A Texas family is speaking out after they say their grandmother was verbally harassed while out campaigning for Democratic Senate candidate Beto O’Rourke last weekend.
Allison Odom and her daughters, aged 8 and 10, detailed the harrowing encounter in a Facebook post Sunday but vowed not to let an apparent case of racism deter them. The family said they were out block-walking with their grandmother, Rose Odom, when they were confronted by a random white man who dubbed the 70-year-old woman a “stupid b—h” and told the family to “go back where you came from.”
A grandmother and her granddaughters said they remain undeterred after being racially harassed while campaigning for Senate candidate Beto O’Rourke. (Photo credit: Associated Press)
“Block walking in support of your preferred candidate or a party is about as American as Apple pie …. right?” Allison Odom wrote. “Yesterday, while doing this “American as apple pie” activity within walking distance of my mother’s house, a man approached my mother and daughters and (among other choice words) demanded that they “go back where they came from” because this is HIS neighborhood.”
Odom lamented the fact that “some people are emboldened enough in their hate to accost a 70-year old grandmother and her 8 and 10 year old granddaughters” and hoped her story was a “wake up call” to others that racism is alive and well.
Odom’s daughters recalled the moment the man approached their grandma, saying they’d just pulled over to look for an address. One of the girls explained “The guy walked up to her and said ‘what are you doing here?’ ” Rose Odom shot back, “What are you doing here?” and the man replied, “I’m just walking my dog, and I live here.”
The woman explained she was also a resident, but this was of little consolation to the suspicious man, who continued accosting the group.
After telling the man it was “none of his business” why they were there, the girls said that’s when the man called their grandmother a “moron,” to which she replied, “idiot.”
“And he told granny to get the f*** back where she came from,” one of the girls said, spelling out the expletive.
The other granddaughter chimed in, “And then granny said, ‘Well, you need to go back where you came from. I hope one day, if you meet an idiot too, that the idiot will have more respect for your grandchildren than you’ve shown me and mine.’”
The man finally stormed off, calling the grandmother a “stupid b—h.”
“I guess he suspected because we were Black we were about to rob his neighborhood,” said Odom’s older daughter. “He probably wouldn’t have done that to a white person because there were white people parked all around us in their cars.”
Despite the frightening encounter, the girls said they have no plans to stop campaigning with their grandmother.
In an interview with FOX 26, the Odom’s granddaughters said they wanted to record the incident but were too afraid. Rose Odom said she felt the man approached them because he saw a person of color doing “what he thought was strange.”
Watch more in the clip below.
https://www.facebook.com/allison.odom.90/videos/10217110292020340/
