Video - Racist "Karen" Spews the Hate at Austin Vietnamese Restau

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A video posted by an Austin TV station showing a conflict inside an Austin Vietnamese restaurant is going viral and leading to discussions about hate against Asian Americans.

Whitney Spence was a patron at Pho Saigon in the Chinatown Center who filmed the enraged customer after she became belligerent with a member of the wait staff at the restaurant. According to KXAN-TV:

Spence says she started recording the video when the woman then came back inside to pick up her order, and it wasn’t packed to-go.
“That’s when I started recording, was when she started getting in their faces, and I was getting a little bit worried,” said Spence. “I just wanted it for evidence in case something happened.”
She and her friend can be heard in the video saying things like, “You don’t need to insult people,” to the female customer.

Spence told the TV station that she feels privileged not to have such an experience since she is white. The story from KXAN goes on to say that a lot of discrimination and racist incidents against Asian Americans go unreported.

The group Stop AAPI Hate tracks reports of anti-Asian racism across the country. The organization says they received more than 9,000 reports nationally between March 2020 and June 2021. Most of those reports were verbal harassment according to the group.

What are your thoughts on this video? Do you feel the customer could've handled the situation better? Have you seen other incidents of verbal harassment toward Asian Americans locally? Let us know on Facebook or on our station app.

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