Rebekah Lee thought she was only taking a nice picture of herself at a ramen and yakitori restaurant. When she zoomed in, she realized she may have captured a photo of a child learning a racist gesture.
According to the TODAY Show, Lee was dining at Ton Ton in Atlanta, Georgia, on November 13 when the photo was taken. In the background of the photo, a child can be seen copying a woman as she makes a slanted-eye gesture.
Lee and her companion didn’t notice the gesture in the photo until after they had left the restaurant. She told the TODAY Show that she heard giggling and laughter behind her but assumed the behavior was “normal for a family dinner with a young child.”
“It was incredibly unbelievable that those two were doing a racist gesture like this in public in an Asian space,” she told the TODAY Show. “I couldn’t believe the publicity of that act and the shock to see a recreation of a racial taunt I hadn’t seen since elementary school.”
Twitter users online also expressed their surprise that the woman was making the gesture in an Asian restaurant.
“imagine enjoying our food and still manage to hate the people,” one user wrote.
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