A deeply angered woman with a Mohawk tried to harass an elderly man for wearing a Make America Great Again hat. However, it didn’t work out quite how she planned.
Rebecca Parker Mankey of Palo Alto, California, boasted on social media after she proudly berated an elderly man for wearing a “Make America Great Again” hat. After spotting the obvious Trump supporter in her liberal city, the 46-year-old Bay-area woman attempted to shame the elderly man, according to Yahoo! Lifestyle. However, it backfired bigly.
After capturing photos of the man in the MAGA hat, Mankey took to Facebook to brag about how she reamed out the 74-year-old at a Starbucks. “Anybody in Palo Alto knows this freak?” Mankey asked alongside the photos of the man, later identified only as Victor F. “He was sitting in Starbucks. I think he lives in Palo Alto.”
“He will never forget me and will think seriously about wearing that hat in my town ever again,” Mankey declared. “If you see him in this hat, please confront him. You do not want to be the person who didn’t speak up as we slipped into fascism,” she continued. But, she was about to regret “speaking up” in a big way.
“I yelled at him,” Mankey boldly admitted, saying she called on the rest of the coffee shop to do the same before she “yelled at him more about how it is not ok to hate brown people.” Mankey said, “He threatened to call the cops,” so she “left after yelling at him some more.” But, she wasn’t done. During her lunch break, she returned to Starbucks for more.
“I went back in and yelled that I had changed my mind and wanted him to call the police because I wanted to know his name, where he lived, his wife’s name, and where his kids went to school,” she wrote. “Get the f*** out of my town and never come back,” Mankey said she yelled at Victor as she followed him outside, calling it “the duty of every white person in America to stand up to this every time they see it.”
Mankey pledged to “publicly shame” the man and “try to get him fired,” writing, “I am going to go to his house and march up and down carrying a sign that says he hates black people. I am going to organize protests where he works to make him feel as unsafe as he made every brown person he met today,” CBS reported.
“Don’t be the person who does nothing to protect our brothers and sisters from this hatred. It is not OK,” Mankey wrote, encouraging others to follow her example as she vowed to ruin the man’s life in a now-deleted comment. Unfortunately for her, people were more interested in making an example out of her than following the one she set.
The Twiter account “Right Hook USA” accused Mankey of “doxing” the old man and threatened to do the same to her, suggesting people call her husband’s boss “to show them the violence their employees’ wife is promoting.” Worried someone would hurt the elderly man, the Twitter user, only identified as Amy, also called the police.
“I was extremely disturbed when I learned that an elderly man was being humiliated and harassed in public by a vicious bully. I was even more saddened to learn that this gentle old Jewish man has been a pillar in the Palo Alto community for over forty years,” Amy said. “I hope and pray that this incident leads to greater tolerance and respect among all Americans, instead of greater hatred and rage.”
The day after Mankey’s infamous post, Bayshore Progressive Democrats, an organization reportedly co-chaired by Mankey, said she and her family were getting death threats. “She wanted to use her privilege as a white woman to stand up for those who are living in fear because of the hateful atmosphere fostered by Trump,” read a website statement. “Unfortunately, the manner in which she chose to stand up against a slogan that stands for racism led to an even stronger hateful response that has endangered her and her family.”
As Mankey’s post garnered negative attention, Mankey resigned from the organization and both she and her husband deactivated their Facebook accounts. Her employer, however, decided to follow-up with a post of their own. “We would like to make it clear that we do not condone harassment or hate speech of any kind. We are currently addressing the matter internally,” wrote Gryphon Stringed Instruments, where Mankey worked as an accountant.
“The employee in question has been terminated,” the store added later. “Gryphon does not believe anyone should be harassed or subject to hate speech no matter their beliefs. Music has historically been something that has brought people of diverse socio-political backgrounds together.” With Mankey resigning her position as co-chair, officer, and member of Bayshore Progressive Democrats, as well as losing her job, this left people wondering what happened to the man she abused.
CBS caught up with Victor just days after Mankey’s post. “This crazy woman came over and started raving at me,” Victor recalled. “She turned to the rest of Starbucks and said, ‘Hey everybody, here’s this racist over here. He hates brown people, he’s crazy, he’s a Nazi,’ and so forth.”
Victor, who wears a yarmulke under his MAGA hat, declined to press charges and a Starbucks representative claims employees at the California Avenue location weren’t aware of the incident until both he and Mankey left. However, Rebecca Parker Mankey couldn’t seem to escape the spotlight.
Weeks after the incident, she was grabbing headlines again. After sparking a national uproar, Mankey was reported missing when she didn’t return home from a trip to Lake County, according to the Lake County Sheriff’s Office. It turned out she had just gone into hiding amid the negative attention.
It seems Mankey learned the hard way that, when you do things for public recognition, you just might get it — but not always in the way you had hoped or planned. Unfortunately for her, she’s receiving very little sympathy since most feel turnabout is fair play.
Source: Tap Worthy Happenings
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