The response of a Lyft driver to the racist comments of two people who wanted to board his vehicle in Pennsylvania, and which was recorded on video, went viral this Sunday.
In the video, recorded inside the vehicle, a woman can be seen getting into the car and is pleased that the driver is white.
"Wow, you're a white boy!"
the woman tells him.
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The driver, surprised, says: "Excuse me?".
"You're a white boy, you're like a normal boy. You speak English," the woman tells him as she settles into the back seat.
The driver, James Bode, immediately refused to provide the service: "You can get out of the car. I'm not going to make the trip for you. That's inappropriate," he told the woman.
"It's completely inappropriate, if someone was not white and was sitting in the seat, what would be the difference?" Bode asked the woman, who only manages to say: "What? Are you serious?"
Faced with Bode's refusal to provide the service, a man who accompanied the woman and who was outside the vehicle began to insult him: "You're a fucking imbecile, you're a piece of m---. I would punch you in the p ---face right now," he told her.
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At the end of the video the man can be heard hurling various racist slurs at the driver.
The video was uploaded to Facebook by James Bode himself at the stroke of midnight last Friday.
Bode explained in the publication that the incident occurred outside a bar in Catasauqua, a suburb of Allentown, in eastern Pennsylvania.
"We can't be safe on the streets."
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In the Facebook post, Bode explained that he called the police and filed a report for the threat of assault he received.
"I'm not sure if that will do anything...if you make me feel uncomfortable, I will absolutely do the same, especially in my car or property," Bode wrote.
The video of the racist incident in Pennsylvania already has more than 3 million views on Twitter and thousands of comments on Facebook.
It has spread across social media just hours after a white man walked into a supermarket in Buffalo, New York, and killed 10 mostly black people in what police say is a "racially motivated extremist hate crime." ”.
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Both events are not related, but they are a reminder of the harsh reality that the United States is currently experiencing: hate crimes in the country reached their highest level in 12 years.
According to national data released by the FBI in September of last year, 7,759 hate incidents were reported in 2020, the highest number since 2008 and an increase of 450 incidents since 2019. Although not all police agencies in the country filed a report , so the number of cases is likely to be higher.
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After receiving thousands of comments on social media, James Bode responded on Facebook on Friday thanking the support.
"To everyone who reaches out and shows support, thank you. I appreciate it, I really do. But this is how it should be everywhere, at all times. (I) shouldn't be 'the guy' who did it or said it. ... we should all be that person. Speak up if you feel uncomfortable about something, because that makes them (racist people) uncomfortable, as it should be. F--- racism," Bode wrote.
