DENVER — In the wake of the Black Lives Matter Movement and calls to end systemic racism, many have called on white people to call out discrimination and harassment. A Denver woman says she did just that when she recorded a white woman following and questioning a Black man in a neighborhood near Cranmer Park.
The woman who took the video did not want to be identified by her last name, but said her first name is Beth. She recorded the interaction on Sunday evening and shared it on social media. The video has now been viewed thousands of times.
The video shows a white woman trailing a Black man walking in the neighborhood and asking him questions about a picture. The man can be heard asking the woman why she is interrogating him, and she later loses her temper,.
“You f**khead, get out of here,” the woman is heard saying.
At one point, Beth interjects and tells the woman to leave the man alone.
“He’s not bothering you,” she said.
Beth says the woman was harassing the man, which is why she recorded the encounter.
“I just want people to know that it’s happening,” Beth said. “I don’t want people to have an excuse for ignorance anymore. Racism is still real, it’s still everywhere and I’m a white person with a camera, so when I see it, I have to call it out.”
Denver7 spoke to the woman in the video. She did not want to go on camera or have her name used. She said she saw the man take several pictures of her home and she worried they could be used for a crime. We asked her if she would have reacted differently if a white person took photos of her home and she said race didn’t play a role in her questioning. She said she just wanted to know why the man took pictures of her home.
During the confrontation, the man began to walk away, but the woman continued to follow him. He finally told her they are not going to talk and said, “Have a nice day."
Neighborhood resident Matt Tedeschi has lived in the area most of his life and walks his dog in the area.
“(I'm) shocked that not everyone is as accepting as they should be, just for someone walking down the street and question them when they have no right to question them like that,” he said.
The woman in the video claims she had every right to question why the man took pictures of her home. Beth argues that it’s a beautiful neighborhood and photos are common.
“He is in a public space, he took a picture; people do that all the time,” Beth said. “It’s a movement right now where we need to prove that Black people are harassed for no good reason. It’s a time where we need to have evidence to back up what we are saying.”
Beth said she spoke with the man after the encounter and he asked her if he was close to Trader Joe’s. She asked if he was OK.
She said he told her, "I’m OK. It happens a lot."
Denver7 is working to identify and contact the man in the video.