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American rejected for job teaching English in South Korea because he's black

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D

Dram

Member
http://www.koreaobserver.com/american-rejected-for-job-in-korea-because-of-being-black-24676
“I was on my way to the interview when I received a text message from my recruiter stating that they only want a white teacher,” Sean Jones told The Korea Observer.

“Regardless of my two plus years of experience, TEFL certification, great references and the ability to speak intermediate Korean, I was turned down before even given an opportunity to speak with them.”

To add insult to injury, the 30-year-old American from Oklahoma experienced racial discrimination again two days after the incident.

This time he received a facebook message that reads, “I am sorry. I just found out today that my school is one of ones that won’t hire black people.”

Sean claims that if Korean schools want to teach their students about western culture then they need to be exposed to all people of western culture.

“This is telling students that black people are bad and white people are good. Why should white people get all the privileges?” he asked. “White privilege is not right. We all deserve an equal chance.”

Sean, who has traveled to a dozen countries, finds that Korea is the most direct about their racism.

It is no wonder Katie Mulrennan, an Irish teacher, was also recently refused a job because of the perceived heavy drinking habits of her countrymen. She received a message that claims she would not be hired due to “the alcoholism nature of your kind.”

“The problem is that there is no law to protect people against discrimination. Not just racism but sexist and discrimination against older people,” Sean argued.

An official at the National Human Rights Commission of Korea acknowledged that there is no anti-discrimination law in Korea and it would be difficult to take any punitive action in most of the cases.

She, however, hinted that Sean has a good chance to shut down the hakwons, or private academies that practiced racial discrimination against him.

“We cannot directly punish those hakwons but we can make recommendations to government authorities, in this case, the Office of Education, so that they can urge problematic hakwons to stop their discriminatory practices or even consider revoking their license.”

An official of the an English language academy in Seoul, who was chiefly responsible for the discriminatory text message that Sean received on Nov. 10, claimed that her academy often has to eliminate certain candidates because their students are too young and scared of strange foreigners.

She, however, offered an apology to Sean, saying she should have given a chance to meet him for the interview and make a decision based on job applicants’ characters and qualifications, rather than based on their skin colors.

“We were desperate to fill a position and had already found someone by the time when Sean was asked for an interview by a recruiter,” she said.

“I suspect that there was some miscommunication between him and the recruiter.”

Nevertheless, Sean pointed out the academy should be held responsible for racism.

“Even though they are adjusting to what parents want, they are responsible for giving the students a true view of what western culture is truly like,” he said.
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M

Marty Chinn

Member
[QUOTE="God's Beard!";170622665]Imagine being an 8 year old excited to meet an American for the first time and opening the door to a gorilla.[/QUOTE]

iunderstoodthatreference.jpg
 
D

DemiMatt

Member
Pretty much this.

Sorry can't find the gif.

***Edit, found it!

1415385536_how_to_scare_korean_women_in_korea.gif
 
C

Crimson_Gold

Member
[QUOTE="God's Beard!";170622665]Imagine being an 8 year old excited to meet an American for the first time and opening the door to a gorilla.[/QUOTE]

*sigh* I just don't have the words anymore. This week has been draining
 
M

Madness

Member
It's why I always laugh when people say it's 2015 or that the world is going to be all mixed in the future etc. The rise of Asia is bringing with it the rise of cultures and nations that are quite different from the West. There is very real discrimination that will inevitably come to the forefront. South Korea is very homogenous, quite xenophobic. Expecting how you have it in the West, isn't going to happen, not for a long time. Even some white friends I know from Canada have said they have faced some discrimination in places like Taiwan or Japan.

Just sad. Almost treating black people as a boogeyman here. I mean you want English teachers and exposure to non-Koreans, but you can't deal with someone who is black because of it?
 
Winter John

Winter John

Member
I'm surprised the recruiter didn't warn him. It's common knowledge that getting a teaching job is almost impossible for black people in Korea.
 
T

travisbickle

Member
Madness said:
It's why I always laugh when people say it's 2015 or that the world is going to be all mixed in the future etc. The rise of Asia is bringing with it the rise of cultures and nations that are quite different from the West. There is very real discrimination that will inevitably come to the forefront. South Korea is very homogenous, quite xenophobic. Expecting how you have it in the West, isn't going to happen, not for a long time. Even some white friends I know from Canada have said they have faced some discrimination in places like Taiwan or Japan.

Just sad. Almost treating black people as a boogeyman here. I mean you want English teachers and exposure to non-Koreans, but you can't deal with someone who is black because of it?
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Yeah because the West has no issues of racial discrimination.
 
B

BigDug13

Member
[QUOTE="God's Beard!";170622665]Imagine being an 8 year old excited to meet an American for the first time and opening the door to a gorilla.[/QUOTE]

I'm sure this is a reference to something. Without the frame of reference, it's tough to read this post.
 
M

M1ch04c4n0

Banned
Isn't people from Japan and Korea a bit reluctant on letting foreigners integrate into their society? And even worst, are death afraid of non-white foreigners? I think I read something like that, hopefully it wasn't some rant by a racist guy/gal.

And I just found out that my old high-school plainly refused to hired any white american people for English lessons, under the pretension that white people would spew racial tirades during the lesson. It didn't help most of the people that offered to take the position where apparently from the south of the US.
 
T

Tagyhag

Member
Not surprising, Korea is pretty damn racist, especially to darker-skinned people. I hear stories about people being spat on in broad daylight.

[QUOTE="God's Beard!";170622665]Imagine being an 8 year old excited to meet an American for the first time and opening the door to a gorilla.[/QUOTE]

Google ruining children's happiness yet again.
 
F

Fury451

Banned
Winter John said:
I'm surprised the recruiter didn't warn him. It's common knowledge that getting a teaching job is almost impossible for black people in Korea.
Click to expand...

Yeah, that part is quite surprising. I have a friend who teaches English there, and he's mentioned that. It's pretty weird that it didn't come up before this point.
 
N

neptunes

Member
More surprised that Korea doesn't have any anti-discrimination laws in place.

Is this how ethnically homogenous societies operate?
 
M

Madness

Member
travisbickle said:
Yeah because the West has no issues of racial discrimination.
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Not everything has to be about 'whataboutism', whatever faults exist here, it's possible to acknowledge the fact that open discrimination, xenophobia, racism and nationalism are more prevalent in places like India, China, Taiwan, South Korea than in Canada or the US or UK. I'm not trying to say it's the same or that it doesn't happen here though.
 
B

BigDug13

Member
Fury451 said:
Yeah, that part is quite surprising. I have a friend who teaches English there, and he's mentioned that. It's pretty weird that it didn't come up before this point.
Click to expand...

Yeah I thought it was always well known that black English teachers face a significant uphill battle getting a teaching gig in lots of asian countries.
 
S

Slayven

Member
mgarnica89 said:
http://www.pinkpangea.com/2014/10/racism-in-south-korea-black-woman/

Not the first time. This woman went through the same thing except she was hired. It appears it is worse to be hired because of the racism from the fellow teachers . If anything she does show that the South Koreans students accept her but the teachers would not. She did not renew her contract.

CAM01182-640x360.jpg
Click to expand...
The girl on the far left is staring into my soul
Frozenprince said:
Our accents are WICKED SMAHT.
Click to expand...
Say chowder
 
B

Big-E

Member
This happens all over East Asia. Using China for example, they don't even trust darker skin Chinese a lot of the time and make fun of people with darker skin.
 
D

Derwind

Member
[QUOTE="God's Beard!";170622665]Imagine being an 8 year old excited to meet an American for the first time and opening the door to a gorilla.[/QUOTE]

YNhzHDb.jpg


Iunderstoodthatreference.gif
 
Zoe

Zoe

Member
It's not uncommon to come across these people in Korea and Japan who are very narrow minded to what an English speaker looks like. People would refuse to learn from the bf because he's Taiwanese-American despite his British coworker saying he would be the better teacher of the two.
 
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