News
Narjas Zatat
Jun 26, 2018
Twitter screengrab Kenidra R Woods
A video of a Mexican-American man being racially abused by a white woman who claims Mexican people are ‘rapists’ has gone viral online.
Twenty-seven-year old Esteban Guzman posted the footage on Facebook, writing:
Thank you for voting Trump because thanks to him everywhere I go I am a rapist, and animal, and drug dealer. You don’t know what it feels like to be hated so much.
I can take all the racial slurs they can throw at me. However, when they start yelling at my mother, that’s another story. We are honest, we are hardworking, and respectful people. PLEASE WE NEED TO WORK TOGETHER TO STOP RACISM!
The post was removed from Facebook for violating community standards, but it quickly reappeared on Twitter, where his friend Kendira Woods reposted it, prompting almost 50,000 retweets.
The video clip, which features Guzman, his mother (who is off camera recording the incident) and an unidentified white woman shows the latter pointing her middle finger at him and saying she hates them ‘because you’re Mexicans’.
Guzman is a systems administrator and part-time landscaper. He told CNNthat he confronted the woman after he heard her shouting ‘go back to Mexico’ to his mother. He asked her, ‘what’s your problem?’, to which she responded with:
You’re all illegal. Go back to Mexico.
He said:
I am a United States citizen. What are you talking about?
Guzman tries to defend himself, saying they are ‘honest people’ to which she responds with, ‘Yeah, rapists’.
The woman brings the US president in to defend of her argument, stating ‘even the president of the United States says you’re a rapist’.
During a June 2015 speech, Trump had referred to some Mexicans as ‘rapists’. He said:
When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and their bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.
Guzman told CNN that he feels like racists are emboldened now, more than ever, to say abusive things.
I feel like people are a little more entitled to say, 'Hey ... go back to Mexico.' And I'm like, why? I live here. I have a mortgage here.
People online came out in droves to offer Guzman support:
More: A literal racism WatchDog is calling out prejudice on Twitter
More: This rail company responded to a racist passenger perfectly
Top 100
The Conversation (0)