hankyoreh

Yonsei University students and custodial and security staff hold a press conference on the Yonsei campus in Seoul on July 6, where they call for better working conditions for custodial and security staff. Those present hold up a collection of signatures in support of the Yonsei workers. (Shin So-young/The Hankyoreh)

Lee Woo-yun

“What do you think is the most pressing problem our society ought to be addressing right now?”

The head of a startup asked me this over a meal while I was doing some reporting. The question caught me off guard. After multiple days where the only question posed to me was, “Got any plans for dinner?” I felt a bit put on the spot.

When I hesitated to answer, my interlocutor broke the silence for me.

“I’ve been asking young people I bump into lately this question. The most common answer I get is ‘hate.’”

I couldn’t agree more that hate has become a serious issue in Korean society over the past few years. What was once a mundane word is now commonly applied to minorities of all kinds. Targets of hate include women, LGBT people, migrants, the disabled, labor unions and refugees. Advocates of basic rights for vulnerable groups in society are constantly bashed for being “whiners who want something for nothing.”

Looking back at the articles I wrote this year, several of them were about people fighting hate. There was the plastic surgeon who created a medical space that welcomes transgender people, whom many hospitals refuse to provide affirming operations. There were the students at Sungkonghoe University who managed to set up a “bathroom for everyone” that people of any and all genders and abilities can feel comfortable using. There was the company president who promised to write in “solidarity” in the clock-in records of employees who were late because of a subway demonstration by Solidarity Against Disability Discrimination (SADD). There were the students who boycotted Paris Baguette to oppose SPC’s union busting. And there was the cafe owner who put up a sign reading “yes kids zone” to protest the increasing number of cafés that dub themselves “no kids zones.”

None of these people see themselves as heroic activists; they just want to make a society in which everyone can have a good life.

Since I haven’t been brave enough to proclaim the sense of justice in my own heart, I find it encouraging to see people working to make a better world instead of descending into mockery and cynicism.

Nowadays, my sources say they have to combat not only hatred itself but also mockery for being politically correct, or “PC.” They have to deal with being ridiculed as a social justice warrior when articles about them make the rounds online.

Around the same time, someone emailed me to ask if I get off on interviewing PC nuts.

No doubt, there are some people who become so enamored of their own self-righteousness that they end up attacking others in their pursuit of political correctness. But I think it’s bizarre that simply asking others to give thought to the circumstances of vulnerable groups should be written off with the label of politically correct.

A number of celebrities have already been ridiculed for being PC just because they posted about donating to SADD and advocated standing with disability protests, or just because they oppose discrimination against refugees.

Labeling is more powerful than we realize. When I joined a demonstration for cutting tuition in half in the early 2010s, it really hurt to hear people at school who hardly knew me call me a “commie.” I’m worried that such attacks will have a chilling effect on people who have finally dared to speak up.

“When students file a lawsuit against janitors rather than the school, even though it’s the school, and not the janitors, that is responsible for making classes accessible to students, I can’t help but ask what their sense of ‘fairness’ is for. The hateful, derogatory, and contemptuous language that crops up so often on Everytime [an app for university students] makes me wonder whether this university is actually a place for developing the intellect,” wrote Nah Yoon-kyeong, a professor at Yonsei University, in her class syllabus. She was writing in criticism of a group of students who have sued janitors for their campus protests.

As Nah wrote, and as far as I can see, far more problems have occurred from an excess of hate than from an excess of political correctness. If social justice warriors running amok are causing social problems, I’d really like to hear about it.

Until that time, I’m going to keep meeting and talking with people who are fighting hatred.

It just so happens that Yonsei University students held a press conference on Wednesday calling on the university to improve the working conditions of its janitorial and security staff. Next to them was a poster signed by more than 3,000 people who support the custodial workers’ demonstrations. Those are the people who are fighting hatred right now.

Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]