Last week, a Walmart customer was caught on video yelling at an employee to “go back to your own country” before shoving him. The viral video of the racist incident was shared by Mat Weber on his Facebook account and has been viewed more than 400,000 times since it was posted on June 30. The incident took place at a Walmart store in Arden, North Carolina.
What actually happened?
In the brief clip, a white man in a red shirt shoved a young employee, who is later led away by another store worker. One of the shoppers then exclaims saying, “He’s a teenager!” and calls the man a “f**king idiot.” The man then responds by calling her a “stupid c**t.”
The employee who was shoved was wearing a yellow badge which indicated that he was a minor.
“He is a very nice, hardworking young man. He held himself to admirable levels of restraint despite the older man’s behavior,” Weber told Newsweek.
Weber also included an eyewitness account of the incident leading up to the moment he pulled out his phone and started recording. “My friend Clayton and I were walking down one of the aisles at Arden Walmart when we heard screaming from one aisle over. We couldn’t tell what it was until we heard it again, this time someone yelled ‘Go back to your own country’. Immediately, we ran over to see what was going on and saw two young employees in front of an older man in a red shirt. The man loudly commented several times how he hated the young employee’s pants being low. His wife then said the employee “looked like a thug”. The man then said to the employee, I took a bullet for this country, show some respect,” Weber wrote.
The employee reportedly made a remark as the man was walking away, which further angered him. “The man started charging back at the employee, saying ‘What’d you say?’ in an aggressive, threatening manner. This same scenario happened two or three times before he ran up and shoved the employee,” he wrote in the caption.
Customer shoves Walmart worker, tells him to "go back to your own county" https://t.co/iXXTEreH44
— Newsweek (@Newsweek) July 6, 2020
He told Newsweek:
“This same man touted his years of service in our country’s military as a reason to behave this way…Only to have disgraced every one of those years in a matter of minutes,” he added. “His wife calling this young hardworking man a thug and yelling at me to stop recording their deplorable behavior.”
Weber added that the employee, who chose not to identify himself, “gracefully did not physically respond to this grotesque individual. “He told me what he thought when this guy told him to go back to his own country. He told me, ‘I’m already there…I helped him BUILD this country,'” Weber wrote.
Weber also added that the video was proof of the racial discrimination that still existed in the U.S. “If you don’t think discrimination and hatred occur in America today, here’s your proof. If you don’t think minority populations are victimized, here’s your evidence. If you don’t think people, especially white men, feel entitled to treat others however they please, here’s your video,” he wrote.”It’s baffling to see right in front of me that a man who has lived three times as much life as this kid and served in what is supposed to be one of the most revered services has far less moral character.”
He added: “The division and hatred in this country HAVE to stop. The choice is yours every day! Today I chose to reassure a victim that this was not his fault. It doesn’t matter who you are, nobody should treat someone this way. If we’re going to cancel anything, let’s cancel hatred, racism, and discrimination.”
