Facebook screenshot Nancy Goodman
A group of girlfriends dining at a Raleigh, North Carolina restaurant bar were being “loud” and “rude,” 71-year-old Nancy Goodman said confronting them. As she was being recorded, Goodman called one of the women a “stupid n****r.”
Goodman later told local TV news she’d say it again.
The three women who were dining together are African-American.
According to her LinkedIn profile, Goodman, who studied at the Pan American Business School, worked as an administrative clerk for the North Carolina General Assembly for nearly two decades and is apparently now retired. Her now scrubbed Facebook page showed she is originally from Virginia and lives in Raleigh.
Goodman was asked by a reporter if she knew how offensive the racial slur is and she answered, “Yes, I do, that’s why I said it.”
Here’s what you need to know:
1. Girlfriends at a Get-Together at the Bar at a Bonefish Grill Were Confronted by Goodman, Who Called Them the ‘Rudest People Ever’ Before Using the N-Word
Chanda Stewart began recording because she was incredulous that Goodman would approach the group.
“I am shocked because this person has the audacity to come to our table and tell us we are the rudest people that she has ever met,” Stewart says as she records Goodman who is standing near the bar and waving, gesturing and laughing. Goodman then takes out her own phone and walks toward the woman’s table with her phone up as to record them.
As she approaches the table she says, “I have some really good friends who are black and I love them,” she says with her phone recording.
“We never said anything about color,” one woman says as Goodman is heard saying her black friends would never “act like that,” apparently meaning being too loud. “You’re too loud.”
“In your opinion. Let me show you my money. It’s just as green as yours.”
Goodman says, “Why are you so stupid ‘n******?”
2. ‘Call Your Black Friends a N****r? You Call Your Black Friends N****r?’
The women are stunned.
“Call your black friends n****r? You call your black friends n****r?”
Goodman shakes her head: “They’re not like you.”
In her Facebook video caption, Stewart wrote:
“So this happened today. What was supposed to be dinner with my girlfriends ended up in us being called stupid niggers. The climate of the country today has some people thinking whatever they feel….they can say. The reality is if we were to retaliate with this same kind of hate and ignorance we would be called ‘angry black women.’
As I prepare my child for the real world these are some of the people I prepare her for. The hateful, prejudiced, racists who think we should all “go back to where we came from.”
Hopefully this idiot is not your coworker, neighbor, or friend. If so….what will you do with this information??
‘Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.’ Dr. Martin Luther King.”
Goodman works for the state of North Carolina at the State House. Her LinkedIn shows she’s still working there but reports say she’s retired.
“North Carolina. The “Send Her Back” state. Nancy Goodman is a racist piece of garbage and I feel empathy for this small child she is smiling in Bigot next to.? SideNote: I’m starting to notice a pattern with White Evangelicals ?”
3. Goodman Was Interviewed on Local TV & Said She Would ‘Say it Again.’ On Facebook, She Called the Women ‘Rude, Loud, Obnoxious Black Women’
In an interview with WRAL, Goodman said, “I’m not going to say I’m sorry to them because they kept pushing at it,” she said. “I would say it again to them. They are the rudest individuals I have ever seen.”
She also told a reporter that she should have asked restaurant management to tell the women to “quiet down,” but said she “it was out of my control to calm down my anxiety.”
4. Goodman Blamed Her Anxiety, the Bar & the Women For Her Using the N-Word But Then Said She Was ‘Ashamed’ & Apologized to Her Family, Friends & Patrons at the Restaurant. But Not the Women
In a Facebook post shared with her friends, as reported by WRAL as her Facebook is set to private, Goodman wrote:
“Tonight on WRAL TV news there will be a news article about me using the N-word in a conflict with three rude, loud, obnoxious black women. I would like to apologize to my family, friends and other patrons at the bar at North Hills Bonefish. The TV reporters came to my house today as they found out my name which that could only happen if the restaurant gave them my information. The women taped me and apparently shared the video all over social media. I suffer from extreme anxiety which is not an excuse. I am ashamed of my actions.”
But later told a reporter that she knows the word n****r is “incredibly offensive” and said that’s why she said it.
Do you see how that’s incredibly offensive?
“Yes I do that’s why I said it. I would say it again to them.”
Nancy Goodman, Raleigh NC.
“Do you see how that’s incredibly offensive?” “Yes I do that’s why I said it. I would say it again to them.”
That she blamed anxiety for her racism did not go over well. In a now-deleted tweet, a woman named Jennifer Harmon wrote: “Don’t even try to blame your racism on “extreme anxiety”. There are many people with mental illness who would not use the n word, ever. Never. Signed, Someone with extreme anxiety
”
5. Bonefish Grill Says its ‘Reviewing the Incident’ as Many Are Outraged. Stewart Wrote ‘I Have Never in My 43 Years of Living Been Called a N****r’
WRAL reported that the restaurant is reviewing the incident: “We are reviewing the incident to see how we can do better at de-escalating something like this in the future.”
Stewart said she has never before been called the n-word.
“I’m still trying to wrap my head around what happened last night. We (minorities), tend to get used to the hateful looks, disregarding, and even ignorant behavior by some, but I have never in my 43 years of living been called a nigger. It’s easy to say what you may do or would have done in this type of situation because I’ve said the same. Although racism is very real it stills seems to catch you off guard. It may be a blessing because if we had time to think about it, it may have ended differently.
Thank you to everyone who has shared the post, reached out, and commented. The love and support has been more than we could have ever imagined or asked for.
This is not the end of this story believe me. ❤️”
Meanwhile, there’s widespread outrage over the incident.
@NCLeg I am a resident of NC and do NOT want my tax dollars funding the salary of this overt racist, Nancy Goodman. I am requesting she be terminated IMMEDIATELY. I know there’s a process but she should be exempted due to her public behavior caught on tape!
“I am a resident of NC and do NOT want my tax dollars funding the salary of this overt racist, Nancy Goodman. I am requesting she be terminated IMMEDIATELY. I know there’s a process but she should be exempted due to her public behavior caught on tape!”