A White woman in Atlanta, Georgia, was highly suspicious of a man delivering packages in her neighborhood.
Instagram user @nhcrashon—who is Nedrick Peters II—is a UPS worker who was just doing his job until being rudely interrupted.
He also happens to be Black.
The unidentified woman harassed Peters. She justified her nervousness about him by claiming there were frequent incidents of vandalism in the neighborhood and being a victim of two car break-ins.
The uncomfortable confrontation was caught on camera with the voice of the worker repeatedly responding with "what?" and "WTF?"
Despite Peters wearing his uniform that identified his job, the jittery racist required more information and can be heard saying:
"I'm going to need someone's information to check up on you, because I don't understand why you're walking around this neighborhood with a bunch a packages."
A shocked Peters commented she was bothering him, and the spooked resident responded:
"I'm not bothering you. I want to complain to UPS that you look very suspicious and making me nervous."
"No, let me tell you why."
Peters, standing next to his dolly full of packages to be delivered, humored her and asked, "yeah, why?"
"Package Pamela" regaled him with a history of vandalism in her beautiful neighborhood.
"My car's already been broken into twice. And guess what? It's a really big thing in this neighborhood for people to walk down the street for vandalism."
The showdown never erupted violently, but the mounting tension was palpable.
She continued with her gibberish and pressed him for confirmation of who he worked for.
Peters then reversed the camera to show the UPS emblem emblazoned on his company-issued jacket.
"Like I said you look very suspicious and I'm trying to tell you, you need to at least be able to tell people who you work for."
When she asked for his name, Peters responded:
"I'm not giving you s**t."
Not being contented by his snub, she threatened to stand with or follow him until she got what she demanded.
In the second video clip of the two-parter posting, Package Pamela is seen retreating into her home after apparently taking photos of Peters and calling the police.
She re-emerged as a second UPS worker appeared in the frame, and although it is not clear what conversation took place, she scolded Peters for not identifying his employer.
The video featuring yet another encounter of a racist pestering a Black man for being Black became viral after Twitter user Black With No Chaser shared Peters's post on November 26.
To date, the tweet received 179K likes.
It's hard to justify racists.
But this user gave it a shot.
Amidst the ensuing rage in response to the video, this user gave Peters props for maintaining his decorum.
This type of confrontation is becoming unnervingly frequent.
"Jan 7th" shared a familiar experience on the job.
This outcome is unfortunately not far from the realm of possibility.
Black people are dammed if they do and don't.
And while some people wanted a verbal smack-down...
...he did the right thing by showing restraint.
Near the end of the confrontation, Peters told her she must be smoking:
"really good crack."
Her response?
"You might need to be. If you don't think you look suspicious, you are on crack as well, my son."
Black doesn't equal suspicious. Some people need to unlearn their bias.
Jane Rosenberg
Jane Rosenberg
