Having lived in Arizona for the last 17 years, I can safely testify that Scottsdale is the fucking worst. I’m currently apartment hunting and I haven’t even looked in Scottsdale because it’s, empirically, The Worst™. Think I’m being hyperbolic? Well, a Scottsdale man was arrested this weekend after telling a Black man he was in a “no nigger zone.”
If that’s not peak Scottsdale, I don’t know what is.
AZ Central reports that Andre Abram, a content creator who goes by LILAJDRE on Instagram, was making a video in Old Town Scottsdale when he was approached by Paul Ng. Ng began taking pictures of Abram and asking him what he was doing in the area. Abram began to record Ng, which is when Ng told Abram “I’m a racist,” and added, “this is a no nigger zone.”
The video quickly went viral, with over 250,000 views on Instagram. “I would say my first response was shock,” Abram told The Arizona Republic. “I was in disbelief that I was hearing the words that I was actually hearing. It was a moment that really boggled my mind—and it still does even to this moment.”
Abram, who has 94,000 subscribers on YouTube, told the Arizona Republic that many Black men experience incidents like these on a daily basis. He’s happy that, unlike most folks, he actually had a platform to show why this kind of behavior is unacceptable.
“I just really want Paul to understand that we weren’t there to harm anyone,” Abram said. “We weren’t there to cause any destruction.”
I’m honestly amazed at the confidence with which Ng said “no nigger zone.” There was zero hesitation and none of the crazed hysteria that tends to be a feature of videos like these. Dude just casually dropped a slur like it wasn’t entirely possible that he would get both run up and done up.
The video has also left me incredibly curious about what permits are needed to declare such a zone. Clearly, Ng didn’t have them as he was arrested for disorderly conduct on Saturday night.
From AZ Central:
After receiving calls from business owners about the incident, an officer visited Ng at his home and questioned him about what had occurred later that evening, according to a police report.
Ng told the officers that he was suspicious of Abram and Tinkham because they had an expensive looking camera and the car they arrived in had a Michigan license plate, so he took photos of the two and texted them to local business owners.
The report says Ng told the officer that he watches over the neighborhood before talking about the Black Lives Matter movement and “Antifa”—short for anti-fascists, the far-left-leaning militant groups that resist neo-Nazis and white supremacists—while pointing at a picture of Abram he had taken on his phone.
He then told the detective that he expects bad things will happen beginning Nov. 1 and that he was “just getting ahead of the game,” the report states.
Ng went on to tell the officer during a second interview that he thought Abram was a part of a “recon team” who were sent to “map out the area.”
“I asked if Paul understood how there could be fallback from the comments and Paul stated that he understood but did not see why there was so much energy wasted on the incident,” the officer wrote in his report. “Paul was certain that the incident would be gone and forgotten within a week.”
Clearly, Ng doesn’t understand that nothing is temporary on the internet.
If you guessed “dude loses his job” as the next part of this story, congrats! You don’t win anything, but I’m still proud of you for paying attention. Shortly after the video went viral, it was revealed that Ng worked for Russ Lyon Sotheby’s International Realty, a luxury real estate firm.
The firm released a statement on Instagram on Sunday, confirming Ng had been fired. “An independent contractor was filmed recently making racist comments,” the statement reads. “Russ Lyon Sotheby’s International Realty does not condone in any way shape or form this type of behavior. This person has been terminated effective immediately.”
In a second post, the company revealed it took the further step of recommending the Arizona Department of Real Estate revoke Ng’s real estate license. Ng should’ve taken a page out of Boosie’s book and realize that maybe he just needed to shut the fuck up. Now he’s got a criminal record, he’s out of a job, and he might have to find a whole new career.
You hate to see it.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to listen to “That’s What You Get,” by Paramore for no particular reason at all.