It seemed like a regular BBC News report of a Pusan National College associate professor being interviewed about Korean affairs. Until Robert E Kelly’s children broke into the room, disturbing the interview. The scene gets even more comic when a woman hurriedly comes in to take control. It had the potential to join one of the usual TV interview blooper shows. Until the blowing up of this video of the internet brought it’s own politics.
Casual assumptions about the woman, verging on racism, came to the fore. Comments online ranged from ‘thankfully the help came in time’ to joking fears for the woman in question’s fate. Some put the quick action with which the woman whisked the children out of the room to fear of the man it was assumed she served. Regardless of the seriousness of these thoughts, it raises an important lesson about assumptions about race. The family have since recorded a follow up video, and have said the comments made them feel “pretty uncomfortable.”
The seriousness put aside the two adorable kids and their parents have taken over the internet with an outpouring of cute gifs and memes:
