Borrowed the Music, Erased the People — BTS's Arirang Exposes K-pop's Blind Spot
BTS's animated teaser for their fifth studio album 'Arirang' sparked a whitewashing controversy by depicting Howard University — a historically Black institution — with a predominantly white audience, despite the video's intent to honor the 1896 history of seven Korean students who were welcomed by the HBCU during the era of racial segregation. This contradiction epitomizes K-pop's systemic failure to acknowledge its deep debt to Black culture, from which it borrowed R&B vocals, hip-hop production, and street fashion aesthetics without providing systematic credit or compensation. The controversy raises uncomfortable questions about the boundary between cultural appropriation and appreciation, racial sensitivity in global entertainment, and the exclusion of Black fans within K-pop fandoms, exposing the inconvenient truth that K-pop cannot claim global cultural legitimacy while erasing the people whose culture made it possible.