It’s been a strange year for Kpop. We’re six months into 2026 and it’s not vibing the same. There has been a lot of change.
In the spring, I shared my feelings, after hearing news of founding member, Mark Lee‘s departure from NCT. In that post, I wished him well and shared his plans to pursue christian music. Well in a few short months, he’s done a lot and very little good. He launched a new christian music label called Upper Room (UPRM Label), sharing very stylized, atmospheric posts to set the tone. And then he shattered it.
Now, I have to say I was not excited about the direction it was going. I think that artists who are believers, can do more good staying in the secular space, than running off to the christian music space. There are a ton of hymns and worship songs, and far too many pseudo-worship songs, that feel more like bizarre love songs or out of touch declarations that your life is bankrolled, because now “you are a son/daughter of a king”.
But I wasn’t expecting Mark Lee, to sport a confederate flag tee this week, post it to UPRM Label, and then avoid dealing with the aftermath. He should have condemned the racist symbol for what it is, but he didn’t.
Foolishness and Systems of Evil
Yes, there was a standard PR apology. He deleted the post of him in a confederate flag shirt, but instead of posting the apology to his feed, as a pinned post, he shared it to his story where it would expire after 24 hours. I don’t think this was a professional move. As Christians we are going to sin, be foolish, choose the wrong thing. Transparency and aligning all we do, mistakes and sincere apologies included, is part of the sanctification process. We must own up to the sin.
When we cut corners and put up those walls, we are not allowing others to see the sanctification process happen.
I think it is a huge red flag for Christians to skip this step, because it dimishes the work of Christ in us. We are bearing false testimony of what salvation is all about – that we on our own are not enough. Left to our own devices we will screw everything up. It is througb divine grace that we are transformed into new people. Not showing that work, like the choice to not show your work on a math problem, makes people question your integrity and who you represent.
Because the math doesn’t math properly. You could easily be faking. That’s not a good witness. Christian nationalism has been and continues to run rampant in the West. This situation with Mark, is part of a bigger problem in the church right now, and was a problem when the confederate flag was invented too.
Why The Confederate Flag is Antithetical to God and Humanity
The confederate flag was used by the confederation of southern states, after they seceded from the United States. They separated from the north to preserve slavery as a fundamental part of their way of their way of life. (Slavery was legal in all the US, and had been before independence. The north is also guilty of profiting from slavery and allowing this evil to take root.)
The southern states who joined this confederacy are South Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Florida, Tennessee, Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Virginia. The Civil War, Reconstruction, Jim Crow Era, and the Civil Rights Movement were all part of a long fight for freedom for black communities that are still being fought for today. In the 2020s, the Black Lives Matter movement put the spotlight back on systematic racism still baked into the US today. It is still, an on going process to protect the civil rights of BIPOC communities.
Quick Facts:
- Mississippi continued to feature the confederate flag on their state flag until 2020!
- Confederate flags were used by members of Klu Klux Klan after the war to suppress civil rights, torture and murder black Americans, and intimidate those around them that condemned Jim Crow laws and racism.
- O’Brother Where Art Thou shows an example of this in the movie.
- White supremacy is evil. Slavery is evil. There is no wiggle room there.
Final Thoughts
This flag represents oppression, violence, and racism. It is not a “vintage” shirt as Mark claimed in the public response. It was the wrong choice, so own up to it. Being Canadian is not an excuse, the internet exists, so do your research!
Kpop music borrows from black culture, black artists, and black music. Yet Kpop artists continue to disrespect black people, dehumanizing them with confederate flag shirts, racist slurs, and for Kiss of Life, livestreams where they act like offensive stereotypes of black culture as a “birthday party” concept for fans. I’m sick of it!
I have lost a lot of respect for Mark through his choices this week, and hope he makes it right some day by owning up to them, by speaking out against the symbol he chose to wear on his shirt to represent his christian music label.
