Gfriend make fun of dreads on Weekly Idol

[yohan94.livejournal.com]

timestamp: 3:30-4:44

cultural appropriation/racism warning

recently gfriend went on weekly idol. as many kpop fans know, it is a variety show to showcase idols sillier sides and help fans get to know them. its generally problematic in itself, some segments giving idols afro wigs to wear as a joke, sexist comments here and there.

on gfriends most recent featuring on the show, they were asked to express through dance several song genres. when asked to express the reggae genre, sinb began to twist her hair as if imitating dreadlocks, then when it was yerins turn, sinb began to twist yerins hair as well. when it was eunhas turn, yerin and sinb came behind her to mess with her hair

idk how many times black ppl gotta say this but dreads arent a joke our hair is not a joke we are not a joke or something to be laughed at. our dreadlocks are part of our culture, seeing as though our hair naturally dreads itself bc of its texture (3c-4c) its not to be joked about at all

dont start with that ‘shes just showing wants reggae!!’ what she did was mocking black culture dont try to excuse that

the captions themselves can explain it

tht man they used in the bottom left corner i highly doubt is black because korea is very antiblack but we can wait and see abt tht and anyways you dont learn abt reggae though your hair nobody learns anything through their hair

if yall wanna start talking abt how ‘its just hair it doesnt matter its not that deep god tumblr’ go tel that to the hundreds of black people who are ridiculed for their hair and even killed because of it! read this post cuz it aint tht deep!

source: gfriend.cf, GFRIEND United

Comments

[thebrassteapot.livejournal.com]

[staaan.livejournal.com]

i fucking choked @ you using that in this context... lmao

[forsureyoudo.livejournal.com]

Im dissapointed..

[lulufairybubble.livejournal.com]

Absolute fucking trash

[fabulousdoll.livejournal.com]

omg when I started to read your comment I thought you were serious and I was

[diamondroad17.livejournal.com]

What did Sowon mean when her skin is already reggae? What is reggae skin?

[lulufairybubble.livejournal.com]

She is saying she is dark and her skin is like a Black person's.

[haxoru.livejournal.com]

r.i.p gfriend

[krunkri.livejournal.com]

this is so gross

[typhlogirl.livejournal.com]

I am fucking devastated WHY CAN'T I JUST HAVE ONE FAVE WHO DOESN'T SHOW THEIR ASS FFS

I can't watch the video bc I'm at work, can someone tell me if Yuju and Umji joined in (if they did I just. FML)

[diamondroad17.livejournal.com]

They stood on one side. Maybe they didn't join in so the PD didn't show them during that part.

[yohan94.livejournal.com]

the skin comment is the one that got me.. it was so awful. also pretty sure the guy from the caption is doing blackface but that's not on the girls, just mbc showing their racist asses once again

[cosmicjam.livejournal.com]

Me too, especially with how casually she says it. Idk why i still get surprised. I'm quite tan so it makes me wonder how they would view my skin color.
Anyway

[nekokonneko.livejournal.com]

i will never get over how fucking ridiculous it is when these light skinned koreans call themselves 'almost black' just because they have ten extra melanocytes


and this happened in the fucking intro but it took a full week to get mentioned after the subs were posted?

yikes...

[staaan.livejournal.com]

another one bites the dust i see

[kyulkyung.livejournal.com]

i didn't know sowon made that skin comment, rip.

fools

[fabulousdoll.livejournal.com]

you dont learn abt reggae though your hair nobody learns anything through their hair
Tell that to Haha and Skull.

[modestgoddess79.livejournal.com]

Please don't remind me of those 2 and their dirty struggle clumps

[leavesabound.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I noticed this when the full cut was posted here. Both the spinning of the hair to be "dreads" and Sowon's comment about her skin.
I admit to mostly just thinking "that's not cute" and then focusing on how well they did those 2x dances.

Apparently I'm not cute either, because I definitely did not call it out in the comments, quite the opposite.

[itsglenncoco.livejournal.com]

Well... Was fun while it lasted

[marizl.livejournal.com]

smh, I guess everyone is problematic in kpop. </3

[unelixir.livejournal.com]

im so disappointed :///

[geniebsmart.livejournal.com]

*Sigh* I get torn sometimes as a black kpop fan. Here I am, watching a few members of GFriend, a group of very talented, beautiful girls, directly/indirectly mocking black people by associating reggae music with dreads and skin color (because, obviously, those are the only factors of reggae that counts! *sarcasm*)

I remember watching Ravi's "Damnra" (and feeling surprised because it came out of nowhere lol) and enjoying the song a bit, but all the dancers had clothing/hair that originated from black American culture. While I believe Ravi was not mocking black people, I can't help but to reference his jokes about N's skin color, so I always feel like "Dang, I see your potential, but as long as you think the way you think about dark skin, I can't take you fully seriously especially when you are barely any lighter than Hakyeon cmon now!"

What would it take to get folks to understand that things like mocking skin color and hair is wrong and they should actually care for and respect the people beyond the skin color, hair, and other physical traits?

[nixx0-0.livejournal.com]

I agree 10000%
It's always the fucking little things that get me when it comes to their cultural insensitivity and as a proud Black African like i'm constantly left disappointed. This was not what i signed up to see and it's the small jabs to people of darker skin that get me the most. Like so fucking blaise about saying if you're darker skin Korean you're basically black. Like, fuck no. That is insulting black is a cultural thing not just a Skin thing. Smh.

[lily-of-west.livejournal.com]

And just as I was starting to become a fan....sigh///

I mean a lot of my older favs are problematic but I was at least hoping for the new bloods not to pull this shit...

Kpop is like GoT...you'll do best not to get emotionally attached to anyone because you'll end up disappointed.

This will never stop so it seems...

[lalaland-xx.livejournal.com]

I just love how most koreans just laugh about it and don't make an issue about this but if someone makes a mistake on a personality of Korean/Japanese history they practically want to deport them. smh

[suehoe.livejournal.com]

ew don't make parallels like that sis, it only derails from the issue at hand and makes you look messy. just drag them for their bullshit.

[cosmicjam.livejournal.com]

sigh

[hyungmoney.livejournal.com]

w e l p

[amandaplan.livejournal.com]

this was also just dumb af. why dance at all through hair?! and then to go about it in an offensive manner also.

[jasmineakaiumi.livejournal.com]

mte like how is that their first thought when thinking about reggae

[green3cat.livejournal.com]

WHY why why why WHY like you could just NOT do this kind of shit so why?????

[suehoe.livejournal.com]

bye to all those involved. no fucking excuse for anyone, especially not public figures who are part of an industry, whose secondary function is to export to the gobal market.

[romanholiday1.livejournal.com]

no matter how many times this happens in kpop, i'll never get used to it.

tbh i don't see sinb "mocking" dreads, but she played into a stereotype that reggae = black people = dreadlocks which is messy. sowons comment disappoints the fuck out of me, but i'm not surprised. :(

they have a small international fanbase so i doubt their company will even hear or care about the criticisms, but since the girls are still pretty young (isn't sinb still in high school?) i hope they will learn to be more culturally sensitive. you can only hope for the best.

[blackholexx.livejournal.com]

Yeah mte they could've done literally anything else that involved reggae, but they chose dreadlocks (which isn't even really a part of reggae) I'm just shaking my head at her comment.