A TikTok video showing one customer making bigoted, racist comments toward other customers at an East Bay In-N-Out restaurant has gone viral.
The video shows an incident that happened on the night of Dec. 24, the person who uploaded the TikTok said. The video was posted on Dec. 25 and already had more than 6.9 million views as of Sunday night. The San Ramon police chief has also taken notice of the video and is requesting more information about this incident.
NBC Bay Area was the first to speak with the college students who took the video. The two friends say they were harassed by another customer at the restaurant.
Arine Kim, who grew up in Moraga and now attends UCLA, and Elliot Ha, who grew up in Livermore and now attends Duke University, were both back in the Bay Area for the winter break. They met up at the In-N-Out in San Ramon on Christmas Eve with the goal of filming a TikTok video about special menu items at the restaurant. The two said they arrived at the restaurant at around 10 p.m., placing their order at around 10:20 p.m.
The two had begun filming themselves with Kim's iPhone, when another customer approached them.
“Are you guys filming yourselves eating?,” the other customer can be heard asking on the video posted to Kim's TikTok.
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"Yeah," Ha replies.
“You’re weird homosexuals,” the customer said to Ha and Kim. Ha and Kim look shocked and confused.
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Later on, the customer asks Ha, "Are you Japanese or Korean?"
Ha replies, "I'm Korean."
The customer replies, "Yeah, you're Korean, that's what I thought. You're Kim Jong-Un's boyfriend, huh?"
Ha continues to speak to the customer, but Kim encourages him to stop talking.
"Normally, I could spit in your face, that's some Filipino [expletive]" the customer replies.
Both Ha and Kim look uncomfortable, with Kim urging Ha not to react.
In the TikTok video, which is an edited version of the video Kim recorded on her phone, the customer is seen continuing to approach Kim and Ha while spewing homophobic slurs.
The customer can be heard saying abruptly, "See you outside in a minute." Kim said what you can't see in the TikTok she posted is the man walking outside and proceeding to stare at the two friends through the window for around 15 minutes. She said she felt like this man was threatening her and her friend with violence.
"I think the thing that had me shaking the most was when he told us to meet him outside and just kept staring at us," Kim said.
Kim said that she and Ha waited at the restaurant until it was closed, then had restaurant employees walk with them out to make sure they reached their cars safely. By that time, Kim said it appeared the man had left.
Kim, who is Korean-American, said that growing up in Moraga, "I have heard enough dog eating jokes and Kim Jong-Un jokes since like I was in elementary school." She said she has been called racial slurs when she's gone walking in San Francisco, and she remembers feeling scared seeing violence against Asian American and Pacific Islander elders in the Bay Area during the pandemic.
But Kim said she the incident in San Ramon is the most overt confrontation she has had with racism yet.
"I think also with the model minority myth, a lot of people don’t take these kinds of situations very seriously," Kim said, pausing as she wiped tears from her eyes.
"We happened to handle the situation relatively well, but had it been anyone else, had someone actually wanted to fight, had someone been older than me or weaker than me or whatever it might be, it is really heartbreaking," Kim said, "I think that reality really sunk in for me, especially just kind of watching it back on the video."
Kim said that she posted the video hoping others would take notice.
Her friend Elliot Ha felt similarly.
"For every act caught on camera, there are hundreds that go unchecked, so I am hoping more awareness is brought to this," Ha said.
Ha noted that while he'd experienced racist, anti-Asian comments online, this was the first time he'd been the target of those comments in person.
Ha wanted to add that the restaurant workers at In-N-Out were helpful and friendly when he and Kim approached them with their concerns.
Kim's TikTok video appears to have caught the attention of San Ramon police. The Twitter account listed as belonging to San Ramon police Chief Denton Carlson posted on Dec. 25 asking the people behind the video to get in touch with him.
Kim said that she got in touch with Carlson on Twitter, which she describes as "the most Gen Z thing ever." Since then, Kim said she has been messaging with Carlson about the incident. Additionally, Kim said she passed along information to San Ramon police about another similar incident in Danville on Dec. 25 which someone else alerted her to.
NBC Bay Area reached out to In-N-Out for comment about the incident as well, but did not hear back yet as of Monday morning.
