In this op-ed, writer Aamina Khan discusses the impact of the MTV VMAs adding a new K-Pop category to the 2019 ceremony, and argues that it further separates non-White artists from the main awards like Video of the Year.

Missy Elliott once referred to the MTV Video Music Awards as “the white people’s awards.” The rapper was overheard saying the phrase during her 1997 New Yorker profile in reference to her nervousness around her performance at the VMAs that year. But the sentiment has continued to echo in the decades since — through culturally appropriative performances, through Nicki Minaj’s call-outs of racial inequality in the nominees, through the fact that Beyoncé’s “Formation” was the first time a Black artist won Best Pop Video.

Her words are now echoing again in the 2019 VMAs nominations announcement, in which MTV shared that a new category would be added: Best K-Pop. The nominees in the category include: BTS ft. Halsey for “Boy With Luv,” BLACKPINK for “Kill This Love,” Monsta X ft. French Montana for “Who Do U Love,” TOMORROW X TOGETHER for “Cat & Dog,” NCT 127 for “Regular,” and EXO for “Tempo.”

At first glance, the K-Pop category sounds like a positive, or at least neutral, addition meant to “reflect the rich pop music landscape,” as Bruce Gillmer, Head of Music and Music Talent at MTV International said in a statement. But as the past 24 hours of reactions from actual K-Pop fans have shown, despite good intentions, the impact of a K-Pop category is more layered and nuanced than that. The new category just reiterates a tendency in Western awards shows to “celebrate” non-Western, non-English speaking, non-white artists by separating them away from their accepted, non-othered counterparts.

The BTS ARMY has taken a particularly strong stance against this year’s nominations and categories. BTS is nominated for four awards, including Best K-Pop, Best Collaboration, Best Art Direction, and Best Choreography. Despite these accolades, fans were quick to notice BTS’s absence in the core honors: Video of the Year, Artist of the Year, and Song of the Year. In response, the ARMY started trending #VMAsRacist and #VMAsXenophobic — with the point that any artist with the music video views, album sales, and tour numbers of BTS’ would have been nominated for Album of the Year and Video of the Year with no second thought.

Awards obviously honor more than just YouTube music video views, but by that measure the numbers prove interesting. Consider this year’s Video of the Year nominees: “a lot” by 21 Savage ft. J. Cole (156 million views), “Bad Guy” by Billie Eilish (407 million), “thank u, next” by Ariana Grande (402 million), “Sucker” by Jonas Brothers (182 million), “Old Town Road (Remix)” by Lil Nas X ft. Billy Ray Cyrus (230 million), and “You Need to Calm Down” by Taylor Swift (91 million).

In the K-Pop category, several of the videos honored have comparable (and even higher) numbers: “Boy With Luv” (470 million views), “Kill This Love” (500 million), and “Tempo” (127 million). And yet there is no K-Pop nominated in Video of the Year.