UPDATED 3/25, 10:45 a.m. ET: Following news of the racist verbal abuse he endured from Stephanie Denaro, Davidovich Bakery employee Vic has been getting lots of love. He told TMZ that on his shift on Wednesday, “one guy handed him a $100 bill in an envelope while another gifted him a $100 Metro card to help with his commute.”
The bakery’s tip jar has also been overflowing, and some have even phoned to ask for Vic’s Venmo. “But, another customer felt helping Vic get rid of Karen’s negative energy or any she left behind in the bakery was more important,” the site writes, “so she gave him some sage.”
A complaint was also filed with police and multiple attorneys have approached Vic should he choose to take action against Denaro, although it sounds like that’s not his plan. “In fact,” TMZ writes, “Vic tells us he mostly wants his experience to be a lesson for others in his position on how a person of color can react to a racist.”
Denaro has been banned not only from the bakery but the entire Essex Market on the Lower East Side. Security guards have reportedly been told to keep an eye out for her.
See original story below.
While the vaccine rollout here in the States gives us all good cause to dabble in cautious optimism, it’s hard not to let out an exasperated scream whenever we’re all forcibly reminded of the continued presence of anti-maskers.
In one of the more inflammatory examples of anti-masker-ism in recent memory, we have footage now making the usual rounds in which a Trump-supporting white woman is seen calling a bakery employee in Manhattan the n-word after being told to wear a mask. As a reminder, we’re more than a year into the pandemic now, yet there are still quite a few people who want to insist on stirring up an ill-informed conspiratorial ruckus whenever they’re asked to do something that should be second nature at this point.
The video in question was taken at Davidovich Bakery on the Lower East Side, and sees the woman—later self-identified in a New York Daily Newsinterview as Stephanie Denaro—standing in line with her children. At one point, a security guard at the establishment informs the employee that he doesn’t have to serve Denaro if he doesn’t want to.
“Why? Because he’s a bitch-ass n****r? … That’s what he is,” she said in response. “That’s what he is, bitch-ass n-word. I just said it. You heard it. It doesn’t affect me that you’re not going to serve me, because you’re a bitch.”
When someone points out that she called the employee the n-word, she is heard saying “I can call him whatever I want.”
Speaking with the Daily News, the worker (who elected not to be identified) confirmed this all went down around 3 p.m. local time on Sunday and ended with the woman being escorted out of the restaurant by security. Security called 911, but the woman left the area while they were making the call. In the same report, Denaro defended her use of the n-word by saying “all of my children have a Black father.” And as for the footage going viral, she expressed excitement while revealing that she buys into a dangerous conspiracy theory.
“It’s actually great, because they’re forcing people in New York City to wear masks,” Denaro, who’s described in the report as a white woman, was quoted as saying. “It’s political theater. I don’t believe in COVID-19. It’s a hoax to convince people to use absentee ballots to steal the election from Donald Trump.”
In a statement shared to Facebook on Tuesday a rep for Davidovich Bakery thanked their employee for how he handled all of this.
“We intend to make it clear that this customer or anyone who uses racism and any insensitive language, simply is not welcome in our stores,” the rep said.
Over on Reddit, someone shared a video they alleged showed the same woman, this time comparing coronavirus to the flu while wearing a red MAGA hat. Others have also found instances where Denaro allegedly claimed she was Black:
