SASKATOON -- A Saskatoon man is rallying support for a restaurant where a customer berated staff with racist insults.
Keith Tsang is urging people to “eat racism for lunch” and order from Mai’s Kitchen on Saturday.
The racist rant happened Wednesday evening and was caught on camera by an employee at the restaurant.
The video shows a customer hurling racist remarks at employees, after being refused service for not wearing a mask.
“When I watched the video, I instantly felt what the victims felt. Racism is personal, it’s dehumanizing,” Tsang said.
The video shows one of the customers get up from the table, point his middle finger at staff and shout.
“Go back to China,” the customer can be heard yelling while leaving the Vietnamese restaurant.
“To attack someone based on their skin colour, reeks of entitlement. Let’s put it this way, he wouldn’t say those things if he was at a Chili’s or an Olive Garden. It was racially charged,” Tsang said.
Quang Pham, the manager of Mai’s, said the support from the community outweighs the hate.
“I know there’s still some really bad people out there. But from all the love and support we’ve gotten recently, I know it’s just one person,” Pham told CTV News.
Tsang said doesn’t know the restaurant manager or staff, but said he organized the solidarity lunch to show he’s an ally to the victims.
“I just wanted to show support and raise awareness,” he said.
Tsang said racism happens all the time, it’s just now being filmed.
He said he hopes the incident at Mai’s will spark conversations about how to tackle racism in Saskatchewan.
