Winner's Jinwoo spotted wearing a Confederate Flag T-Shirt

[pearlychoco.livejournal.com]

Korean boy band WINNER member Jin Woo was criticized and called out by fans for wearing a t-shirt with a confederate flag.

A photo of Jin Woo and Song Min Ho was posted on WINNER's official Instagram account showing the former wearing the controversial t-shirt.

The t-shirt appears to be a National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR) item and confederate flags are part of its history. Confederate flags are seen by many as a symbol of hatred and racism in the US.

Fans posted comments on WINNER's Instagram account telling them to delete the photo. As of today, it was no longer posted on the account.

170914 Winner City's IG Update & feedback :)) pic.twitter.com/PafhpZu9pa

— 냥이 (@tacitslumber) September 14, 2017

mods, please ignore the previous post.

edited to add in seunghoon's translated apology. tysm to crimsontime for the link ♡

Sources: International Business Times, @tacitslumber

Comments

Seunghoon Apologized on Jinwoo's Behalf on Insta

[pearlychoco.livejournal.com]

"This is something that WINNER should have been more careful about, and now that we learned from this, we'll check more carefully. Inner Circle always tells us in nice words, and we'll become WINNER CITY that gives back." winnercity (https://www.instagram.com/p/BZANjXqF-Al/?taken-by=winnercity)

idk if this is considered an apology, but better something than nothing. kinda wished jinwoo said it instead but that's my opinion =\

Re: Seunghoon Apologized on Jinwoo's Behalf on Insta

[crimsontime.livejournal.com]

I think it's probably because the photo was posted on WINNERCITY's instagram in the first place and Jinwoo was not in Korea at the time as far as I know (Wizard of Nowhere filming in Russia). He just came back yesterday if I'm not wrong.

[jazzygyu.livejournal.com]

I can understand this being a case of ignorance compared to all the other things fans excuse. Its still weird to see it popping up in Kpop though. I still remember Dongwoo wearing the print on his pants in one of Infinite-h videos.

[torontok.livejournal.com]

The Dongwoo thing is still one of the most bizarre attempts at pre-emptive damage control I've seen from a label. They legit photoshopped the stars off the flag in official teasers/the mv/news pictures but let him wear them on music shows

[japataz.livejournal.com]

This isn't something to drag Jinwoo for- this was an official shoot where they were styled. Imo, it's not even something to drag the stylist for- it's more on fashion brands.

IC's notified Winners team the same day and they removed the picture the next, once they were aware of what the confederate flag was- it's always better to educate than hate.

(Also, some Americans are ignorant as to why the cf is bad - not excusing - but if we don't even know our own history than we can't expect a foreign country to

[pearlychoco.livejournal.com]

it's more on fashion brands

nascar is notoriously known for having the confederate flag as their non-official symbol, so it doesn't surprise me to see nascar have a clothing collection dedicated to race car loving, white trailer trash republicans.

[lightframes.livejournal.com]

Also, some Americans are ignorant as to why the cf is bad

...How??? I know some people don't agree that it's bad but I don't buy anybody school-aged or older who hasn't at least heard someone say "this is bad/controversial"

[jaequeeragenda.livejournal.com]

man i didnt even read the title, my eyes zoomed to that fucking flag. look i live in south florida :| i see that fucking piece of shit flag so fucking everywhere and this one asshole has a massive pole and a massive confuck flag waving super huge off the highway 75 :| im justtt... i see red, that flag is no joke to me :|

why can't they ~accidentally~ put lgbt+ flags on their shit instead ~_~ why even put wear clothes with flags on it ya dont know where they came from or mean??????

[krissasaur]

Hope everything is okay for you and your family and friends after Irma!

[pearlychoco.livejournal.com]

i'm so sorry that you have to constantly see that awful flag everywhere, i wish i can burn it with you.

it's disgusting to see that white people who support the confederate flag for the sake of their so called "heritage", like what heritage lmao

[krissasaur]

Also, I will just leave another comment because it is more relevant to you first comment, but you was just reminded of when I was in a central Florida high school, and a pack of wild neck beards came to school with confederate flags, and they started to circle and chant "The south will rise again!" at black kids. I remember being a bit furious because all the administration did was ban the flag. I don't think the kids got punished. There was a black kid who decked one of the pastries in the face though. (Of course the black kid was expelled.)

I kind of wish social media existed back then. Maybe it would have forced the school to do something about it. We didn't even have smart phones to record this shit.

[lightframes.livejournal.com]

People like that get on my nerves talking about "heritage," like

If it was really about southern heritage you'd be bragging about biscuits and sweet tea, like I do

Also I'm glad you got through Irma okay, I'm eyeing the Atlantic right now and I don't like what I'm seeing.

[sra-interesante.livejournal.com]

mmmh i saw other member apology on instagram before the actual post spreaded between non-fans
coordi should be careful
imo this was an avoidable controversy because (beside the obvious flag) that was an ugly af shirt

like other comments i would side eye those who even put this on market .... what kind of brand use those symbols so lightly?? ignorance about this flag seem to be very commom outside USA

for example i'm not american & i didnt knew about this flag either :/ (not an excuse but afaik those topics arent included on my region school history programs, etc)

[pearlychoco.livejournal.com]

the only 2 companies that i can think of that use confederate flags onto their clothing collections are nascar & john l. cook (which is weird because the latter is an Argentinian clothing company)

[mlmello.livejournal.com]

I'm always shocked with how stylists don't research icons, images and phrases on clothes before putting on their artists. google exists. you don't need to know the history and meaning behind everything, but you could perfectly do a simple research to make sure they're not using something that is offensive. this should be stylist 101 imo. symbols have meanings just like words. the fashion industry makes a terrible case ignoring this, but people should be more careful because, conscious or not, you're spreading a message/idea.

[camouflagecat.livejournal.com]

This. It seems like common sense, yet it's uncommon you'd see someone actually practice it.

[tempestdance.livejournal.com]

lulz this reminds me of this recent reddit comment i saw on a local subreddit - it was related to the charlottesville protests and this guy dared to pull the whole ~confederate flag isn't necessarily racist i fly mine whenever I want~ bullshit
thankfully everyone else downvoted him and was like um please ask yourself why you want to even fly this flag racist asshole

[lightframes.livejournal.com]

I love that he admitted it "isn't necessarily racist"

So it CAN be racist lol

[kimbafierce.livejournal.com]

I don't expect people to know about offensive american symbols tbh, unless they're wold wide known. Which this thing isn't.

[violentiak.livejournal.com]

Yeah, i would bet that in my country, majority of people would know it as some American thing, maybe even know it has something to do with the southern states, but not be aware of its history.

Heck, even I wasn't ware of it until I read about it more in here during some incident.

[lightframes.livejournal.com]

Burn that shirt and go see Logan Lucky instead.

[byeolbyeol.livejournal.com]

it's good that they listened to criticism and apologized / took it down. it honestly wouldn't surprise me if they didn't know the vile history behind the confederate flag in the states. like... not in the slightest, especially when i've met multiple people here who have know idea about the history behind the rising sun flag. it's all a mess.

[hyungmoney.livejournal.com]

gross. i don't understand why ~trendy~ confederate clothes exists

[redgreendress.livejournal.com]

seriously :/ It's amazing how many rising sun flags there are in Japanese tourist merchandise, too. It just goes to show you have to be careful to know what these symbols mean before you unintentionally endorse something. I didn't know the Boy London eagle logo was nazi insignia until I saw the backlash, I hate to think I could've cluelessly bought that shit thinking "oooh cool an eagle~~"

[rosiemotleymind.livejournal.com]

Why won't these people just let this shit die? It says a lot about a clothing company when they use this piece of shit flag. Happy that they even deleted it though.


Anyway this reminds me of when me and my friends were driving back from PCB to Illinois and we had to go through Alabama and we saw this weird like wooden house that looked kind of like a car garage idk and it was just decked out in confederate flags and looked like the KKK roosted there. Our car full of dark skinned black girls didn't stop once in that town with their Mississippi burning headasses.

[lightframes.livejournal.com]

I got scared just reading this although "Mississippi Burning headasses" made me laugh so thank you for that.

[pbutterlion.livejournal.com]

americans are so egocentric, do you really think the rest of the world cares or knows abt ur country's flags, if u guys dont even study history in school?

[redgreendress.livejournal.com]

?? have you read the other comments, everyone here is calmly saying it's understandable he didn't know what it meant it but their stylists should do their research etc. no one is saying omg he supports the confederacy!!1 and it does matter whether you wear symbols , American or not, associated with hateful ideology, even more so if you're a public figure posting pictures on social media. Why do you think Tiffany got in so much trouble

[dio-elaclaire.livejournal.com]

i can understand not non-americans not knowing what it is - i didn't until a few years ago - but shouldn't stylist research stuff like that? :/

[hitthoselightz.livejournal.com]

this post is a trip

lmao WOW

[ashdevilrun23.livejournal.com]

100% blaming the stylist

[crimsontime.livejournal.com]

I think it'd be good if you include the instagram post & the translation that address this too, OP.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DJp-pUZVAAAQ4Cs.jpg

170914 Winner City's IG Update & feedback :)) pic.twitter.com/PafhpZu9pa (https://t.co/PafhpZu9pa)

— 냥이 (@tacitslumber) September 14, 2017 (https://twitter.com/tacitslumber/status/908177544989384704)

Also, as far as I know, although fans did comment and DM-ed WINNERCITY requesting them to delete the photo, the translators' accounts that did DM-ed WINNERCITY also made a point saying that they explained the issue to the account too.

I've just sent a DM to winnercity explaining everything. As it is 1:40am in Korea they will probably respond in the morning. Thank you

— amaranthine(maran)🏝 (@maran1025) September 13, 2017 (https://twitter.com/maran1025/status/908007721752023040)

Sent to YG staff!Actually no one knows about that in Korea for sure but like last time,we are learning it and team winner always open minded

— 리즈 in 위너시티》🍀🌴 (@winner_bella) September 13, 2017 (https://twitter.com/winner_bella/status/908006674253754368)

[pearlychoco.livejournal.com]

i did post seunghoon's response as the first comment on my post, but i'll add that first link in.

thank you op <33