Following the public
uproar for jokingly likening the skin colour of a Nigerian student to charcoal,
a Korean politician Kim Moo Sung said: "I failed to realise that
showing friendliness this way could hurt someone’s feelings," Moo Sung
wrote on his Facebook page on Friday, December 18. "I am really sorry and
there is no excuse. I sincerely apologise from the bottom of my heart"
Moo Sung made the comment
while delivering coal briquettes to the needy in Seoul alongside a group of
foreign exchange students earlier on Friday. The event was part of a charity
programme which drew around 40 students from 27 countries as well as 50 young
members of the Saenuri Party.
"Your face colour is
the same as the briquettes’ colour," the 64-year-old said to a Nigerian
student while laughing.
The 26-year-old Nigerian
student who is attending a local university on a South Korean government
scholarship, Babalola Joshua Adekunie, said he did not take offence.
"I don’t give any
special meaning to it," Adekunie told local news outlet Focus News.
"He said it jokingly. He was laughing. Personally I’m a black man… It’s
nothing that I am ashamed of."
When he was asked if he
thought Kim should apologise to him, Adekunie replied in Korean:
"Guenchanayo (No problem)".
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