A horrific display of racism and rage just played out inside a New York City hotel when an unhinged woman launched an attack on a black teen. In video footage, the frantic woman believes the teen stole her cellphone and confronts him to demand he give it back.
You can hear the 14-year-old telling her that the phone is, in fact, his own phone. His father reassures his son, "You don't have to explain nothin' to her." But that only enrages the angry and unhinged woman even more.
The father in the video is Keyon Harrold, a Grammy-winning trumpet player, producer, and composer. He and his son, Keyon Harrold Jr., had come down from their room at the Arlo SoHo hotel to have breakfast when the woman approached them.
The scene, which he caught on video and then shared to social media, is pretty shocking. The woman clearly feels entitled to see the boy's phone, no matter what. She harasses the pair, screaming and making a scene. At one point, it even appears that she attacks them. Keyon said in a different video that his hand was injured trying to protect his son.
Sadly, this kind of thing happens far too often, which Keyon acknowledged on social media. But as Keyon said in the caption, "it hits different when it hits home." He continued, "The lady in this video assaulted my 14-year-old son and me as we came down from our room in the @arlohotels Arlo Soho to get breakfast."
Keyon was clearly still angered and shook from what transpired. "This incident went on for five more minutes, me protecting my son from this lunatic. She scratched me; she Tackled and grabbed him. He is a child!!!" he wrote.
What's really unsettling about the video is not just that the woman harasses Keyon and his son, but she doesn't provide reason for why she believes the boy has her phone. She demands they give it to her, but doesn't say how she thinks he ended up with it. She also enlists help from the manager, continuing her accusations and telling him to get it back for her.
The manager seems to be trying to appease the unhinged woman. Keyon can't believe what's happening. "Are you kidding me?" Keyon asks. "You feel like there's only one iPhone made in the world?"
He also tells her to use the "Find My iPhone" app, which is actually pretty decent advice. Instead of accusing someone with absolutely no proof, tracking your phone's location is a good place to start! Especially because, according to Keyon's Instagram post, the unhinged woman's phone was found in her Uber and later returned to her.
“Now watch as the manager advocates for the lady who is not even a hotel guest, insisting and attempting to use his managerial authority to force my son to show his phone to this random lady,” Harrold continues. “He actually empowered her!!! He didn’t even consider the fact we were actually the guests!”
It probably sucks to be this unhinged white woman today. Because social media has been highly critical of her. It's pretty clear that she didn't realize that the father she was also attacking was a prominent jazz musician with a massive social media following. But it just goes to show that you should treat everyone with respect — not only someone who might end up successfully outing you as a racist.
In this situation, it seems like Keyon and his son were seen as guilty without any shred of proof. The manager didn't ask for any. He simply joined in on the woman's efforts to get the phone back. While it's certainly an uncomfortable situation to be in, going around harassing your customers is not a good or ethical practice. And it doesn't seem like the hotel has apologized. Oh, except for a comment on Keyon's Instagram. “Hello, we are extremely sorry that this happened and we are looking into this right away," staff wrote. "We will send you a direct message and try to rectify the situation. Once again, our deepest apologies.”
Many people are calling for a boycott of the hotel. And it makes sense. For one, people don't want to give their business to places with racist practices, or that make some of their guests feel unsafe. That's certainly what happened in this situation. Now Keyon and his son have to cope with the trauma of what happened. At the very least, they have been getting a ton of support since the video went viral. Still, it doesn't make up for what happened that day, because no one deserves to be harassed like this without a very solid reason — and certainly some proof.
The teen told Good Morning America that if his father hadn't been there, he's not sure what would've happened. It's just another stunning example of how Black people constantly live in fear of racism in this country. While we're all tired of seeing viral incidents like this play out on video, it has to be tremendously hard to cope with day in and day out.
