TikToker shows a Korean textbook that has the N-word in it

October 6, 2021

TikToker @bashore101 uploaded a video onto the platform showing an English textbook made in South Korea that has the N-word ending with an ‘a’ in it.

What happened: The TikTok user is an expat living in South Korea and currently has over 7,000 followers on the social media platform. The video that he uploaded on Sept. 17 has over 51,000 views, at the time of this writing.

The TikToker is an English teacher working in the countryside of South Korea and has made multiple videos about living there.
He starts off the video with, “I am tired of living in Korea.” He then shows a picture of a textbook that has a question asking “What’s up?” but with the N-word at the end.
The translation for the N-word underneath the English words in Korean was “friend.”
The textbook then goes on to showcase a conversation that might happen between “friends.” The TikToker read aloud the conversation where the student is supposed to use the phrase with the N-word. One of the lines was, “Yeah but the last time we saw each other we were locked up.”
The textbook then has the students use the words “aight” and “hook you up” in the same conversation.
The TikToker finishes reading the conversation by saying, “Who approved this for printing?”

Reactions: Many people were appalled by the textbook and voiced their opinions in the comment section of the video.

One user wrote, “Fastest internet in the world…participated in a GLOBAL blm protest for George Floyd…and yet.”
Another user wrote, “They could’ve made a nice educational segment on AAVE but they turned it into a stereotypical mess.”
Another user pointed out the anti-Blackness in Asian communities but specifically in South Korea: “My thing is racism is global. But it’s at the HIGHEST levels of society in Korea. The strongest competitor of next president just went racism route.”
Other commenters made jokes about K-pop idols who have used the N-word before. The creator of the video wrote, “If Jay Park wrote an English textbook…” and another user wrote, “Wendy from Red Velvet helped create this book.”

Featured Image via @bashore101

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