NEW YORK: An Indian-origin CEO was asked to “go back to India” and take along with him the US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley. US-born Ravin Gandhi, 44, founder and CEO of GMM Nonstick Coatings, was trolled and racially abused by readers after he wrote an op-ed for CNBC following President Donald Trump's Charlottesville remarks.
“I recently told the New York Times I was 'rooting' for certain aspects of Trump's economic agenda. After Charlottesville and its aftermath, I will not defend Trump even if the Dow hits 50,000, unemployment goes to 1 per cent, and GDP grows by 7 per cent. Some issues transcend economics, and I will not in good conscience support a president who seems to hate Americans who don't look like him,” he wrote. Hundreds of white supremacists came to the street to clash with counter demonstrators at a rally in Charlottesville on August 12, in which a 32 year old woman was killed, and 19 injured.
Gandhi's op-ed clearly did not go down well, as he was soon bombarded by hate comments on his piece. He even received a voicemail from a woman who said Gandhi should “get your (expletive) garbage and go back to India.” Using abusive and inappropriate language, the woman said he should also take “that other half (expletive) Bangladesh (expletive) with you, Nikki Haley.” “She's (Haley) the one that started all this when she took down the Confederate flag. So don't tell us that you gave him a chance. We don't give a (expletive) who you gave a chance, OK? We're going to start taking down Buddhist statues and see how you and Nikki Haley like that,” the woman said.
The woman also asked Gandhi to “go clean up your own (expletive) country, it's a filthy mess.” Gandhi posted the voicemail to his YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook, also sharing some of the nastier emails he received. “It was obvious that people thought my professional position somewhat protected me. I wanted to show people that racism is blind to socio-economics. It just is. Even though my race is a complete non-issue in my day-to-day life, the sad reality is there's a group of racists in the USA that views me as a second-class citizen.”
“I wanted my peers in the business community, the civic community, my friend community to see that this can happen to me. Because there's this delusion that racism is dead because Obama was elected.” Gandhi added that the fact that Trump “equated hate groups with those protesting hate lit me up” as he called Trump's moral leadership on the issue “reprehensible.”
