A verbal exchange between a white man and a black woman — both strangers — amid the Capitol Hill protests in Washington D.C. went viral and captured the hearts of social media users. Their united exasperation over Wednesday's violence earned them a title of "iconic duo" by the users.
Norwegian journalist Veronica Westhrin captured a video of Peter Tracey — a lawyer — and the woman lashing out at the violent Capitol Hill rioters. The verbal exchange happened as the man stood on a porch shouting at the mob and the woman was inside a car, waiting at a stoplight.
"Get the f**k out of town!" Tracey screamed in rage at the protesters. "F**king treasonous pieces of s**t!"
Agreeing with Tracey, the woman said: "I know! They're really destroying our city."
"They're destroying the f**king city, and it's like nobody gives a s**t!" he yelled back in a guttural response — seemingly disbelieved over the turn of events in D.C. "If that was Black Lives Matter, they'd have tanks rolling down Pennsylvania Avenue! But they let these f**king crackers take over the goddamn Capitol! What the f**k is that?!"
"That's true... It makes me teary-eyed," the woman replied, seemingly choking back tears. "When it was us and Black Lives Matter, we couldn't do nothing," she continued, wiping her eyes. "We'd die."
'Guy on Porch, Woman in Car'
The exchange between Tracey and the woman amid the unrest moved social media users, who called them the "guy on porch" and the "woman in car." The video that Westhrin posted on Instagram went viral but the social media platform took it down from her account. She reshared the video on Twitter. The clip also found its way on Reddit and even Instagram. Social media users praised the two and called them an "iconic duo."
"We're all that guy on the porch today," one Instagram user wrote.
"Porch man wins. As does the lady in the car. Crying with her," another user commented.
A third user wrote: "Guy on porch and lady in car. Name a more iconic duo."
Another Instagram user suggested the man should run for the 2024 presidential election. "Guy on Porch 2024," the user said.
Social Media Unites 'Guy on Porch' and 'Woman in Car'
The widely circulated video united the "guy on porch" and the "woman in car" hours after their brief exchange. Westhrin posted a selfie with the duo with a caption that read in part: "Here we are! Reunited through social media."
The woman, who went by the name enchanting_tia on Instagram, posted a selfie with Tracey. "His name is Peter guys and now we're friends," she wrote in the caption.
'Triggering Issues'
Tracey explained to the Washington Post that watching protesters carrying Trump flags down Northwest Washington street, where he lived, surprised him. The lawyer, who moved to D.C. from Delaware 22 years ago, said that he remembered the way the city police cracked down on African-Americans in the summer.
"I saw the way that people of color, our neighbors of color, were put down by police — brutally — during the protests this summer," Tracey told the Washington Post. "We all have our triggering issues and just seeing those flags, the people coming into a city where we respect each other's diversity and they have none of that . . . that was it for me."
