A day after going viral for calling Black women the N-word at a Raleigh, North Carolina, restaurant, Nancy Goodman has since been identified and she’s not backing down from her remarks.
Goodman had been named by Facebook and Twitter sleuths as the woman who Chanda Stewart filmed at Bonefish Grill Tuesday when she and a friend dinned there for dinner.
Apparently, Goodman said they were too loud, and after Stewart began recording her she approached the patron and her friends’ table.
“I’ve got really good friends that are black and I love them,” Goodman told the three Black diners.
Confused about why race was mentioned, the women continue talking to Goodman before she said seconds later, “You’re so stupid, n—er,” and walked off.
Stewart maintained the restaurant did little in response and Goodman left the eatery on her own.
Now, Goodman has spoken out to WRAL. She said she suffers from “tremendous anxiety” and that led her to act the way she did to the diners, Stewart and her friend Lekesha Shaw.
“I’m not going to say I’m sorry to them because they kept pushing at it,” she tells the news station July 24.
As for her using the N-word, Goodman said the women “forced me into it” and that she knew it was offensive.
“That’s why I said it,” the 71-year-old adds. “I would say it again to them. They are the rudest individuals I have ever seen.”
“Wow. That’s sad,” Shaw said when she was told of Goodman’s remarks. “I don’t care how you feel like we should have been acting. If I was standing on the table with three heads in a purple jumpsuit, nothing justifies you to come to my table and call me a stupid n—er.”
“[I’m] still trying to wrap my head around it all,” said Stewart. “It’s disheartening, it is. But this is the society that we’re living in right now.”
“The fact that you’re willing to say you will repeat that again shows me the hate that you harbor in your heart for the black African-American race,” Stewart added of Goodman’s admitted willingness to use the word again. “I don’t care what color I am. Give me the respect of being a human being, just like everyone else deserves.”
Goodman, who reiterated the fact that she has Black friends and is not racist, made it clear that she was not sorry. She also said she wished she would have had management settle the issue.
“Looking back on it now, I wish I would have asked the waiter to ask management if they would just quiet down,” she told the station. “Instead, I went off on them, which I shouldn’t have done. But I had had it. It was out of my control to calm down my anxiety.”
But while she was not apologetic on-air, she did post an apology to her Facebook page Wednesday.
“I would like to apologize to my family, friends and other patrons in the bar at North Hills Bonefish,” she said in the post where she described the targeted diners as “three rude, loud obnoxious black women.” “I suffer from anxiety which is not an excuse. I’m ashamed of my actions.”
Bonefish Grill previously told Atlanta Black Star it does “not tolerate hate speech or disrespect in our restaurants” and is looking into the occurrence “to see how we can do better at deescalating something like this in the future.”
Meanwhile, Stewart has reflected on the aftermath of the controversy.
“I’m still trying to wrap my head around what happened last night,” she wrote on Facebook Wednesday night. “We (minorities), tend to get used to the hateful looks, disregarding, and even ignorant behavior by some, but I have never in my 43 years of living been called a n—er. It’s easy to say what you may do or would have done in this type of situation because I’ve said the same. Although racism is very real it stills seems to catch you off guard. It may be a blessing because if we had time to think about it, it may have ended differently.
After thanking people for their support, she concluded, “This is not the end of this story believe me. ❤️”
