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Latinos are bullied on ‘What Would You Do?’ premiere



Would you join in the hurtful taunts from the clerk and customers, stand there in silence, walk away or offer help and support to the berated Latinos?

San Antonio’s own John Quinones of ABC News, a Mexican-American who is no stranger to prejudice himself, presents this very scenario in tonight’s premiere of ABC News’ PrimeTime series, “What Would You Do?” It airs at 9 p.m.

Using hidden cameras, the series captures people’s reactions to staged situations that are not only provocative but beg for action — or at least a reaction — from bystanders. The series had a brief, but successful, run last summer, and is back in full force.

Some of the situations are playful, others are very serious.

One of the graver ones involve the aforementioned treatment of Latino workers in a New Jersey deli.

As the two men, who are really actors, try to order in limited English, the clerk reacts in disgust, indicating he would like them to leave.

Although some customers act passively to the situation, others make no secret of their feelings.

Upon hearing the cashier’s attacks on the Latino laborers, customer Darick Maxis, an African-American man, joins in with the racist remarks by the clerk.

“If you want to make you leave, I’ll make you leave,” he tells the Latinos. “So, leave. That’s all I gotta say. Leave!”

When ABC’s Quinones, host and correspondent on the show, eventually enters with cameras rolling and informs him that the exchange was a TV experiment and the men and clerk are actually actors, Maxis doesn’t let up. He continues to rant, even asking Quinones if he’s Mexican, too.

“You know what I think?” Maxis then asks. “I think they’re taking our jobs because we ain’t got no jobs.”

Later, however, we watch as he calms down and ponders the matter. Maxis then says he regrets what he said, explaining he got caught up in the heat of the moment.

Quinones surrounds each scenario with other points of view, usually from a psychologist, and in the aforementioned case, a real Latino day laborer named Mario Rodriguez. He also speaks little English and says he has suffered repeatedly from similar discrimination.

At one point, while he’s watching the “What Would You Do?” video with Quinones, his eyes fill up with tears from his own memories.

Not that there aren’t some hopeful moments during a similar ABC experiment. When “What Would You Do?” sent two Hispanic women into the deli the next day to buy coffee and a bagel, many were outraged by the clerk’s racist comments.

One man grew outraged. “If you can’t deal with this country and how we accept other people, you don’t belong working here,” he told the clerk.

When Irish-American Joanne Murphy heard the clerk refuse the Latinas and say they weren’t Americans, she responded passionately. “Neither are my parents,” she said.

It’s truly enlightening TV. Another segment in the hour goes overseas and has the French reacting to obnoxious American tourists. Ooh-la-la.

Another scenario poses the question: How would people handle witnessing a stranger slip a suspicious powder into his unsuspecting date’s drink?

One future segment has a more lighthearted feel, however. We watch how people waiting to pay for groceries respond to a man, who pleads to cut in line, when they discover that their kindness allows him to win a cash prize that should have gone to them.

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Jeanne Jakle