Uber reportedly fired a Florida driver this week after he racially harassed a black rider.
Javon O’Neal was taking a ride to work on Thursday morning when he said his driver began calling him the N-word, according to a local ABC affiliate.
O’Neal, who is black, told the local station that’s when he took out his cellphone and began recording the driver, who is white.
{mosads}He later shared the video in a post on Facebook, saying, “Racism still exists.”
O’Neal said during the ride, which lasted for roughly eight minutes, a driver listed on the Uber app as “Michael” began to discuss politics and race relations.
O’Neal said it was around that time that the drive began repeatedly using the slur.
“I’m still terrified about it,” Quita Conyers, O’Neal’s mother, told the station, adding that if her son hadn’t handled the racial incident as well, things could’ve gotten much worse.
“I know for a fact if my son would’ve scratched his head, he might’ve been dead today,” said Conyers.
O’Neal said in a statement to Uber following the ride that the experience made him “feel very uncomfortable emotionally and exhausted and not comfortable with getting another Uber.”
Uber issued a statement to The Salem News following the incident.
“As soon as we were made aware of this, we removed the driver’s access from the app,” a spokesperson for the driving company said.