A man’s conversation with a Family Dollar employee has gone viral after he confronted her for allegedly making a racist remark.
Speaking with Fox 26, Deon “Chico” Young claimed that he was waiting in the checkout line at a Houston-area Family Dollar store when he overheard an employee behind the counter make a “derogatory” comment in Spanish to another customer about Black people stealing shoes.
Young — who told the outlet he is Afro-Latino and speaks English, Spanish and French — understood the conversation.
He said that when it was his turn to check out, he confronted the employee, telling her, “Let me give you a word of advice: You never know who you offend.”
Young filmed the conversation on his phone and shared the clip on TikTok. In the now-viral video, which has amassed more than 775,000 views, he can be heard saying to the employee, “You’ve got to watch what you say when you say it. Because you don’t know who speaks Spanish.”
Then speaking in Spanish to the employee, before switching back to English, Young said, “I’m just letting you know, though. When you talk about people, especially Black people, man, watch what you’re saying.”
Young shared the same sentiment with Fox 26. “Because you see me as a Black man, and you speak another language, doesn’t mean I don’t know what you’re saying. And that’s my whole thing. Watch what you’re saying, because you never know who understands you, and you never know who you offend,” he told the outlet.
“My intention wasn’t to get her fired but to check her — watch what you say because you never know who understands you,” Young added. “You see me as a Black person, but you don’t know my roots.”
After leaving the Family Dollar store following the incident, Young filmed another video outside in the parking lot, in which he expressed his frustration over the situation. He wrote over the clip, “I hate it when these undercover racist be talking in Spanish about us.”
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Young later another update on TikTok to share that Family Dollar reached out to him to apologize and indicated that the employee’s job would be terminated.
PEOPLE reached out to Dollar Tree, which owns Family Dollar, for comment but did not receive an immediate response.
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