Cellphone video of a woman telling a family "You need to go back to your home country" has gone viral and been viewed nearly 400,000 times.
According to Tony Kao, who posted the video to his Facebook page last Thursday, he and his wife were on a walk with their infant on a residential street in Long Beach when a woman walked up to them and said, "Go back to your country."
In a post accompanying the video, Kao writes about the unpleasant encounter.
We encountered a bigot and a racist today in our neighborhood in Long Beach. During our normal afternoon walk with my wife and daughter in our neighborhood, a caucasian female walked passed us completely unprovoked and said to us very nonchalantly, "Go Back To Your Country!" and continued walking!
Kao can be heard telling the woman that he and his wife were actually born and raised in this country, something the woman doesn't seem to hear.
The woman was identified as Tarin Olson, a counselor at Golden West College located in Huntington Beach. The college issued a statement about the video on its Facebook page on Saturday.
“It has recently come to our attention that there was a video posted on Facebook of a GWC faculty member making comments that the College does not condone or support. Golden West College believes in an inclusive and welcoming environment for all students.”
In a off-camera interview with CBS 2 News, Olsen told reporters that her students know she isn't racist. But in a statement provided to the TV station about why she wouldn't appear for an on-camera interview, Olson writes:
“I feel my perspective will be twisted if discussing the skewed video which cut out part of the incident.[…] If you would like to have a full normal interview about the displacement of European-Americans then I gladly am available to enlighten the public.”
Kao followed up his initial comments with a second post on Facebook thanking people for the support they were sending his family in the wake of Olsen's comments.
“First, I wanted to express our sadness of experiencing racism first-hand with our baby who was exposed to this at such a young age in public and in broad daylight. Second, we wanted to express our surprise that this type of racism can exist in Long Beach of all places. "And finally, to encourage those that also face similar experiences to speak up and speak out. We have NO intention of seeking out or besmirching the offender’s personal life or career."
He closed his post with a request for people not to use the video to foster more hatred, writing "frankly there’s already enough of those feelings in this world."