A man the internet has dubbed “Hallway Hasselhoff” was caught on video last week harassing a Black man he refused to believe lived in the same apartment building.
“What are you doing in my building?” the white man asks. “You don’t live here.”
In the video, an unnamed man repeatedly questions Chika Okafor and a friend about where they love and what they’re doing in the building. (Twitter video screenshot / @ChikaO_13)
Chika Okafor, a producer for the sports website Bleacher Report, posted video of the Dec. 19 confrontation. In a tweet, Okafor wrote that the unidentified man began “interrogating” him as he and his friend waited for a Lyft on the first floor of his New York City apartment building.
“As you can see, he thought that he was entitled to know who I was and where I live,” he wrote. “The arrogance is appalling but honestly, not surprising because far too many times people of color have been victims of this kind of behavior.”
The two-minute clip shows the man, who claims to have lived in the building for 27 years, proceed to berate the two friends and peg them with questions, including which unit they live in. Okafor’s friend, Cassius Flemming, insists Okafor lives on the next floor up, but stops short of giving the strange man specifics.
The two remain cool as cucumbers as the white man grows increasingly agitated.
“Oh, you’re the smooth king,” the man says sarcastically. “I can be as cool as you, dude. I can be just like you.”
Upon entering the building, Flemming claims he heard the man remark, “Who the f–k are these guys?”
“We heard you say it!” Flemming says before asking the man, “Where’s your MAGA hat? Why are you bothering us? You left your MAGA hat upstairs, man.”
The friends eventually leave without incident.
The video sparked a flurry of reactions from online users, many of whom applauded Okafor for remaining calm throughout the ordeal. Meanwhile, others urged Okafor, who’s lived in the building for a year, to report the strange man to management.
“What was with him criticizing you for being calm, collected and cool,” wrote one Twitter user. “These people can’t stand that a Black man can be more dignified and cooler than they will ever be.”
“I like how ‘I’ve never seen you before!’ is all the evidence this guy needs for discerning an individual’s residency status,” wrote another. “U say make the guy identify all residents in the building with 100 percent accuracy out of a random selection of people, and if he gets one wrong he moves out.”
One user pointed out it was confrontations like these that led to the slaying of Florida teen Trayvon Martin, writing, “The act of approaching me to confront me on my residency is an act of life or death violence. #CatchTheseHands”
Watch more in the video below.
The arrogance is appalling but honestly, not surprising because far too many times people of color have been victims of this kind of behavior. You can watch the video of the incident here.#racialprofiling #privilege #racism #noseyneighbor #mindyourbusiness #harassment pic.twitter.com/DlnSf154h8
— Chika Okafor (@ChikaO_13) December 20, 2018
