Indian restaurant owners respond to racist Facebook comments: 'Welcome to the ignorant 21st century'
After getting nasty Facebook messages, the owners of an Indian restaurant are feeling the love from their community.
Raj and Priyanka Singh opened Curry Express, the first Indian restaurant in Gallatin County in 2013, after moving to Montana from Alabama, according to ABC Fox Montana. On Friday, they posted a video on Facebook of their lunch buffet, seemingly angering a man named Richard Suttles.
On Tuesday, the Singhs posted a screenshot of Suttles’ comments, writing, “Never in my wildest dreams did I expect to get a message like that. There’s a first for everything in life I suppose. Welcome to the ignorant 21st century.”
Suttles had written, “I’m going to puke.”
“Don’t be disrespectful. Have some manners,” replied the Singhs.
Suttles wrote back, “Your race is an insult to the Earth. You come here, get a handout, and don’t do manual labor here but make a killing off our tax dollars. So to that. Go f*** yourself.”
The Singhs responded, “I am intrigued by your intellect. Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.”
Since Suttles’ comments, people have promised their patronage to the restaurant, described the owners as kind, hardworking people, and someone in England mailed a supportive card to the restaurant.
Yahoo Lifestyle could not reach the Singhs for comment — their business voicemail is full and their website isn’t working. In a Thursday interview with KRTV, Raj said, “It scares us because he might also have other people with him. Like I said, birds of a feather flock together. They might not be outside wearing a T-shirt, ‘Hey, I’m racist’ but the thoughts are there.”
“And it’s not just scary for us, it’s just the thought that prevails that might be scary for other ethnic groups and other ethnic communities,” the “proud” U.S. citizen said. “This happened to us, it can happen to anyone. There’s Chinese, there’s Japanese, there’s a few African Americans here, there’s very few Indians here, there’s Mexicans here.”
Raj told ABC Fox Montana, “We look the same, everything is almost the same, except my skin color is a little darker. So, does that mean that I am below somebody? We are equal, we need to treat everybody equally. We need to respect every ethnicity that’s there, because this is what makes us beautiful as a community.”
Suttles, allegedly the owner of a company called Twins Construction, did not respond to Yahoo Lifestyle’s requests for comment. His business’ Yelp page is temporarily disabled due to the media attention and his website is taken down.
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