New York, August 23
An Indian-origin CEO was racially abused and told to "go back to India" and also take along Nikki Haley after he said that he will not support President Donald Trump's economic agenda after the US leader appeared to defend white supremacists following the Virginia violence.
US-born Ravin Gandhi, 44 founder and CEO of GMM Nonstick Coatings, a global supplier of coatings for cookware and bakeware, wrote an op-ed for CNBC following Trump's Charlottesville remarks but was quickly trolled and racially abused by readers, the Chicago Tribune reported.
. @RavinGandhi1 I am told on a daily basis to go back to India. Like you, I was born here and proud of my roots. Thanks for speaking out.
— Ameya Pawar (@Ameya_Pawar_IL) August 22, 2017
"I recently told the New York Times I was 'rooting' for certain aspects of Trump's economic agenda," Gandhi wrote in the op-ed.
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"After Charlottesville and its aftermath, I will not defend Trump even if the Dow hits 50,000, unemployment goes to 1 per cent, and GDP grows by 7 per cent. Some issues transcend economics, and I will not in good conscience support a president who seems to hate Americans who don't look like him."
Hundreds of white supremacists clashed with counter demonstrators at a rally in Charlottesville on August 12 in which a 32-year-old woman was killed and 19 injured when a car drove into a crowd of protesters.
Gandhi posted the voicemail to YouTube, Twitter and Facebook and shared some of the nastier emails he received as well, the report said.
"I wanted my peers in the business community, the civic community, my friend community to see that this can happen to me. Because there's this delusion that racism is dead because Obama was elected."