This thread has been infested with some of the vilest, most abhorrent, and blatant reactive “commentary,” i.e., racism, I have seen and which has become more prevalent on this site than I remember it being just a few years ago. And it hurts; you want to know why? Because I love most of you for your biting wit, humor, bitchery, and surprising tenderness and sensitivity. And because you all can do and [italic]be[/italic] so much better than this. [italic]Come the fuck on.[/italic]

While I do not think the customer should have filmed or shared this video publicly or made this a race issue, the front desk attendant admitted himself - if that post was, in fact, written by him - that he “has BPD [Bi-Polar Disorder] and schizo[phrenic]-tendencies.” Additionally, all the evidence we have - and I hope a full security video with audio gets released - is of the employee’s disturbing breakdown. In the video, the customer says nothing offensive, doesn’t even yell or curse, and only demands answers that are par for the course in customer service. I know because I have fielded and asked the same questions as both an employee and customer. While he may have hurled a slur at him - to which I wish the employee would have retorted in response to the customer’s questioning, “Why did you call me a faggot, sir?” - we don’t have proof of that. Furthermore, the customer knew nothing of the employee’s mental health status, though it disgusts me that he continued to film and posted the video publicly after he became aware of it.

However, the fact that this incident has made some of you jump on the well-ridden bandwagon of racism (e.g., “Why are blacks always so” this or that), even implying that you would like to see the customer murdered by a cop, is truly disgusting and maybe even deranged. Quite frankly, it is also exhausting, especially at this point in our history as a country and as human beings. If I may ask, would you feel the same way if the employee had been black and the customer white? Don’t answer right away; just let the question sink in and answer it to yourself. After all, I am no one of any consequence for you to answer to.

As I suggested above, if it is available, a complete security video with audio needs to be released to prove whether the customer did, in fact, yell at the employee and insult him with slurs. Both the customer and especially the employee are owed it. As of right now, as much as I empathize with him, I am reluctant to trust what an employee, who behaved as he did, has to say about this incident. After all, his first reaction was to blame the customer for his behavior rather than acknowledge what he had just done to himself and company property, which there is really no excuse for in a professional setting. As far as I am concerned, the employee is not fit to operate a front desk or, at the very least, needs extended time off.

Let me make this very clear: I do not support the customer nor what he has done with this recording, which could perniciously reverberate throughout this young man’s life for quite some time. The person hurt most in this situation was the employee, and it was not as a result of the customer being black but instead because of his own mental instability, which was quite possibly - not certainly - triggered by the customer’s behavior.

This incident needs to be investigated further, and some of you need to stop judging people by the pigmentation of their skin and start looking at all people as human beings.