Shocking footage posted online shows a Wellington woman telling a Filipino family to "go home", after saying New Zealand "is for white people".
Krizia Alexa Egipto, 18, captured the video while visiting Wellington with her family from Invercargill last week. As the family were buying coffee and Lotto tickets at a Night 'n Day store on Manners St, a lady sitting nearby unleashed a racist tirade.
Ms Egipto, a student at Southern Institute of Technology, says it all started when a Filipino man spoke to the family as they purchased their coffee. Her parents had a casual chat with him, and that's when the lady allegedly told them to "be quiet".
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The elderly lady gave the family "a bad look", Ms Egipto says, before allegedly yelling, "Don't come back here anymore. You're not welcome here. This is only for white people. This country is for white people only."
When the woman had finished her racist spurt, Ms Egipto says she confronted her, calling the cigarette smoking-woman a "racist b****". Ms Egipto says she felt "hurt so bad" after hearing what the woman said to her and her family.
"After telling the staff and the manager they [asked] the lady straight away if she could leave the shop as they don't tolerate those kinds of people in their shop," Ms Egipto said on Facebook.
But the ordeal didn't stop there. Ms Egipto said her family came across the woman again as they explored the capital city, and she started "being racist to us again". Ms Egipto then began filming some of the woman's actions.
The footage shows the woman saying, "It's simple, no big deal. Go home. You have a country. You're displacing white people, like that man on the street."
Ms Egipto can be heard trying to explain to the woman that the family have visas and the legal right to be in New Zealand. The video has since been viewed 69,000 times and shared by over 400 people on social media.
"We all have the right to stay in whatever country that we wanted to because we have our own visas and we did a legal process for us to have this," she said on Facebook.
People were quick to come to the family's defence on social media, with one user commenting, "How awful to be treated that way, good on you for standing up for yourself."
Another posted the address and contact details for New Zealand's Human Rights Commission, seeming to suggest the family lay a complaint.
"I would never [have] thought that I would experience racism and this kind of situation in my life," Ms Egipto said on Facebook. "But there are still nice people who approached me and gave me a hug because they saw what I did to the lady."
"I really appreciate those people who approached and gave me a hug earlier. I would not let other people discriminate us, especially when I'm with my family."
"Whatever country that you came from and whatever colour you have, racism is not okay."
Newshub.
