Federal census workers are required to go door-to-door to collect data for the 2020 census but one African-American employee found himself being racially profiled in a Houston neighborhood because of his skin color.
A video of a white woman calling the police on a census worker while he was doing his job because he's black is being widely circulated on social media.
'I Might Need to Ask What You're Up To'
The clip, which was shared originally by the worker on his Instagram account @Zeaky_bobby, starts off with the worker explaining to the woman that he's just going about his business.
"But you're in front of my neighbor's house and I might need to ask what you're up to," she responds. "You're calling the cops because I'm black? Is that what it is?" the man asks her.
"You need to leave," the woman then says to the federal employee, who then asks her, "Why do I need to leave?"
"Because you don't have a reason to be here," she answers.
'You Don't Need to be Here'
"Go ahead and call the cops," the worker tells her as she looks into her phone trying to dial 911. "I'll wait for the cops, actually. I have no problem on that. Ya'll gotta learn to stop messing with black people."
The man then expresses his frustration over the possibility that the woman is calling the cops on him as she thinks he's a threat because he's black and she wouldn't even be dialling 911 had he been white.
"What are you doing here?," the woman asks him. "You don't need to be here."
She then says "Police?" as she places the phone to her ear before walking away. She can then be heard giving the responder a description of a "black male" who is acting "obnoxious" in front of her neighbor's house.
'He's Walking Towards Me'
"He doesn't need to be here," she says over the phone. "He's yelling at me."
"I'm not yelling. I'm talking loud so you can hear me," the man explains as he moves towards the woman.
"He's approaching me right now," she tells the responder before completing her description of the census worker with some help from him.
The woman then falsely claims that the worker is walking towards her in a "threatening" manner even though the man is standing about 15 feet away from the woman on the sidewalk, recording her from a distance.
"The police is on the way," the woman says after hanging up. The video ends with her telling one of her neighbors, "I called the cops on him."
"If I don't post a follow up that probably means Karen was successful and the police shot me like they popped that mentally ill kid 21 times," he captioned the video, referring to the fatal shooting of Nicolas Chavez by Houston police officers in April. Watch the full clip below:
