In his recent Slate review of B.R. Myers’ book The Cleanest Race: How North Koreans See Themselves and Why It Matters, English-born writer Christopher Hitchens refers to North Korea as a nation of racist dwarves. I’m not paraphrasing; the title of his article is A Nation of Racist Dwarves.
If you’re unfamiliar with Hitchens, he frequently contributes to Vanity Fair by waterboarding himself and declaring that women aren’t funny.
I’m not disagreeing that the regime in North Korea is one that is indoctrinating and killing its people, but I can’t help but think there’s some Western privilege at play by referring to North Koreans, the people, in such a pejorative way. Particularly since many of these “racist dwarves” are essentially prisoners in a country whose borders, government, and ideologies were not of their choosing. I also find the use of ‘dwarf’ to describe the malnourished to be wrong on multiple levels.
In stating his contempt for a cruel regime who, according to Myers, is utilizing a national racist ideology, Hitchens degrades an entire nation’s people and apparently fails to see the irony.
Learn about humanitarian efforts for North Korea:
