The hashtag #IStandWithErica trended on Twitter on Saturday after a black Georgia state lawmaker said she was told to “go back where you came from” as she shopped at a grocery store.
State Rep. Erica Thomas (D), minority vice chairwoman in the Georgia state House, tweeted Friday that she was “verbally assaulted” at the supermarket by a white man who told her she was “a lazy SOB” because she had more than the maximum items to enter an express lane.
Thomas recounted the exchange in a Facebook Live video that has since been reposted to Twitter.
“I’m at the grocery store, and I’m in the aisle that says ’10 items or less.’ Yes, I have 15 items, but I’m nine months pregnant, and I can’t stand up for long,” Thomas says in the video through tears. “And this white man comes up to me and says, ‘You lazy son of a bitch.'”
“He says, ‘You lazy son of a bitch. You need to go back where you came from,'” Thomas continues, adding that she tried to explain that she was pregnant and not lazy. “It hurt me so bad. … I couldn’t get anything out. I could just tell him, ‘Please leave me alone.'”
Hundreds used the hashtag to show support for Thomas, including actress Patricia Arquette, who tweeted Saturday that the video was “MANDATORY VIEWING” and added that “WE WILL NOT ALLOW THIS CANCER TO GROW.”
The now-viral video comes less than a week after President Trump attacked a group of minority progressive congresswomen — Democratic Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.), Ilhan Omar (Minn.), Ayanna Pressley (Mass.) and Rashida Tlaib (Mich.) — tweeting Sunday that they should “go back” to their home countries despite the fact that all four are U.S. citizens and only Omar was born outside the U.S.
At a campaign rally in North Carolina on Wednesday, supporters erupted into “send her back” chants targeting Omar after Trump attacked the freshman congresswoman, who came to the U.S. as a Somali refugee when she was a child.