A viral video of a BBC pundit being interrupted by the appearance of a toddler has created no small amount of laughter on social media. But it has also caused some to declare the video problematic—including people who have unwittingly revealed their own racist beliefs.
Robert Kelly, a political science professor and expert on Korean politics, was weighing in on the impeachment of South Korea president Park Geun-hye when his toddler burst into his office/bedroom, followed by a baby in a walker. The pundit struggled to retain his composure as his wife slid into the room like Kramer to pull them out, knocking over the little selection of books he had carefully laid on his bed in the process.
You can see the internal torment on his face. “Please let this moment end,” it screams. We live for moments like these.
https://twitter.com/BBCNewsbeat/status/840175417545895936
While most people laughed at the video, others took offense.
As we’ve noted, the progressive liberal publication New Statesman put up a piece calling the video “patriarchy in a nutshell.” Though the piece is written in a tongue-in-cheek way, it appears to be anything but satire. Its author uses the video to highlight Kelly’s privilege as a man, who delegated the duties of child-rearing to a woman.
On Twitter, hypersensitive individuals wrongly identified the children’s mom as “the help,” based solely on her Korean ethnicity, and took offense to Kelly’s white male privilege. The Daily Mail has since identified the woman as Kelly’s wife, Jung-a Kim.
“Immigrant nanny probably got chewed out/fired. He stiff armed his daughter like nothing so you know he yelled at that woman afterwards,” wrote one outrage warrior.
“That BBC dad HATES his kids,” wrote another. “Gotta imagine the mom is gone, that’s why there’s a nanny. Dad blames kids for him pushing her away.”
As numerous responses to the now-viral BBC tweet passed judgment on the pundit, it prompted others to call out the outrage warriors for making baseless, and racist assumptions about Kelly’s home life.
Imagine being so “woke” that you end up racist.
Ian Miles Cheong is a journalist and outspoken media critic. You can reach him through social media at @stillgray on Twitter and on Facebook.
