The lawyer who shot to ignominy last week with a racist rant at a Manhattan lunch spot apologised Tuesday on social media, where a video of his threat to call immigration agents on Spanish-speaking workers had first gone viral.
Aaron Schlossberg, 42, a lawyer who founded his own firm, said he was “deeply sorry” and insisted: “What the video did not convey is the real me. I am not racist.” He acknowledged, however, that his behaviour was inappropriate.
“Seeing myself online opened my eyes — the manner in which I expressed myself is unacceptable and is not the person I am,” Schlossberg wrote.
Schlossberg went on to say that he moved to New York City because of its diversity and loved “this country and this city, in part because of immigrants” — claims that immediately rang hollow to at least two New Yorkers: Rep. Adriano Espaillat, D-New York, who was born in the Dominican Republic, and Ruben Diaz Jr., the Bronx borough president.
A mariachi band plays as demonstrators gather for a "Latin Party" and protest outside the Manhattan apartment of Aaron Schlossberg in New York City. Source: AAP
Last week they filed a grievance with the New York State Unified Court System against Schlossberg.
“It’s too little too late,” Espaillat said in an interview. “Clearly, this is a pattern of behaviour he has had and this is the first time he got caught.”
Espaillat was referring to two widely circulated videos of Schlossberg’s public outbursts, one at a conservative rally, another when he accosted a man on Fifth Avenue for being a foreigner. The man was born in the United States.
In the incident last week, Schlossberg assailed the manager and customers with insults about their being on welfare; he assumed that because servers preparing lunch at Fresh Kitchen were speaking Spanish to customers, they were unauthorised. “My next call will be to ICE,” he said, referring to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.
Schlossberg’s rant angered activists for immigrant rights, who said it reinforced stereotypes that Spanish speakers are not citizens. And they worried that it perpetuated fear within immigrant communities of ICE’s aggressive enforcement.
Espaillat said Schlossberg’s rant was in line with the climate of xenophobia throughout the country, though it was remarkable that it happened in New York City, he said.
Most problematic, Espaillat said, the vitriolic video showed Schlossberg’s inherent bias were he to represent a man who speaks Spanish. (His firm’s website lists services in four languages: Spanish, French, Chinese and Hebrew.)
“What if things did not go well for that particular client?” Espaillat said. “That client can assume that it was because of how he feels about people who speak another language.”
In the days after his outburst, Schlossberg received thousands of messages of protest on social media, and angry reviews of his firm were posted. He was filmed hiding behind an umbrella to duck reporters last week. New York’s Commission on Human Rights appeared at Fresh Kitchen on Friday to tell employees how to file a complaint.
And then, the outrage reached a crescendo when a mariachi band appeared at a rally with several hundred people in front of Schlossberg’s apartment in Manhattan.
Diaz, like Espaillat, dismissed the Twitter apology. “I have a hard time believing that this apology is sincere and not simply an attempt to stop the enormous public outcry and pressure he has faced over the past week,” Diaz said.
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