David Small, a private investigator, appears to have attended a stranger’s funeral service. He got up to make derogatory remarks about Chinese people following the eulogy by the woman’s son, Adrian Wong. The video was shared on Reddit’s “Cringe” subreddit, where it quickly shot to the top.
The video was shared on YouTube by Wong with two separate camera angles. Wong writes about the interruption by Small:
I tried my best to honor my mother Carol Tan Wong who passed away from stage 4 lung cancer on March 2, 2017. She was not a smoker, not exposed to second hand smoke, and went to the doctors as soon as she had a cough that didn’t look like a regular cold. She was simply unlucky. A bigoted funeral attendee – David Small made an impromptu speech afterwards dishonored her memory when he didn’t even know her and used the platform to made racist comments towards Chinese/Asian people. Incense burning and cigarette smoking are not only practiced by the “Asian” community wouldn’t it be more appropriate to talk about religions rather than ethnicity in terms of incense burning. My family doesn’t practice incense burning. To be singled out and implored as representatives of the Asian to fix these issues is abhorrent. Not every Asian person attends an “Asian Church” nor should those that attend be singled out for incense burning or cigarette smoking. What about cigarette smoking by whites, blacks, and hispanics? Or cigarette smoking in general? What happens if I spoke at a Russian funeral and said excess consumption of vodka lead to the person’s early death and I implore them to address this “cultural” issue? Would that be ok? He needs to be held accountable by the community and answer for his ignorant speech.
A second angle of Small’s speech can be viewed below.
Small is the owner of litigationsupportpi.com and is a resident of Massachusetts, like Wong.
According to CBS Boston, Small has issued an apology to the Wongs.