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flockxtogether · 7 years

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On White-Washing Idols (Daehyun Focus)

This is an issue that across the k-pop fandom I know all of us can speak on, and as I start to write this I don’t know how long the post will be or what I’ll even say really, I’m just fired up on the topic because it’s been apparent since I joined the K-Pop world in 2010 and it has only gotten worse over time. About the only idol I don’t see white-washed often is Min Yoongi and that’s because he is naturally so light-skinned if you watch him on stage he looks borderline sickly (please don’t take this wrong, Yoongi is one of my top three biases and I adore him more than anything, I just don’t see anything of him white-washed because his natural skin tone is already so light).

Anyway, I’ve only ever been to two K-Pop concerts and both of them were for my bias group, B.A.P. I don’t have the money to go to concerts myself and I definitely can’t travel, so in 2016 and this year, 2017, my best friend was able to surprise me with tickets and fly down here to go with me as birthday presents for the two of us, since their concerts in Atlanta have been in April and so are our birthdays.

She and I have always been aware of the white-washing issue, I mean look at my icon on here for heaven’s sake, he’s so pale in that picture it’s hard to see him against the white background and that’s just sad to me. Most pictures I find of idols are white-washed in some way, and this bothers me /beyond/ belief.

People white-wash idols because they tend to think that the lighter your skin, the more beautiful you are. I don’t know where this came from because frankly I’m jealous my skin isn’t darker, I look pale and sickly and gross with my white, pasty ass. I’m about as pale as a white person can get and I’d love to be anything but.

So again, some idols deal with this problem more than others. The ones you could think of right away would be Maru from the now disbanded group, C-Clown, N/Hakyeon from VIXX, Kai/Jongin of EXO, and of course my ultimate bias, Daehyun of B.A.P. Funny enough Maru was my C-Clown bias, Hakyeon is one of my VIXX biases and while Jongin isn’t my EXO bias he sure does like to scream in my face that he’s there and he’s beautiful a lot so I give all these guys a lot of attention, and maybe that’s why I think about this issue so much, because it revolves around some of the idols I adore the most.

Now I’m sure every idol has been white-washed to some extent in at least a few pictures, these are just a few of the major cases I see. The only thing I have to really say on this issue is that if you have to white-wash an idol to love them or to not think they’re ‘ugly,’ you really aren’t a fan of them at all. If you can’t appreciate them for who they are, you need to step off and get out of my fandoms because you don’t belong here.

White-washing idols /is/ racist and will ALWAYS be racist, I don’t care what the ‘Korean standards of beauty’ are, because those /standards/ in themselves are racist and until those standards change the people who set them are also racist.

I’m bringing it up now because on April 5th, 2017, just about a week ago, I was so close to the stage at B.A.P’s concert that Yoo Youngjae pointed out how much he liked my dancing from where he was, and on top of that I got to take a photo with B.A.P right after I got to hi-touch them, which meant I got a lot of exposure to them. I also got lucky later and actually ended up running into them /at/ their hotel after the concert, and of course I left them alone but again this means I saw them up close and personal /several/ times.

Let me tell you as I was passing by them for the hi-touch, first of all irrelevant but oh man their hands were so fuckin’ soft I’ve never felt softer more gentle hands, but let me just say ALL OF THEM ARE SO WHITE-WASHED IN THEIR PICTURES. And I don’t mean just Daehyun, I mean the first person I high-fived was Zelo and he was giving me the cutest smile and let me tell you that boy’s natural skin tone oh PRAISE THE LORD THAT BOY DONE NEAR KILLED ME.

But all that said, as beautiful as all of their skin tones are naturally, Daehyun /is/ very obviously the most white-washed out of the six because actually standing up there with them for photos, seeing his face right in front of mine multiple times, hearing him tell me thank you, I got to see his natural skin tone a lot and he is about the most beautiful human being I have seen on the face of this planet and I can just /imagine/ how beautiful that means Maru and Hakyeon and Jongin are too, and all the other idols who are ridiculed for being ‘too dark.’

I don’t get it. I don’t get why you would want to take away someone’s natural beauty to make them white when really white people aren’t any more beautiful than anyone else, and in fact I personally would say we’re uglier. Don’t call me racist, you cannot be racist against white people, I literally cannot be racist against myself, and yes I think my skin is gross and ugly.

I think my issue with Daehyun comes from the fact that this boy grew up poor, dealt with a ton of shit from his own agency, and then he got this tattoo, right? It’s on his right wrist, it says, “HOLD,” and he got it during his lawsuit and it has a double meaning. It means, “Hold on,” as in, “Hold on because we’ll be back soon,” and “Hold my hand,” as in, “Hold my hand while I go through this because it’s so tough not being with you guys right now.” So let’s go back. He grew up poor, dealt with a lawsuit, got a tattoo and everyone knows there’s always backlash for those of us with tattoos even though it’s not your body to decide what to do with, he went through major depression several times during and after the lawsuit, had actually turned to drinking for awhile and admitted it, and through ALL OF THIS, through ALL of it, since the day that boy was born he has been made fun of and ridiculed for being “too dark-skinned.”

Daehyun has no self-confidence, his self-esteem is out the window and you might not see that on stage but that’s because stage presence doesn’t allow for your sadness and flaws to show through. He’s a ball of sunshine, he just wants to make BABYZ happy, he wants to be with us forever, he /loves/ us, and everything he does is for and because of us. And what do we tell him in return? He’s too dark, ugly, has to be lighter-skinned.

It’s wrong. It’s just so wrong. He does so much for us and we are also the reason he goes through so much emotional turmoil. Jung Daehyun is the literal reason my heart keeps beating, he’s saved my life when I wanted to kill myself, he has done so much for me and if I thought for a /second/ that that was less important to me than the color of his skin I wouldn’t just be ashamed, I would hate myself.

I can’t ever imagine thinking his skin-tone was more important than who he is as a person and what he’s done for me and for so many people in the world. I just can’t...god. Sorry but words evade me right now. And to think he’s not the only one, it’s not just Daehyun who goes through this. Jongin is one of the most popular idols in the world, whether you’re an EXO-L or not you at least know his name, and yet still so many people who claim to adore him and love him for all he is..still put so much weight on his darker skin-tone, say that he would be prettier if only he were lighter-skinned. How can you claim to love someone and then treat them like that, especially for something they could never control? Yeah, I would love to be darker skinned and I could say it all day long but nothing I do is going to magically change my skin-tone.

That’s why this whole subject is racist, and why I wish it would just stop. I can’t stand to see someone like Daehyun who is so pure and loving and supportive, someone who looked at me with such compassion after the photo-op, hurting and suffering and making posts saying he wishes he was lighter-skinned. I can’t stand it. He went from a point in time where he would actually /take down/ his original selfies and put up people’s edited versions of him white-washed, and he would /apologize/ and say he is sorry he’s too dark and that he’s ‘ugly,’ to now... Now he posts original selfies and he doesn’t take them down, and he’s even put up one where he was white-washed and called out the editor of the photo saying, I love what you send me but not that you white-wash me, because that’s not really /me/. I have /dark skin/, and nothing anyone does will ever change that.

He states now that he has to learn to accept himself as he is, that he is Jung Daehyun and yes he has dark skin, but a statement like, “I /have/ to learn to accept myself,” tells me he still doesn’t really internally, and all of that, all of what he’s gone through just regarding the skin-tone he was born with?? That tears me apart.

Stop white-washing our idols, guys, just stop. They’re beautiful as they are, unbleached, dark skinned, natural. They don’t need to be turned into something they aren’t, and if you can’t agree with me, if you can’t believe that an idol YOU claim to love is beautiful as they are, you don’t really love them, and you don’t really deserve to be in their fandom or even recognized in the K-Pop community. If that’s your way of thinking, if you are so petty you would hold someone’s own skin-tone against them, don’t ever talk to me and get out of my fandom because we don’t need or want you here. There’s enough of us who love our idols as they are to go around and your hate is unnecessary.

Sorry if that took too long, that’s all I have to say.

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