PPP calls for review of Baejae High School baseball team's 6-month ban

People Power Party figures on Wednesday called for a review of the six-month competition ban handed to the Baejae High School baseball team after players chanted what became known as the "Starbucks" cheer targeting Gwangju Ilgo players at the Cheongnyonggi National High School Baseball Championship.

PPP Supreme Council member Yang Hyang-ja, speaking at the council meeting at the National Assembly, said that while "extreme and hateful expressions are clearly wrong and run counter to the spirit of sport, the punishment is too severe." She urged deeper reflection from adults, saying, "The essence of this incident is that children mimicked the insults of adults. Just as we scold the children, adults must also reflect deeply."

Supreme Council member Kim Jae-won was equally critical, saying, "Adult politics is trying to trample on a single mistake by young students in order to conceal its own hypocrisy." He added that politicians of the so-called 386 generation had flocked to a karaoke bar the night before the May 18 memorial eve ceremony in 2002. He then asked sarcastically, "Is it normal for this country — where some people still swagger around using Gwangju's May 18 as a political asset — to deal a decisive blow to these young students' futures, including their chances of joining professional teams, just because they once said 'let's go to Starbucks'?"

He then urged the Korea Baseball Softball Association to reconsider the decision, saying, "Our politics in particular must reflect deeply. Could it not be that the arrogance and self-righteousness — the belief that the winning side and the majority party can do anything and ignore common sense — has ultimately contaminated even the words and thinking of our children?"

Youth Supreme Council member Woo Jae-jun said he considers May 18 "a great event that shaped our country," but added that for the younger generation "it is ultimately one historical event among many," and warned that "if the political world treats it as excessively sacred, it will instead breed resentment."

He said young people feel that balance has been lost — pointing to efforts to include May 18 in the constitutional preamble to the exclusion of other events, and to cases where presidents and ministers have joined calls to boycott companies accused of disparaging the occasion.

Senior lawmaker Kim Gi-hyeon also weighed in on Facebook, writing that the six-month ban "cannot but be seen as the Korea Baseball Softball Association overreacting to political pressure from the ruling party without sufficient consideration," and that "reconsidering it is simply the right thing to do." He added, "Respect is not achieved through the forced imposition of uniform thinking or through a sanctification created by 'shut up and punish.'"