On Monday, July 27, a Black woman was dining at a Japanese restaurant in Las Vegas with her 1-year-old daughter and 13-year-old sister, when she was confronted by a white man who claimed the baby was making too much noise. The woman recorded the encounter, and posted it to her Instagram page
At the start of the video, the woman accuses a man in a white shirt, who is sitting at the bar at Umezono Sushi and Grill, of being “racist.” She explains that the conflict began because her 1-year-old baby was making noises, and says that the only way to stop the confrontation was to put the man on camera. The beginning of the encounter does not appear to have been recorded.
“Shame on you, shame on both of you,” the woman says to the man, and the man in the blue shirt sitting beside him, who was involved in the incident to a lesser degree. Both men turn around in their chairs holding up their phones to record the woman as she continues to speak.
The man in the white shirt can be heard grumbling that the woman has “children that are very noisy,” as she pans the camera to show her daughter Mila, sitting beside her in a high chair at the table. The woman’s 13-year old sister also sits at the table.
The man in the white shirt then leaves his chair, and walks across the restaurant as he continues to hold his phone in the air to record. Upon approaching the woman, he says, “This is what happens when someone has a dinner that makes their children really, really noisy.”
Standing before the woman and daughter, he continues, “This person right here, has a child right here that makes a really loud noise.”
At this point the woman says that she does not feel safe and asks the man to back up. “You need to back up,” she says.
“Why back off?” he responds.
The woman then appears to ask the male waiter standing nearby to call the police, just before the man returns to his seat, where the other man is still holding his phone up to record.
“She’s 1 year old. What’s wrong with you?” the woman questions.
At the end of the video, one of the men can be heard saying they are going to leave.
On Instagram, the woman explained that the men began giving her the “death stare,” as soon as she walked into the restauant with her sister and daughter.
It hadn’t even been five minutes before “these two creatures started mocking my 1-year-old, harassing us, calling my 1-year-old daughter annoying,” the woman wrote in the post. She also wrote that the men called her the “radical left,” and that she feared they would cause her, her sister and daughter harm.
The encounter comes as racial tensions remain high, and as videos of race-related confrontations continue to go viral on social media.
