Another day, another example of a Black man being harassed for simply being alive.
Early this week, a Black mother posted several videos on her TikTok of her 18-year-old son walking through a residential community in Sarasota, Florida.
Sounds normal right? Except, in the footage the Black teenager is being harassed by several white men who question whether he lives in the neighborhood, and say that he needs to leave immediately.
While the incident never turned violent, at one point, one of the white men can be seen going into a car and grabbed something, though the video makes it unclear what he retrieved. He then began to walk back toward the teenager, before another man stepped in front of him and held him back.
Watch below:
The boy’s mother, Whitney Portela, also posted the video on her Facebook, and gave more context to what her son was doing in the video and why it’s so difficult for her to watch.
“Here is a little back story: The morning aftermath of hurricane Milton my son wanted to walk the neighborhood to talk to his girlfriend on his phone, because we didnt have power service was bad in the house. THIS is what he had to deal with,” she wrote. “Even after telling these men he lives here they we’re [sic] not satisfied with his answer and continue to harass him.. this was not a 1 minute altercation, my son was followed for over 10 minutes dealing with this.”
Portela continued, “I am so happy he recorded every moment, and thankful my child is still here. I do not want to live in a community that does not welcome me and my children because the color of our skin.. this situations had me going back to a deep depression thinking about 2009 with Trayvon Martin.. this man grabbing something out of his car.. What if that guy wasn’t holding him back, All I can think Would my son still be here?!”
She’s not just leaving it up to social media to discover who the white men in the video are. On Tuesday, the Sarasota County Sheriff’s Office shared that Portela filed a complaint, writing on social media, “The Sarasota County Sheriff’s Office is aware of a video circulating on various social media platforms of an incident that occurred in the Skye Ranch neighborhood on Thursday, Oct. 10. Detectives have been assigned and are actively locating and interviewing.”