Recently a video has been circulating that shows African-Americans destroying a car for having pro-Trump bumper stickers and decals. The video fancies itself a ‘social experiment’, in which a man named Joey Salads planting this Trump car in a “black neighborhood.” Salads claimed that this video was an experiment to show what people in this neighborhood would do to this car, and concludes by saying “the black community is very violent against Trump and his supporters.” It’s bad enough that this video tries to support racist ideas, but it's made worse by the fact that Salads' experiment is fake.
Salads uploaded his video earlier this week, and was quickly proven to be fake by spectators, who took their own videos of the actors behind Salads' camera. Salads has since apologized for faking the video, but only after evidence was released that proved Salads' video was fake.
There are three main reason I can think of that could explain why Salads would do this, but none of them offer any sort of justification. First off, Salads could be a Trump supporter who feels that Trump needs more votes from the African-American community. Salads claims at the end of the video, “there were people out the window yelling ‘F Trump.’ After filming I talked to some of the spectators, who were black, and they said that they did lowkey support Trump.” It’s as if Salads is trying to convince African-Americans that their disliking of Trump comes from peer pressure. If this is the case, this is a very malicious use of misinformation.
The second explanation could be that Salads is simply a racist. This is an argument that could be dismissed if this was the only video that shows this side of Salads. But that’s not the case. Only a couple of weeks ago, Salads uploaded a different fake experiment in which he held up “All Lives Matter” signs in an African-American Neighborhood. In this experiment, Salads of course gets physically assaulted. Again, this video is also faked by Salads, which makes two videos that portray African-Americans as uncivilized and violent.
The third explanation could be that Salads simply wants attention. He seems to be taking advantage of unstable race relations and controversy surrounding the election. By manipulating these topics, Salads has gained millions of views. Salads gets paid through YouTube based on the amount of ads played on his video, so more views would mean more money in Salads’ wallet.
It could be any one of these reasons, or it could be all three. As much as I like to give people the benefit of the doubt, there seems to be no justified explanation for Salads’ videos. Faking an experiment is bad enough on its own, but faking an experiment to promote racist ideas and make money is just sleazy.
