The Lady Vanishes: Revision
In class, students discussed about the status quo, especially president Park, by digressing further from the concept of 'tokenism'. Tokenism is just a stopgap against social discrimination, and the public believes that this method would provide the ideal alternative for solving the deep rooted problems. Simply, it's just a facade.
Tokenism had been started after the American civil war. The North won and slavery was abandoned. Tokenism resulted from efforts to solve the social remnants of slavery and to promote the social and cultural diversity into American society. Employers tend to recruit the minimum amount of black slaves, and numerous American schools accepted the minimum students they can. These plans seemed to be the best solution to alleviate the social debris which slavery left, but in fact this was nothing but just a 'stopgap'. "The majority was still white people": viewing the black minorities as social exceptions or representatives of black people, not as individuals like them. This phenomenon definitely leads to another discrimination to black people. What should be done instead was to lead black people blend into white society smoothly. I admit that such ways would be hard to be implemented considering the social status in the past, but it is for sure that tokenism has procrastinated into degree that can't be retreated anymore.
I've also experienced such tokenism while doing volunteer work. The club that I participate supports multi-cultural families, especially their children. Though multi-cultural families had been settled in Korea several decades ago, the society and the government isn't providing the fundamental solution in terms of harmony between them and us. Our club usually supports multi-cultural families living in Ahn-san. It is because Ahn-san is the biggest city that is providing such policies for those group. One thing to throw doubt about this is that there are bulk of cities which lack programs supporting those groups. This phenomenon can be another form of tokenism. The government is forcing implicitly to the multi-cultural families to live in that certain area. Those groups are certainly becoming "minorities" not only in other cities, but also in Korean society. The social infrastructure is not developed well in the basis, and the lack of well established base will hinder those children from being well educated and further being successful in the society. These are just my own mere assumption, and I hope many of you would comment on these points.
One important question to throw is whether those 'minorities' WANT to be integrated. One of the people I've interviewed was an Japanese women who was concerned with her children from getting criticized by other people just because they were the children of Japanese. I answered to her situation that time would solve the problem. Although several decades had passed since multi-cultural families were made, 'ethnic nationalism'-Koreans believing themselves as homogeneous ethnic groups-deterred them from settling to Korean society well. I believe these impractical ideas should be eradicated and Koreans ought to gain ability to embrace other ethnicity like the United States; it is a natural thing to see numerous ethnicity in America and the citizens don't feel uncomfortable about the status quo.
I kept pondering. It has been more than 20 years since multi-cultural families has been emerged, however Koreans are still ostracizing them. What would be the major factor and what can make those families become integrated naturally to the society? Separating their habitats won't be the ideal choice, in fact, it would just aggravate the situation. I believe that making fundamental programs for them would accelerate them to adjust to Korean society as soon as possible.
Tokenism had been started after the American civil war. The North won and slavery was abandoned. Tokenism resulted from efforts to solve the social remnants of slavery and to promote the social and cultural diversity into American society. Employers tend to recruit the minimum amount of black slaves, and numerous American schools accepted the minimum students they can. These plans seemed to be the best solution to alleviate the social debris which slavery left, but in fact this was nothing but just a 'stopgap'. "The majority was still white people": viewing the black minorities as social exceptions or representatives of black people, not as individuals like them. This phenomenon definitely leads to another discrimination to black people. What should be done instead was to lead black people blend into white society smoothly. I admit that such ways would be hard to be implemented considering the social status in the past, but it is for sure that tokenism has procrastinated into degree that can't be retreated anymore.
I've also experienced such tokenism while doing volunteer work. The club that I participate supports multi-cultural families, especially their children. Though multi-cultural families had been settled in Korea several decades ago, the society and the government isn't providing the fundamental solution in terms of harmony between them and us. Our club usually supports multi-cultural families living in Ahn-san. It is because Ahn-san is the biggest city that is providing such policies for those group. One thing to throw doubt about this is that there are bulk of cities which lack programs supporting those groups. This phenomenon can be another form of tokenism. The government is forcing implicitly to the multi-cultural families to live in that certain area. Those groups are certainly becoming "minorities" not only in other cities, but also in Korean society. The social infrastructure is not developed well in the basis, and the lack of well established base will hinder those children from being well educated and further being successful in the society. These are just my own mere assumption, and I hope many of you would comment on these points.
One important question to throw is whether those 'minorities' WANT to be integrated. One of the people I've interviewed was an Japanese women who was concerned with her children from getting criticized by other people just because they were the children of Japanese. I answered to her situation that time would solve the problem. Although several decades had passed since multi-cultural families were made, 'ethnic nationalism'-Koreans believing themselves as homogeneous ethnic groups-deterred them from settling to Korean society well. I believe these impractical ideas should be eradicated and Koreans ought to gain ability to embrace other ethnicity like the United States; it is a natural thing to see numerous ethnicity in America and the citizens don't feel uncomfortable about the status quo.
I kept pondering. It has been more than 20 years since multi-cultural families has been emerged, however Koreans are still ostracizing them. What would be the major factor and what can make those families become integrated naturally to the society? Separating their habitats won't be the ideal choice, in fact, it would just aggravate the situation. I believe that making fundamental programs for them would accelerate them to adjust to Korean society as soon as possible.
Urban planning seems to me a creative and perhaps unexpected? approach to how we can approach these social problems. Maybe there can be a way to design our cities to encourage more interaction among different groups. I remember watching a video about such solutions on TED maybe you can look into that
답글삭제Your reflection gets better towards the end when your views are a little more "elastic" and less general. I think the first section relating tokenism to slavery and 13th amendment assimilation is too general and assuming, and would have to be much more specific and less general about such a complex topic. Tokenism is a word that loosely describes a mostly unintentional phenomena where social interactions involve forming a symbolic relationship with an individual rather than a wider group that this individual might belong to. It doesn't automatically imply racism and isn't the most specific word for how segregation was handled post Rosa Parks in the "equal opportunity" era. Generally you have to be careful of how you apply such a word.
답글삭제I like what you relate regarding Ansan and multiculturalism in Korea, and how the government is virtually creating "ghettos." I'd be interested to know why Suwon and Ansan are areas that attract or host migrant workers - and is it as simple as saying that this is where all the factories are? Obviously short term cheaper housing designed not for families but for single males is the key thing here, and the social mobility of a migrant family is never going to see foreign workers integrate into places like Gangnam. As well, do migrants WANT to be integrated? Probably not. It's a two way street. All in all, good reflection.