Community Corner
Ugly Racist Incident In Reston Town Center Caught On Video
For the second time this year, a racist incident in Reston was captured on camera.

RESTON, VA — Video of an anti-Muslim tirade at a Reston Trader Joe's went viral earlier this month, but it's not the only disturbing racial incident to happen in the area this spring. A video on YouTube that was posted in March shows a man screaming at an Asian-American man to go back to his country and threatening violence against him in the heart of Reston Town Center.
The video, which is embedded below, was uploaded on March 2 by YouTube user MrJon703. He does not identify himself in the video, but he tells the man that he is an American citizen and states that he was standing in front of his own shop at RTC.
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"Racism is real here at Reston town center," the video's description reads. "I was hanging out in front of my shop and this happens...smh!"
Warning: The following video contains explicit language.
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Earlier this month, a woman was caught on video at a Reston Trader Joe's making anti-Muslim comments to a Muslim woman in line.
"I wish they didn't let you into the country," the woman states at the start of the 57-second video. "Obama's not in office anymore, you don't have a Muslim in there anymore."
Northern Virginia in general has been plagued by a series of racial incidents lately. In Manassas this week, a woman was captured on video going on a racist rant in a Sprint store, calling a Hispanic man a racial slur and telling him to go "back to Mexico."
Earlier this month, American University in D.C. launched an investigation after bananas were found hanging from string nooses around campus.
Last June, someone vandalized the Boulevard Manor neighborhood of Arlington with swastikas, the n-word, and homophobic slurs.
In 2014, Michelle Obama told People magazine that she had a "racist" experience in 2011 at the Potomac Yards Target store in Alexandria when a customer assumed she worked at the store.
"I tell this story – I mean, even as the first lady – during that wonderfully publicized trip I took to Target, not highly disguised, the only person who came up to me in the store was a woman who asked me to help her take something off a shelf," she said in the interview. "Because she didn’t see me as the first lady, she saw me as someone who could help her. Those kinds of things happen in life."
Image: Screenshot from video
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