A video of a Black customer who caught a Family Dollar worker unawares after revealing that he understood the disparaging comments she made about Black people in Spanish went viral online and ended in the employee’s termination.
Chico Deon Young recorded himself chastising the employee at a Family Dollar in Houston, Texas, after overhearing a conversation she had in Spanish with another customer.
Chico Deon Young went viral after confronting a Family Dollar worker. (Photos: TikTok/Chico Deon)
He said he was standing behind a female customer at the checkout line when the Spanish-speaking employee told her that she constantly puts items behind the counter because Black people only come in the store to steal.
When he approached the counter to pay for his items, he checked the worker about her behavior and derogatory remarks.
“Let me give you a word of advice,” Young says to the employee. “You got to watch what you say when you say it because you don’t know who speaks Spanish.”
“I wasn’t even saying it like that,” the employee is heard saying off-camera as Young starts speaking Spanish to her.
“They be talking that s—t in Spanish, thinking people don’t understand they a—,” Young says to the camera, before shouting at the employee in Spanish. “So when you talk about Black folks in Spanish, a bunch of them understand what you’re saying.”
The video got nearly 500,000 views on TikTok and thousands of reactions.
“I’m glad you exposed her,” one viewer wrote.
“This was such a flex!!” another added.
Young, who is an Afro-Latino, explained to FOX26 that his father is from Cuba and his mother is Black and Creole, so he speaks English, Spanish, and French fluently. He warned against making assumptions about people based on appearances.
“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,” Young said.
Young says Family Dollar’s corporate office reached out to him to apologize and tell him the employee would be fired for her conduct.