMY on Threads

     With everything going on in the world and the US sliding into a Nazi state of being, life is hard for those of us here that don't bury our heads in the sand and pretend like it's not happening. I made a comment early on in Trump's "presidency" about wanting to enter the Magic Shop and lock the door and dissociate. I realized pretty quickly that I can't do that. I have way too much to lose as a Black woman in this country if I let my empathy go and disappear completely into Kpop and ignore real life. I care too much about myself, my family, and others to run around pretending like nothing is going on and acting sheltered. 

     That being said, Kpop is one of my safe spaces. My husband's is anime and Korean variety shows. My daughter's safe space is gaming and drawing. We all have to find places we are comfortable to cope with what is going on and Black joy is a form of resistance. What is hard for me is logging into Threads or IG to come into my ARMY safe space and finding gross racism and people who defend it. They may be defending some of it out of ignorance or some weak way of not wanting to get involved (yet you are already involved if you are defending your racist friends) but that is no excuse to be an enabler. 

    I've been calling out racism in the fandom when I see it and the reaction has had me and others disgusted. We fangirl all the time with people who talk shit in group chats behind our backs. I've seen screenshots where people are clueless about what is going on in the US and act like Black ARMY calling out racism is over reacting. I've had white women DM me to defend their racist friends and argue with me with microaggression filled comments and gaslighting. I've had people try to make me out to be the bad guy and act like I'm misinterpreting what I know damn well is racism just because they don't see it as racist, intended or not. It's exhausting. 

      We've addressed the MAGA Nazi trolls among us and continue to as we find them. They get added to the blocklist and reported as they are found. Every now and then there are big accounts who get caught in this as well.  Making memes or reels that are racist is grounds to get you on the blocklist and mass reported. There was a shocking reel on Instagram that was posted by a Suga biased "ARMY" and it was so disgusting I couldn't even post to show receipts. This person made a reel where they added blackface to all 7 members of BTS and Afros. They captioned it saying that it was to cheer ARMY up. Cheer who up? The only people cheered up by racism are racists. This person had 93K followers when the post was brought to my attention now they have over 100k.  Shocking and very disappointing (understatement really). This behavior has NO PLACE in BTS ARMY. I'm not giving grace or making excuses for anyone regardless of age or saying people didn't know better. They were reported and I was informed it doesn't go against Instagram Terms of Service so it wasn't taken down. I sent it for further review and was denied again. This is very upsetting but that's how things go on social media sometimes. All I can do is put them on the blocklist and hope people with morals unfollow and block them. 

    If Black people are expected to know better and respect other cultures and we do, then others need to respect Black culture. We're tired. The comments on that blackface post are as infuriating as the post itself because there are several people laughing and making jokes. I only saw a few people comment that it's racist. The video is 10 weeks old and was brought to my attention by another Black ARMY. So you mean other white and POC ARMY saw it and never said a word or posted about it? Most of the so called ARMY in the comments laughing are of Hispanic or Latino descent as are the ones who liked it which is very telling as well. 

     Addressing cultural appropriation 

     Taehyun from Tomorrow By Together was on a variety show recently where he was asked to describe the group's trainee days. He mentioned that the group studied Black hip hop and rap artists and were told to emulate them. This isn't surprising to Black Kpop fans because we know Kpop is based on Black hip hop and rap culture. What he said was 100 percent right and not controversial but non-Black Kpop fans threw a fit online and tried to come for Black Kpop fans and anyone agreeing with them. They downplayed the significance of the statement and attacked people praising Taehyun. The tabloids on YouTube picked it up and painted it like he caused a divide in the fandom and he didn't. That racial divide is there in Kpop in general like most places because racism is everywhere and needs to be addressed and handled. White and non-white POC fans who seek proximity to whiteness don't want to know that Kpop heavily borrows (or flat out steals in the case of some groups) from Black American culture. 

     I just officially admitted to myself that I'm more than just a casual TXT fan and am a Moa recently and that was one of the most significant moments making me proud to be Moa. Taehyun is one member who I always noticed in his dance TikToks who loves certain Black culture dances from the 2000s and early 90s and does them so well (I love when he hits the Harlem Shake and the Dougie). He's one of my favorite voices in Kpop outside of BTS. BTS has always addressed their Black influences and still do to this day. They give credit where credit is due when using samples as well and I will always respect them for that. This is why they have the respect of the Black American hip hop and rap community. Their show "American Hustle Life" laid the foundation for that. 

       P1Harmony is the only group I have ever seen address cultural appropriation directly and how they avoid it when coming up with concepts and working on songs. I had heard a few of their songs when I watched that interview and the answer given by their leader Keeho made me dive deeper and listen to them more and that was 3 years ago. I'm still listening and I show up for them for every comeback.  I have respect for artists who address it before they do something stupid and have to issue a canned wack apology. Learning and respecting the culture that pays your bills should be common sense.       

       Groups like Kiss of Life and All Day Project embarrass the industry with racist parties on live streams and cornrow wearing slur saying members that grew up in the US so should know better. The ignorant excuse that's often thrown around that "they don't teach about Black American history in Korea" doesn't apply in these situations. Both groups have members that grew up in North America or Canada. Not knowing is never an excuse to be openly offensive especially as a public figure. The fandoms are worse as white and non-Black POC accept apologies for things not done to them and bully Black Kpop fans for being offended by their insensitive racist faves. You can't accept an apology on the behalf of the Black fans who were offended by racist behavior. It's not your apology to accept and you look ignorant saying to someone who has done something racist that you accept an apology for something that never hurt you in the first place while Black fans are ignored and silenced all over again. Our culture, let me say that again OUR CULTURE is not a costume to cosplay. It's 2025 and it would be nice if people understood that.

     In conclusion, if you are anti-Black as a performer or a fan you have no business stanning Kpop or even performing it. If you're racist you have no business stanning BTS. ARMY doesn't want you in the fandom and BTS's values have shown in their music and speeches and how they live does not reflect at all that they would accept racist fans. See your way to the door and don't come back. Let it be noted if you didn't already know that your behavior will be clocked and put out there so people can decide if they want to associate with you or not. You were asked to leave. For non-racist ARMY who speak up and support each other, keep doing what you do because I see you and I appreciate you.