A real estate agent living in Brooklyn, New York is now out of work after telling an Asian gym manager to “go back to China.”
The incident, which was caught on video, occurred at a Blink Fitness outlet in the neighborhood of Bushwick.
The video, which went viral on social media, shows the real estate agent allegedly refusing to wear a mask inside the gym.
“He threw his mask on the floor and proceeded to be extremely racist to the manager, who is by the way the nicest man,” wrote TikTok user @bobrosspoop, who filmed the incident.
In the video, the real estate agent tells the gym’s Asian manager to “go back to China, that’s what you need to do.”
He then walks away while appearing to make a call on his phone.
Yang Chen, an acquaintance of the gym manager, reposted the video on Instagram to help raise awareness of the recent increase in anti-Asian crimes. Chen, who has experienced racist attacks, wants perpetrators to be held accountable.
“I can vouch that he is a very kind and generous man who would never go out his way to hurt somebody. He deals with everything in a professional manner,” Chen told NextShark. “So when I saw this video, I did not need to know the background story to figure out that he was in the right… I want people to know that these forms of hate crimes aren’t always made public. In fact, I’ve had people verbally harass me on trains and even attempt to spit on me due to the fact that I was Asian.”
Yang revealed in a tweet that the attacker had been fired by his employer.
“We wanted to let you know that the affiliated Century 21 office has terminated this agent. We do not take this behavior lightly and will always work to ensure that we are properly addressing this type of behavior across Century 21 and our independent brokers’ offices,” a message from Century 21 reportedly said.
Meanwhile, Blink Fitness commended the professionalism of the gym manager and affirmed its stance against anti-Asian violence.
“At Blink Fitness, we applaud the professionalism our employee showed in the face of such a blatant racist attack. Our gyms were founded on the idea of bringing fitness to everybody, and the comments by the individual featured in this video in no way represent the views of Blink Fitness or the diversity and inclusivity that we value at our gyms,” a statement from Blink Fitness sent to NextShark read.
It added, “Blink Fitness stands in solidarity with the #stopasianhate movement and will continue to support our employees and members of color in creating a respectful, welcoming environment. We do not and will not tolerate displays of racism or hatred in any of our gyms.”
Feature Image Screenshots via @asianswithattitudes
