A video making its way across the internet is a shocking reminder of the powder keg that remains race relations in many parts of the United States.
In the video, a group of unidentified customers is engaged in an indistinguishable argument near the entryway-and-exit of an Tuscaloosa, Alabama Waffle House at around 2 a.m. on August 13. Waffle House is a popular all-night restaurant chain mostly spread throughout the southern and western parts of the country.
Tensions quickly boil over as the argument becomes a volley of shouts, shoves, pushes and pulls.
It appears the brunt of the altercation can be laid at the feet of a white man wearing a salmon-colored “American Fighter” t-shirt.
In the cell phone-captured footage, he approaches a braided black man, raises his fist and shouts in his face repeatedly: “Swing on me! Swing on me!” while ignoring his black-shirted friend’s physical and verbal entreaties to dial things down.
The man’s t-shirt, however, proved to be a bit of a misnomer. After bringing the ruckus in the first place, the man in the salmon-colored shirt backs down, allowing his friend to give a bit–and then receive a lot–of the violence.
Once the black-shirted white man appears to call the red-shirted black man “a motherfuckin’ [n-word]” fisticuffs ensue. It’s unclear who throws the first punch, but the video is quite clear about who throws the last dozen or so.
After a series of grapples, half-punches, hair-pulls and so on, the black man breaks free, pinning his white assailant down to a table and pummeling his face as the white man’s friends watch and eventually beg for him to stop.
The whole thing ends with both men going their separate ways as the videographer taunts the white man’s friends for letting him get beat up. None of the participants have yet to be publicly identified.
LawNewz reached out to the Tuscaloosa Police Department to confirm the incident and for further information. Via telephone, the department’s Public Information Office issued the following statement: “Tuscaloosa Police made contact with the victim, suspect, and witnesses on the scene. Both the victim and suspect refused medical treatment. The victim refused to prosecute and the matter was dropped.”
[image via screengrab]
Follow Colin Kalmbacher on Twitter: @colinkalmbacher