On Monday’s program, Meaza shed tears as she recalled a painful experience when she applied for a job at a company in Korea. She said she was told that the company does not hire black people. Meaza, who has lived in Korea for four-and-a-half years, teaches at a business college. She said people have openly asked her how she, a black woman, can teach at the college, and called Koreans too racist. When she met the employer of a fellow Ethiopian who cannot speak Korean, the owner of the factory told her that black people are given lower wages than Asians. Australian Kirsty Reynolds also cited racism in Korea, saying Koreans don’t sign up for English conversation classes taught by black teachers.

When Korea was a poor country, Koreans suffered discrimination while working in foreign countries. Now that our living standards have risen, we should be ashamed of ourselves for having racist or superior attitudes ourselves. When a cold storage warehouse in Incheon, Gyeonggi Province burned down, 14 out of the 40 workers who died were foreigners. They are among the pillars of Korea’s economy, toiling away every day for low wages. What do foreigners think about Koreans -- and the way we treat out overseas guests?

Each year, we sell W370 billion (US$1=W1,049) worth of products overseas, while over two percent of our population -- or a million people -- are foreigners. Yet Switzerland’s International Institute for Management Development (IMD) ranked Korea bottom out of 55 countries when it comes to “openness to foreign cultures.”

One Southeast Asian resident of Korea said her child has been ostracized by classmates. The bullying began after the child’s classmates realized his mother was foreign. It will be difficult to nurture global leaders as long as our children are tainted by racial prejudice.