Racial tensions are high in Brooklyn, New York, after several Black women were beaten by Asian owners of a nail salon. The incident took place at the Happy Red Apple Nails Shop where a video was captured by Mercy Maduka.
“So I’m at the nail salon and they f—ed up a lady[‘s] eyebrow[s] and she refused to pay then a fight broke out,” Maduka shared in the caption of the video which was posted on her Facebook page.
A woman paid for her feet and nails once they were done, but was upset about a $5 eyebrow wax job and refused to pay for that particular service. The Asian workers surrounded the woman and two other Black women and began beating them with what appeared to be either metal rods or broomsticks.
The Black women were being held by an Asian male worker who allowed the Asian women to continue hitting them with the sticks. One woman yelled that her grandmother was being hit with a stick during the altercation.
When police arrived at the scene, employee Huiyue Zheng, 32, and customer Christina Thomas, 21, were busted for a variety of charges including misdemeanor assault, harassment and menacing.
Once the video was uploaded to Facebook, it soon went viral. Protests erupted in front of the nail salon where the incident took place. The nail salon remained closed for the day.
One of the Black women involved, known as @fantabby on Instagram, shared her side of the story to her followers on social media. Along with being beaten with sticks, she said the Asian women threw acetone, used to remove nail polish, on their faces.
“My mother, daughter and her friend where [sic] attack[ed] Friday night by a gang of Asian nail technicians. Why? Because my daughter refused to pay them for a botched $5 eyebrow wax. She came in with eyebrows and left without them. Mind you she already paid for both her and my mother’s pedicures. Besides them getting hit with sticks, acetone was thrown on them. Also, one of the gang members had a blade in her hand. My daughter was arrested along with only one of the gang,” she said.
View the video below:
