NYPD Lt. Rasheena Huffman admitted to using racial slurs “ch*nky eyes” and “high yellow” in front of her subordinates on Tuesday, New York Daily News reports.
Huffman claims that she did not realize those phrases were offensives. She said that growing up people would use the term “ch*nky eyes” to refer to the eyes of a cute baby. She thought the word meant adorable.
“I was just told that, to Asian people, it’s derogatory. People are adding things to what I said to make me sound crazy or unprofessional,” Huffman said.
Huffman claims that newspapers published accusations about comments Huffman never made.
“They put it in the newspaper in regards to the accusations, saying that I had said these comments of things I never said,” Huffman said. “People in my daughter’s school saw it. My neighbors saw it.”
Huffman is also involved in a lawsuit filed by an NYPD officer. According to NBC News, Officer Vanessa Weinbel claims that Huffman, who was her supervisor at the time, made sexually and racially offensive comments to her from July 2016 to March 2018.
Weinbel says that Huffman told other officers that Weinbel looked like a “Kardashian chick” and that’s “why Black men liked her.” When Huffman discovered that Weinbel had a Black boyfriend she said, “He probably isn’t even Black.”
Weinbel said higher-ups did nothing about her complaints. The $15 million federal lawsuit she filed is still pending.
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