Baby Theft and Baby Shame
Korean Ethnic Shame versus White American Racial Shame
There’s no difference. What, did you think I was gonna say there’s a difference? Well, there probably are some differences between Korean and white American baby shame. But it’s not so big and only skin deep. So, let’s explore the incredible similarities between the shame systems of interracial babies in these two countries, especially during the overlapping in of the 1950s with the Korean War where the two countries “interact.”
First of all, the American system involves not only shame, but laws that prevented the adoption of biracial children for decades in most of the 15 neoslavery Jim Crow states — perhaps some outside it, though I haven’t studied those states. But in those states, it is one of the key fulltime segregationist tools of white supremacy. If a baby was born biracially to a black mother, the white father (and perhaps his white wife) could not adopt it. It was the law. Also, the white father of a daughter could make sure the black baby is not black, putting intense pressure on the daughter to “remain pure” and carry on the white race.
There is a system of deep shaming involved underneath the surface here. The surface of a very criminalizing law. A law that makes love between races criminal by making the product of love, fortifying the laws already in existence against interracial…