this post was submitted on 09 Jan 2023
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  1. There's this KCNA article which has awful homophobic comments

  2. This KCNA article which compares Obama to a "black monkey"

  • This article** does analysis which states that the monkey comparison was merely referring to being a "trickster" which ignores:
  1. This KCNA article which is the worst of them all. The racist comparisons are unmistakable in my opinion.

**The aforementioned analysis article has what I find to be pretty unconvincing excuses for the homophobic comments, the quote, "a disgusting old lecher" is not properly addressed.

I'm willing to hear any possible explanations. I don't know what's going on.

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[–] axont@hexbear.net 0 points 3 years ago (1 children)

It's a genuine tragedy. Much of the world sees all queer people as American cultural exports, or a type of imperialism. It's a common claim that certain countries simply have no queer people, and if they do, it's because of western propaganda trickery.

I really don't know how to fix it or even talk about it. The American state and corporations put on a face of LGBTQ equality as PR. ExxonMobil giving themselves a rainbow logo is in fact evil, but that's because ExxonMobil is evil.

I've talked with a lot of people from victimized nations, like Vietnam and countries in Latin America. The common belief is that queer people are some kind of American imperialist aggression to destabilize a country or make everyone so gay the birthrates drop. I really don't know how to approach it. The American empire doesn't fundamentally support LGBTQ rights, it just puts on a pleasant mask while it does imperial plunder, but for those in victimized nations maybe the mask and the actions seem the same?

I hate this. Death to America.

[–] M68040@hexbear.net 1 points 3 years ago* (last edited 3 years ago)

Yeah, I've never gotten how I'm supposed to handle that. What, am I supposed to sit there and let them shit talk me? Take one for the team? Fuck that.

[–] CantaloupeAss@hexbear.net 0 points 3 years ago (1 children)

Probably to some extent, yes. Every society has social ills, and reactionary idiot chuds are born everywhere.

[–] robinn@hexbear.net 0 points 3 years ago (1 children)

Then those reactionary idiot chuds are allowed to publish extremely violent and specific racist rants in state media?

[–] CantaloupeAss@hexbear.net 0 points 3 years ago (1 children)

Apparently, yes. It's unfortunate, and obviously not something I personally agree with. But when discussing a country that has been ostracized, impoverished, and threatened with nuclear annihilation for the last 70 years, whether I, a hemisphere away, agree with the specific viewpoints and language of every contributor to a Korean newspaper is pretty low on my list of concerns for the region.

I can (and admittedly do) have a knee-jerk disagreement with this certain element of their social structure, with no other context, from afar, and with no input. But what can I do about that from where I am? And who the hell am I to criticize?

What I can spend my time and energy doing is talking to my friends and family about the great crime suffered by the DPRK at the hands of the West, and use my voice to counter the hegemonic narrative that North Korea is irredeemably evil and, short of being conquered from without and forcibly converted to a liberal democratic capitalist society, must be destroyed by hellfire.

[–] Nagarjuna@hexbear.net 1 points 3 years ago

Discouraging criticism of AES because they're AES, even when they're being incredibly racist stifles discourse within our movements and makes them weaker as a result. OP was not saying "N. Korea is racist (they must be overthrown)" OP was saying "DPRK publishes racism in the state newspaper, what do we make of this?"

That's a productive conversation and stifling it out of a habitual marcyism hurts our movements and our ability to analyze the world as it is.