Racism toward the Latino community continues to make itself present throughout the United States. Recently, a woman at her local Goodwill had to endure racist remarks from a Caucasian man. This time, an African American McDonald’s employee harassed a customer due to her accent, appearance, and broken English.
Wendy Rios is an American citizen who had previously been verbally attacked by members of this restaurant. She decided to have her camera ready in case it happened again, and it did. The manager of the establishment, Keisha, slammed the drive-thru window on Rios.
Rios insisted, honking her horn, and the rude manager proceeded to show her the middle finger. Keisha then started shouting “Donald Trump” at Rios over and over again. As expected, the outburst is empowered by Mr. President himself, spreading xenophobia any time he gets in front of an audience.
Trump has been vocal about his dislike of immigrants from the moment he announced he would run for the presidency, and multitudes have gravitated toward his hate rhetoric. Perhaps this racism has been inside these people all along. But having the man sitting in the most powerful position agreeing with them unleashed their bigotry in public settings.
“I treat everyone like a person. Not like you’re white, or you black or you Chinese, or Korean, Mexican or Guatemalan. No. I treat everyone like the same.” – Wendy Rios
The video has gone viral since Rios posted it on her Facebook account, and she never expected it to get so big. Social media users are appalled at how this employee treated a customer, especially since Keisha shouted, “Can you spell deportation?” at Rios. Eventually, another employee came to the window and was much kinder to Wendy, convincing her to exit the drive-thru.
Despite being respectful to Rios, the second employee did not offer Rios an apology for the way her co-worker acted and remedied the situation immediately. Critics say, she was more worried about getting her line moving faster, leaving Rios hanging out to dry.
George Forrest, the owner of that McDonald’s franchise, released an official statement saying he did not condone the manager’s behavior and that she no longer worked at his location. He also said his restaurant is a place of inclusion and diversity. Rios did the right thing by exposing this worker online, showing others they can’t act like this without consequences.