An Asian TikTok user is facing online backlash after posting a video of herself scolding an immigrant cab driver for his alleged “racist” remarks.
Nguyen Yeats-Brown, a London-based influencer known as @itsgnochgnoch on TikTok, recently posted a clip of herself accusing a cab driver of being racist for making remarks that she found offensive.
In the now-deleted clip, a visibly upset Yeats-Brown can be seen asking the cab driver to stop the ride, saying, “Excuse me, do you mind if you just drop me off here?”
The driver, whose first language does not appear to be English, asks “What? Why? Were you OK here?”
Explaining her discomfort, Yeats-Brown responds, “Everything is fine, however, just in the future, what you said to me was quite offensive. About how you were trying to guess where I’m from because you think we all look the same. And then you said, ‘Oh, I couldn’t tell, like, where you were from so. Because you look a little bit different.’ That’s very racist.”
The driver defends himself by saying, “Please don’t get me wrong. My English is not as perfect. My girlfriend is Chinese, and I love the Asian people because they’re so polite, so kind.”
However, the driver’s explanation only irks the TikToker more.
“There’s a difference between you loving Asian people, and there’s a difference between you saying that we all look the same and that you are trying to guess where I’m from because I look different to them. To them. That’s the keyword.”
After the woman expresses that she does not feel comfortable in his car, the driver continues to apologize, telling her that he is afraid that the incident might get him fired.
While Yeats-Brown tells him she will not inform his company, she advises him not to “say things like that because it is very, very offensive to us.”
After finally exiting the car, she appears to be holding back tears as she says, “I’m actually f*cking raging.”
After the video went viral and was reposted by other TikTok users, many commenters took the side of the driver and criticized Yeats-Brown for the way she handled the incident.
In a repost of the video uploaded by TikTok user @danackerman1988, many commenters accused her of overreacting and not considering the driver’s situation as an immigrant. Some users felt sorry for the driver and believed that he was genuinely trying to apologize and make amends.
“The fact that she acknowledges the language barrier yet still doesn’t understand where he’s coming from. I’d love to see her move into a completely different country and learn a language and TRY not to offend other people,” wrote a user.
“He was clearly so sorry for the misunderstanding. This is so embarrassing for her,” a commenter wrote.
“So he tried to start a conversation but his English wasn’t very good and she wanted a chance to go viral?” asked another.
“She really thought she was doing something here but it backfired big time,” noted a commenter.
Yeats-Brown later posted a formal apology on her TikTok story, explaining that she acted purely on emotions and has since realized her mistake.
There has been a very misunderstanding from the video I posted about the cab driver, and I can only say I’m sorry it came off in a bad light as it was never my intention.
I never did it for views or clout, I thought that by posting it, it showed that I spoke up for something that offended me and hear so often as an ignorant observation by many. I wasn’t putting myself in the other shoe at the time & I acted purely on emotions which sometimes isn’t always correct, and I now realize that.
The cab driver’s identity isn’t shown at any point in the video, I also mentioned in the video that I wasn’t going to tell his work, the man has not lost his job because nothing was ever reported. I never planned to that’s why I had a conversation with him to advise him not to stereotype us Asians in the future and asked if I can leave and get another car. I didn’t think that was unreasonable.
NextShark attempted to reach out to Yeats-Brown but she has yet to respond as of press time.
