This fucking thread…
I do not know this person but I actively and aggressively hate her.
I do not know Korean. I am not familiar with Korean naming conventions other than the family name goes first.
If I were to read a Korean name that has been transliterated from Korean into English, I would probably get it wrong. Not out of malice or racism, but ignorance.
I am sorry for her that her telling me one time how to pronounce her name correctly is an unbearable burden for her.
I was taught to read Hebrew as a child. I can’t speak the language but I can (or could) read Hebrew script enough to pronounce the words in the Haggadah (Hebrew prayer book) correctly.
In every Haggadah I’ve ever seen, there is Hebrew and then below or on the adjacent page is the transliteration in English.
If you watch someone who doesn’t know how to read Hebrew try and read the transliteration in English, using English phonetics, it doesn’t sound like Hebrew.
I would assume that a non-Korean speaker, like a police department public affairs officer or local reporter, reading a Korean name transliterated off a teleprompter will get it wrong. Not out of malice or racism, but ignorance.
My heritage is German, Russian, and Polish. You should see my Grandmother’s maiden name. It’s a shitty Scrabble hand of Cs and Zs.
I had a friend in college who was Welsh by heritage. His name was a Scrabble grab bag of Cs Ys and Ws. It looked nothing at all like it was pronounced. God help the family of the Welshman who dies tragically and had his name read aloud.
Even my German name is routinely butchered.
When I correct people, they generally say “okay” and get it right the next time.
I feel for this woman that her name is her heritage. However, rather than be a decent human being in a multicultural society and say “most people don’t know Korean naming conventions or how to pronounce transliterated Korean names, so I’ll help them.” She dives straight into a victim narrative and how hearing a Korean name pronounced wrong is a gut punch that causes her emotional trauma.
Most people are decent and if you teach them how to pronounce a name from a language and culture they are not familiar with correctly, they will, or they will at least do their best.
It would be infinitely more magnanimous of her to volunteer “if you are a police department and you need to announce a Korean name on TV, DM me and I will tell you how to pronounce it correctly.”
But that doesn’t give her the ability to be a victim, which we all know is the most valuable of currencies.
This is ultimately the problem with the Woke victim ideology.
It strips away the impetus to share and treat each other decently and instead creates the impetus to run to each other’s corners and claim oppression.
If I am not familiar with your culture and I get your name wrong, tell me. I won’t be offended and I’ll do my best to get it right next time, then we can be friends.
If on the other hand I am not familiar with your culture and I get your name wrong and you tell me that is racist and I caused you trauma, I will fucking hate your guts.
Like this:
Like Loading...