A married couple who fled Haiti for Virginia achieved their American dream when they opened a variety market on the Eastern Shore, selling hard-to-find spices, sodas and rice to the region’s growing Haitian community.
When they added a Haitian food truck, people drove from an hour away for freshly cooked oxtail, fried plantains and marinated pork.
But Clemene Bastien and Theslet Benoir are now suing the town of Parksley, alleging that it forced their food truck to close. The couple also say a town council member cut the mobile kitchen’s water line and screamed, “Go back to your own country!”
“When we first opened, there were a lot of people” ordering food, Bastien said, speaking through an interpreter. “And the day after, there were a lot of people. And then … they started harassing us.”
This wasn’t about racism, this was about money. I think they would have done the same to anyone who was disrupting how income gets in their pockets. They just chose the racist path with them because of their skin color.
Crazy how they want to control the economy of the town. Probably the same people that preach about the free market and how amazing capitalism is… while it fills their pockets.
“Go back to your own country” isn’t something you yell if you aren’t racist.
I didn’t say racism wasn’t involved. I said the root cause wasn’t racism, it was money.