A black actor was heckled by a white man in a passing car as he was doing some filming for a commercial earlier this week in Edmonton in Alberta, Canada.
"The n—gers are coming, the n—gers are coming!" The unnamed motorist could be heard shouting from his car as Jesse Lipscombe walked down a street.
Lipscombe, a former high jump champion, walked right up to the man's car and opened the door, confronting him head-on.
“What he did has given me and my city and the country an opportunity to talk about something that needs to be talked about,” Lipscombe told the Globe and Mail. “He helped lift up the rug for those who thought there weren’t any critters under it and helped clean house.”
Lipscombe, ironically, was shooting a public service announcement in the area, talking about how great the city is.
In a video posted to Facebook, Lipscombe can be seen strolling down the street before a man in a gray, four-door sedan starts yelling the slurs.
After Lipscombe confronts the man at his car, the man denies that has said anything and struggles to close the door. He then speeds off but takes a moment to again yell, "N—ger" as he drives away.
“I walk over to the car and open the door and try and ask him to say it again to my 6’3, 260 lb face, they try to slam the door on me. We keep rolling as they speed away still shouting the same thing. Edmonton is better than these fools!” Lipscombe said in his Facebook post, according to the Globe and Mail.
Watch the video below (note: NSFW):
He also doesn't regret confronting the man as he did.
“It’s a thing with me; when people make somebody feel uncomfortable, I like to do the same in return,” Lipscombe said. “I’m not a violent man by any means and … words go a long way, so I thought I’d go over there and have a discussion with him about his decision to say what he said.”
The actor also told the news site that the incident served as a reminder that even though some people may think things are amazing in Canada, the country has its own issues.
“It wasn’t shocking. It’s a thing that happens to people of color, to women, to Muslims on a daily basis,” he said.
To the driver, he doesn't have much to say besides this: “Thanks for your ignorance, and hopefully when you watch yourself with your two minutes of fame, you can see what you look like in the actual light, as opposed to what you think you are when you probably hang out with your friends.”
Read more at the Globe and Mail.