Gerod Roth, an Atlanta man who goes by Geris Hilton on Facebook, has been fired from Polaris Marketing Group after he posted a selfie with his co-worker Sydney Shelton’s 3-year-old son Cayden on September 16 making the little African-American boy a butt of racist jokes. Two others who made bigoted comments on the photo — Tim Zheng and Emily Irene Red — have reportedly been terminated from their jobs.
After Roth made the picture his profile photo, his friends started making extremely racist and derogatory comments on the picture, saying things like, “I didn’t know you were a slave owner”, and “But Massuh, I dindu nuffin”. Roth himself commented that Cayden “was feral”.
“It breaks my heart that Sydney and her adorable son Cayden were subjected to such hateful, ignorant and despicable behavior. Cayden visits my office almost every afternoon after daycare, he’s sat at my dinner table and I consider him a part of the PMG family. The atrocious lies, slander and racism he and his mother have been forced to endure are wholly intolerable,” Michael Da Graca Pinto, president of PMG, said in a statement on Facebook which for some reasons he deleted later.
We are aware of an alleged screenshot of a racially-motivated Facebook post involving a former Polaris Marketing Group…
Posted by Polaris Marketing Group on Tuesday, October 6, 2015
Sydney Jade shared several pictures of her and Cayden on her Facebook page. She also made a statement about the incident in a blog post.
The hashtag #HisNameIsCayden took off, the post and ensuing comments went viral angering social media users.
#GerisHilton is absolutely horrible, I can’t understand why someone would say such horrible things about a 3 year old?! #HisNameIsCayden
— Kate Matschner (@K8rdie) October 7, 2015
Hey. Psssst. Can I tell you a secret? If you’re racist in private, you’re still racist. #HisNameIsCayden — Huskular (@HuskularFL) October 7, 2015
I wish we lived in a world where a mother didn’t have to have a conversation about racists to her three year old son. #HisNameIsCayden
— Nikki Blake (@hey__nikki) October 6, 2015
Looks like picking on a seriously adorable child (#HisNameIsCayden, btw) backfired on this racist douche http://t.co/Y58KUDpprQ via @TheRoot — Jurosek (@jurosek) October 6, 2015
#HisNameIsCayden #IStandWithAhmed This is internet used for good. Repairing damage – done to kids – by terrible people. I’ll take it. — Steve Marmel (@Marmel) October 6, 2015
“You don’t have to teach people how to be human. You have to teach them how to stop being inhuman.” ~Eldridge Cleaver~ || #HisNameIsCayden! — Dante Boykin (@DanteB4u) October 5, 2015
Adults attacking a young child on Facebook because of his skin color, we can never be safe & this is the reason why. pic.twitter.com/aJQbBEwdtu — ebon (@tyriquex) October 1, 2015
Meanwhile, Roth apologized but maintained that he was not entirely at fault. “I just really feel upset, not only with myself, but also the character that was based off the comments that my friends had made. Cayden has been victimized, but I have been targeted,” Roth told FOX 5 Atlanta.
If you are reading this, there is a fairly good chance you think I am deplorable, and with good reason. But before you…
Posted by Geris Hilton on Tuesday, October 6, 2015
Dear people of America, my name is M, & I am Geris’s assistant. As you all may know, he has been labeled as a racist….
Posted by Geris Hilton on Sunday, October 11, 2015
This Article (#HisNameIsCayden: Atlanta Man Pays Heavy Price For Racially Mocking 3-Year-Old Boy On Facebook) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to the author and AnonHQ.com.
seems like people don’t get jokes
you people calling others racist are racist yourselves.
I wouldn’t think of calling someone racist because I don’t see a difference in races I see human. (except islam) lol do you not know you’re black? do you not know you’re white?
24/7 looking for a reason to fight and argue
go *uc* yourselves
Yes he did post the pic and got blamed by whole internet. But then what about those who actually commented offencive comments?? Why only blame him?
It’s never a single person’s fault. Yet, only one will get blamed. As its a trend these days.
The remarks were grossly racist. When he saw what his friends had written, instead of calling them out for it or deleting the photo, he encouraged further racist remarks by stating the child was feral. Claiming that others did worse is not a valid defense. Some people will continue to behave uncivilly until the penalty for doing so becomes so great that they are forced to stop.
Typical behaviour from a moron brought up in a religious world of blind intolerance and hate. We are all the same species with many colours. Race is irrelivent when you consider that the only difference between the races is the climate our ancestors we’re exposed to over millennia.
its the fucking internet ? wtf fuk niggers
Why is it always the illiterate ones who are racists? I can’t be the only one who has noticed this…
A feral child (also called wild child) is a human child who has lived isolated from human contact from a very young age, and has little or no experience of human care, behavior, or, crucially, of human language. It’s not surprising that Roth didn’t understand the meaning. I would actually have been surprised if he did.
You misunderstand his intent. He used the word to mean “feral” the way one would refer to a dog…or an escaped slave, apparently. It was not ignorance; it was an intentionally racist and spiteful comment.
There was 1 comment that could legitimately be considered racist. The one with “massah” in it, which for the sake of the PC Police, he should’ve deleted, unless that comment originated with a chocolate person, in that case removing it would have been racist… Because of course constantly reminding all white people they’re personally responsible for slavery, many of whom were treated more favorably than white “indentured servants”, and even thought more highly of, is acceptable coming from chocolate Americans. While joking about the same, from a Patriarchal position of CIS gender privileged, simply for being melanin challenged and having a penis…
What never ceases to amaze me though, how all of America runs on slavery, from our electronics to our clothing, and everything in between… Even almost all chocolate folks highly dependent on it…. How is there a leg to stand on for oh, say, approximately 99.999999% of ALL Americans, when it comes to talking trash about slavery, and guilt tripping while you’re still helping facilitate it, but yeah it’s “outsourced” so, yeah we can ignore it and not be actual hypocrites….