Conall Lynch
You know you messed up when the LQBTQ+ community AND republicans both hate what you did. Just a couple of days ago, Oli London came out saying “I identify as Korean. That’s just my culture. That’s my home country. That’s exactly how I look now.”
Oli, originally born in England, has made the transition from British to Korean after undergoing 18 surgeries and is now using the term: Transrace. Oli has come out as Korean and I don’t think anyone is buying it.
First of all, I didn’t know you could change your home country… That seems very convenient. It’s almost as if Oli said that as a defense from changing their physical appearance to look more Korean. The thought process was probably: “Oh fuck! People are going to think I’m racist because I did this to my face, but If I make up that I’m actually from Korea… I’m golden”. Don’t worry Oli, you ARE golden. As in… your skin is golden… it’s weird.
A big reason why Oli did this is to look more like Jimin from BTS as Oli uses They/Them/Jimin pronouns and is a very big fan of BTS. Oli even goes as far to say “I also identify as Jimin, that’s my career name now”. So not only is Oli trying to hijack a whole race and culture but a specific person too. Listen, people struggling with their identity is absolutely an issue today in America, but to undergo surgery to take another man’s life and call it your own is some horror movie-level type shit.
Just to be clear: I am a straight white male writing about a topic that I probably shouldn’t. I heard about this on Twitter and thought “okay, not touching that”, but then, 3 days to think and 4 LGBTQ+ articles to make sure I won’t get canceled and I feel informed enough to at least point out how absolutely fucking stupid this is.
I would like to comment on how Oli is now “embracing” the race change. Oli says “That’s exactly how I look now” referring to their face. It seems as though Oli is more focused on proving they are Korean solely from the appearance changes rather than any cultural or historical changes. For example, look at this Tweet Oli posted:
Oli is very clearly and offensively referring to their new eyes as if that now is what makes them allowed to participate in the “Korean check”. I just love how the argument is that because Oli looks Korean, Oli lS Korean.
You can’t change your race and background of where you came from. That SHOULD be a part of you. Good or bad it’s what makes you who you are. Changing your race and claiming to be from somewhere you’re not is essentially trying to be in the center of that community’s Venn diagram of history without actually going through any of it or having any acceptable perspective. I wouldn’t be surprised if Oli now used the platform to speak on behalf of the Korean people about major issues facing them. Do you know how self-diluted you have to be to ditch your own community and historic background and pick up another just to look and sound more “inclusive”? As if races are things you can just trade from your collection like pokemon cards. You don’t get to pick and choose traumatic experiences like a jukebox to get pity and feed your own self-ego.
