A mother on TikTok has gone viral after illustrating her intentional approach to consciousness-raising with her children following the recent hate crimes perpetrated on Asians across the United States.
Jane Park, a Korean-American woman from Seattle, Washington took a video of herself administering a "sight word" test with her children (a reading exercise in which Park asks her 5 and 7-year-old children to read words written on notecards out loud).
The video made it clear this was certainly not the first sight word test Park has done with her children. This one, however, held within it an insightful message about the recent acts of violence against Asian Americans.
Card after card, Park's children read the following message to begin the video:
"Stop Asian hate. Hate is a virus."
Park then asked why they might call hate a virus, to which her child responded, "Because they infect people."
She then pushed her kids to imagine how hate can behave in a similarly infectious way.
Afterwards, Park walked her children through the things we can all do to respond to the recent acts of violence against Asian people.
"We can speak out against it. We can talk about."
"We can build awareness, right? Because not everybody might know what's going on?"
TikTok viewers were thrilled to see such a thoughtful, empowering parent in action.
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Others lamented Park has to have these intense conversations with her children at such a young age.
But, after all, this is our reality.
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While Park's children are only 5 and 7, learning about these scary realities, we can all learn more ourselves.
Check out the annual national report published by Stop Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) Hate to learn more about what is happening out there.
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