It's a happy truism. Scratch a politically correct liberal, and you'll find a human being. And it appears that racism is the default state of being for humans. Don't ask me why. Perhaps when the Catholics tell us we are all born in sin, this is the sin they mean?

Take North Korea, and the current hoo-ha about its threat to launch missiles against the US. It seems that some people think it's okay to caricature Kim Jong-un based on his ethnicity, culture and appearance. Ooh, look at the little dancing fool with the crazy hairstyle! If we did the same to, say, China's Xi Jinping, there'd be a massive outcry. On the face of it, China is up there with North Korea in terms of human rights abuses and lack of democracy, but we don't spout off on public platforms about those crazy Chinese and their weird customs.

Just because the North Korean culture is so utterly alien to much of the west, we allow ourselves to caricature the North Koreans and their leader. Admittedly, if you're raised in a system of culture that doesn't favour the theatrical and the hagiographic, you're going to find the sight of prancing soldiers a little weird. But think about it before you join in with the chorus of ridicule: for the so-called civilised west, there's probably very little difference in the quality of the disdain they feel for South Africa's dancing Jacob Zuma.

Of course, we have the self-same west to thank for the fact that North Korea exists at all. I'm oversimplifying massively, but the arbitrary division of Korea by the allies after second world war is certainly a contributing factor to what we're confronted with today. It's kind of like Saddam Hussein-era Iraq, another gift bestowed on the world by the greed of western powers. And the American involvement in using North Korea as a pawn in their Cold War jousting with Soviet Russia means that the Kims have been caricatured an enemy to use for propaganda purposes.

A celebration in Pyongyang to mark late president Kim Il Sung's birthday on 15 April, known in North Korea as the Day of the Sun. Portraits in the background show Kim Il Sung, left, and his son Kim Jong Il. ( Photograph: Jon Chol Jin/AP

I'm not saying that North Korea deserves our respect, far from it. The Guardian's comparison of North and South Korea is revealing about what a terrible place North Korea is. And it's true that the North Korean Kims have actually bumped Ms Kardashian off the number one spot on the popular "Ten Kims That Make Global Extinction A Not Entirely Tragic Thought" list that National Geographic's magazine compiles every year.

According to the data, a South Korean lives 10 years longer than a North Korean, 79.3 years versus 69.2. For every 1 000 live births in South Korea, 4.08 of the infants die on average. In the North, a tragic 26.21 die. And the homicide rate per 100 000 people is 2.6 in the South, and 15.2 in the North. And the stat that means nobody in North Korea will ever read my column: 81.5% of South Korea has access to the internet, but less than 0.1% of North Koreans do.

So sure, it's a messed up place. But that doesn't make it okay to devolve to old patterns of jingoistic racism, and turn "North Korean" into another iteration of the terrible N-word. Recently, the Washington Post ran a story quoting John McCain referring to "the crazy people" running North Korea, and there are headlines along the lines of WND.com's "Diplomat: 'Crazy' N Korea deserves hard line". It's the kind of rhetoric that makes diplomacy difficult and aggression more palatable. I'm okay with calling Kim Jong-un an evil dictator, but not with a blanket statement about crazy people.

In State of Mind, Nick Bonner and Dan Gordon's amazing 2004 documentary about the Mass Games in North Korea, he follows two young girls around as they get ready for what should be the culmination of a dream of theirs: to perform in front of the Gracious Leader. They practice for a year, and, of course, Kim Jong-Il can't be bothered to turn up, despite (if memory serves me) having a choice of around 40 performances to pick from. But what I mostly remember from the film (and this is a facile reading, which is necessary to interrogate) was the fact that most North Koreans seemed to have little problem with the style of leadership. So when we make fun of the craziness of Kim Jong-un, we're making fun of an entire belief system and culture, which is racism at its facile best.

Chris is the editor of the Mail & Guardian Online. Follow him on Twitter @chrisroper