Black Man Harassed By White Neighbor In UES Building

UPPER EAST SIDE, NY — A video of a black man being interrogated and harassed by a white neighbor in their Upper East Side building has been viewed more than a million times and has shed light on racial profiling in the liberal Manhattan neighborhood.

Chika Okafor, a producer for sports publication Bleacher Report, was accosted on Wednesday, Dec. 20 while waiting in his building lobby with a friend, according to Okafor's social media post. The two black men were confronted after the white resident entered the building and said "who the f*** are these guys?" according to a video of the confrontation.

"What are you doing in my building? You don't live here," the white man says, adding that he's lived in the building for 27 years.

The exchange grows increasingly intense during the two-minute video, with the white man continuously asking Okafor for his name and apartment number. The man continues to berate Okafor and his friend as they leave the building, saying toward the end of the video "put it in YouTube, I could give a f*** about YouTube."

Video of the confrontation has 1.4 million views on Twitter and another 38,000 on Facebook. Okafor wrote that the neighbor's conduct was "appalling but honestly, not surprising because far too many times people of color have been victims of this kind of behavior."

Social media users dubbed the man, who has not been identified, as "Hallway Harry" and "Corridor Carl" — echoing reactions to other viral videos where black people are harassed by white people while doing everyday activities.

Okafor told the New York Times that he's lived in the Upper East Side building for a year and reported his neighbor to building management, which refused to take action. The encounter left Okafor feeling "insulted" and "violated" he told the Times.

"To me, his behavior suggested that, one, because we were people of color we were a threat to their safety, and, two, because we are people of color we can’t afford to live in that type of apartment complex," Okafor told the Times.

Watch the full video below:

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