A disturbing video went viral this summer, showing a black couple being assaulted at a Chicago music festival. The video depicted a white woman spitting on and shouting the n-word at Ernest and Cassie Crim, a couple who was at the Margarita Festival.
Last week, the woman, Jessica Sanders, was charged with two felony hate crime offenses and two counts of misdemeanor battery.
In an interview with the Chicago Sun-Times, Sanders said that while she says she shouldn’t have used the word, she thought it meant to be an “ignorant person,” and that this case was not about race.
She said, “It was wrong of me to use the word. To me it means ‘ignorant person.’ If they were Caucasian, I would have said the same thing. Latino, black. [Race] has nothing to do with it.”
Then she not only pulled the “my best friend is black” but says she has black family as well.
“My best friend since I was 14 is black, and I lost her over this. People are saying I’m a white supremacist. That’s not who I am,” she said. She also stated that she would contest her charges for the hate crime.
After the incident, Ernest Crim, who is a teacher, posted it on his social media pages and showed it to his classes for a teachable moment. He used it to discuss racism in America. “There is usually a lot of surprised looks from the students. A lot of them didn’t think this sort of thing still happens, but it does. We’ve had a lot of interesting discussions,” said Crim.
Crim isn’t accepting Sanders apology, and doesn’t think she’s sorry. He thinks the hate charges should remain. “You used that word, probably 30 times before I even hit record, and then you spit on my wife? I think that’s hate,” he said.
Racists, hold this L right quick.
