In a video posted to comedian Rickey Smiley’s Instagram page last week, the radio host confronts a white man who a woman Riley described as one of his former high school classmates the N-word while they were fishing in Florida recently.
“My sister was just walking through the gate, she came in about 30 minutes ago. … She probably walked in front of your truck. ‘Cause we just pulled up the videotape and you were like ‘f—-n’ n—-r.’ We got it on tape,” Smiley said to the man as they stood on a dock that Smiley said was at a Florida waterside.
The man appears to deny the accusation before Smiley interjects: “The only thing I’m asking you to do, so we can go on about our business, is to just apologize.”
As the man says he is sorry, Smiley tells him that the woman, named Nakia, is going to join them at the dock to hear the apology. The men continue to converse while waiting for Nakia to join them.
The person filming speaks, asking: “I just want to know, what made you say it though? What made you say it?”
The white man shrugged and seems to try to avoid eye contact while failing to provide an audible response.
“Trump got you f—-d up like that?” the man asked, before another man in the group said, “Why would you call them a n—-r?”
“I didn’t meant to OK? I was just … irritated,” the man responded in a shaky voice.
“Don’t cry,” one of the men said.
“Irritated about what?” another asked. “We irritated about a lot of sh-t!”
When Nakia joins the group, Smiley says, “I want you to tell him how it made you feel.”
“I felt sorry for you, for calling me and my friend a f—-n’ n—-r,” she says. The man said that he did not mean to, before Na’kia continued, saying he almost hit her and her friend with his truck. “And you hollered, ‘f—-n’ n—-r,’” she said.
The video cuts, showing a close-up of the man’s face as Smiley said: “Hey, don’t do it again. We are not our f—–g ancestors, do you understand?
“I know, I know,” the man said, nodding.
“I will baptize you in that water behind you,” Smiley continued. “Don’t ever do it again, do you understand? Have a nice day.”
Another Black man joined the conversation, saying, “See how scared you’re feeling right now? That’s how you made her feel. You really don’t mean that s–t, you just saying that s–t because you’re scared. You see all these Black people and you feel threatened. That’s what the f–k is wrong.”
The white man interjected, apologizing again.
“I know you’re saying you’re sorry right now because you’re scared. You don’t know what we are gonna do. You don’t know if we are gonna beat your ass, push you in the water, you don’t know what’s what.”
The Black man then explained that saying the N-word contributed to Nakia and her friend’s feelings of uncertainty about what might happen next during the situation. “They didn’t know if you were going to hit them with that van. They didn’t know what you had plans for,” he said.
The man repeated that he was sorry several more times.
“You had the right one today,” Smiley said again before the video ended. “Have a nice day.”
“Now he’ll think before he do some s–t like that again,” Smiley said after the encounter ended.
At the end of the video someone said they asked the manager to escort the man off the property.
