Black K-Pop Fans Call Out Weverse For Erasure

The math isn’t mathing.

Black K-Pop fans are calling out HYBE‘s Weverse for their recent article.

Weverse Magazine recently released an article titled “K-pop in America after BTS What’s the meaning of K-pop in the US these days?.” It highlights K-Pop in the U.S. after BTS‘s successes and cultural impact.

Many ARMYs appreciated the article as it recognized BTS’s history-making achievements…

Yet, many were upset and offended by the article, and for good reason.

| Samantha Quick/The New York Times

“K-pop in America after BTS What’s the meaning of K-pop in the US these days?” also talks a lot about diversity, providing statistics of people groups that listen to K-Pop. Asian, Hispanic or Latino, and White are the only ones mentioned, though. Black and Indigenous are both excluded.

Likewise, later in the article, it talks about helping just white and Asian women “to build a positive self-image.” Again, Black and Indigenous are ignored as well as Hispanics this time. Yet, the entire paragraph is supposed to be about race and ethnicity.

Naturally, Black Americans were upset reading the article recognizing the erasure of an entire demographic.

When the statistics provided in the article are added up, 21.2%, a large percentage, is unaccounted for. The math was certainly not mathing.

It’s problematic enough that such a large portion of K-Pop fans was not recognized. But the fact that Black American music and culture have had such a huge influence on K-Pop makes it even more disrespectful.

An apology has still not been issued. Rather than edit Weverse’s article to include Black fans, it has been edited to include a link to a PDF in Korean that includes “all races.” 

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