A 'F--- Donald Trump' yard sign sent angry man to Charlotte couple's front door

Tin Nguyen and his partner, Cat Bao Le, say they will continue to confront white supremacists and hatred after an unknown white man banged on their door, yelled racial slurs, threatened to call police, and argued with them about a sign in their yard that says “F--- Donald Trump.”

The man told Nguyen and Le, “I’m gonna get you, n-----.”

Nguyen is a 38-year-old lawyer in Charlotte who defends people in immigration cases and whose mother and father were refugees from Vietnam in the late 1970s. Le, 37, is also Vietnamese-American and is executive director of the Southeast Asian Coalition, a youth and advocacy organization in Charlotte.

What happened to them is the latest in a string of high-profile cases where a white person is captured on cellphone video demeaning a person of color or threatening to call police.

“They want to police everything that we do,” Nguyen said Tuesday, speaking to reporters in front of his home.

There, the sign still stands.

“The president deserves this sign. He deserves this big middle finger,” Nguyen said.

He and Le also have a yard sign welcoming refugees, a “Black Lives Matter” sign, and a sign opposing the arrest and deportation of immigrants.

“We want Charlotte to continue to resist white supremacy at all levels,” Le said.

Those yard signs brought anger to their door inside a quiet neighborhood where they live in east Charlotte, where families walk on the street together and small brick homes with tidy yards line the road.

It’s there that Nguyen and Le opened their front door to an unidentified man Sunday morning. The man, whose identity the Observer could not confirm, was white with dark hair. He was driving a blue Dodge pick-up truck and wearing blue jeans, a blue T-shirt and white sneakers.

He told Nguyen he didn’t vote for Donald Trump but didn’t like the profanity on the sign.

“If it said Hillary Clinton, I wouldn’t give a f---, dude,” the man is seen and heard saying on the video. “I voted for Bernie Sanders, motherf-----.”

Nguyen tells him: “Get the f--- off my property right now.”

First, the stranger appears to turn to leave but instead, he stays to argue.

His tirade quickly escalated beyond the yard sign.

The man then threatened to call the police, claiming he smelled marijuana coming from the house. And he taunted Nguyen, telling him, “I built this country. ... I own two homes in this neighborhood. What y’all own? You don’t even own this house. You don’t own s---. You never will.”

The man also commented on another yard sign that says: “Refugees welcome here.” Referring to refugees, he said: “Move them on in, they’ll steal everything you own.”

In the video, the man is seen and heard using the f-word multiple times, as well as other profane language and gestures.

A video of the incident had more than 100,000 views on Facebook and other social media sites by Tuesday.

Similar videos and stories have gone viral across the country over the past year as political and social tensions over Trump’s presidency have spilled over into everyday citizens’ lives.

In Los Angeles in December, a woman in a Trump T-shirt and a man wearing American flag shorts taunted a family of Palestinian-Americans and called a young child a “terrorist.” In March, in Berkeley, Calif., a man in a “Make America Great Again” hat called a liberal bookstore owner “commie scum” and threatened to burn down her business.

Republicans have also pointed to acts of mistreatment in a divided political climate.

On the same weekend Nguyen was accosted at his home, six Republican campaign workers reported being thrown out of their Uber after talking politics. They claim they were abruptly dropped off in a parking lot 10 minutes from their destination and told by the driver, “Welcome to the resistance.”

While anger exists on both sides, there’s a feeling among many people that harassment of minorities is increasing since Trump became president, says Dr. Adolphus Belk, a professor at Winthrop University and an expert on race and ethnic politics.

“I can’t really call it stunning anymore,” he said. “It’s become commonplace. ... All of this is happening in a context where the things that are going on in our national politics are filtering down to state and local communities.”

Trump’s own attitude and language toward racial minorities, Belk said, appears to have emboldened white people in the United States to attack, harass and demean people of color.

“A fully charged cellphone in this environment is important to one’s well-being,” Belk said.

The threat of violence against minorities and others at the hands of white nationalists should be taken seriously, he said, citing the death of Heather Heyer, who was protesting at a “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Va., in December 2017.

“This happens to our communities all the time,” Le said of racial slurs, threats to call police, and mistreatment.

She and Nguyen say the word “f---” is appropriate to use in response to Trump’s politics and actions. If children see the sign, Nguyen said, parents should explain the word to them and explain why someone would feel that way about Trump.

A neighbor, Melissa Guzman, said she and her five young children pass the sign in their car almost daily.

“It’s just a word. It’s just a sign,” she said, adding that her children know Trump and do not like him.

“I support them,” she said of her neighbors Nguyen and Le.

Nguyen and Le said that about an hour after the incident on Sunday, they found a note on their door from the man who had accosted them. He tried to apologize and said, “I don’t want anything to come of this,” Le said.

But they said posting the video publicly and putting the man’s face and actions on social media should be a reminder to others that mistreating and harassing people will have consequences.

The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department said it did not receive a call from the man seen in the video about Nguyen and Le’s house or signs. CMPD spokesman Lt. Brad Koch said while the word “f---” is profane, the sign contains protected speech under the First Amendment of the Constitution and is not communicating a threat of violence.

He added that had Nguyen and Le called 911 about the man on their property, the man might have been charged with trespassing if he refused to leave.

However, Nguyen and Le say they do not use 911 or call CMPD because they and people in their community are worried about police violence.

This story was originally published July 17, 2018 at 9:05 PM with the headline "A 'F--- Donald Trump' yard sign sent angry man to Charlotte couple's front door."