K-Celebs & Their Unintentionally Racist Clothes

What responsibilities do celebrities bear in their presentation?

In the K-drama “Healer,” taekwondo black belt and K-Tigers star, Tae-mi, has a supporting role as the protagonist's sidekick. It is refreshing watching a strong woman who isn’t compared to or pitted against the female lead.

But I have to wonder: What was the wardrobe department thinking when they dressed her in a jacket with the Confederate flag on it? It probably didn’t occur to them that while this 2014 series was made primarily for Korean consumption, the polarizing flag wouldn’t sit well with a good chunk of their Western audience. While the Confederate flag may be viewed as a symbol of hatred towards Black Americans, it has a longer reach. The flag has also flown at neo-Nazi rallies in countries where hate symbols like the swastika are outlawed.

Flash forward to the last couple weeks when Chaeyoung from the girl group TWICE was criticized, um, twice for wearing questionable shirts. A little over a week ago, the popular group performed on the South Korean program “Show! Music Core.” There, Chaeyoung was garbed in a QAnon shirt that had a huge Q with the words “where we go one, we go all” underneath. 

Do I think Chaeyoung is a member of QAnon? Absolutely not. Nor do I believe the pop star is antisemitic or racist. And honestly? I highly doubt that the Korean stylists in the K-pop stratosphere are well versed enough with QAnon politics to associate anything on that shirt with the organization’s rhetoric. Lots of people like wearing shirts with foreign languages on them and Koreans are no different. It’s likely that everyone involved thought it was simply a cute, eye-catching shirt.

Which leads to Chaeyoung’s more controversial faux pas last week. This time, she posted a photo of herself at a restaurant on Instagram. But it was her shirt that attracted attention. It had an image of the late Sex Pistols punk rocker Sid Vicious … who was wearing a shirt with a swastika on it.