Ride-share driver praised after refusing ride to Lehigh Valley bar owner and companion over racist comments

The video is shocking enough at the outset. Then it takes an even uglier turn.

Outside Fossil’s Last Stand, a bar in Catasauqua, a woman — identified as bar owner Jackie Harford — climbs into the back of a ride-sharing car, sees the driver and expresses surprise.

“Wow, you’re like a white guy,” she says.

That comment sparks a back-and-forth that has appalled and enraged thousands of people who have seen and shared the video online, where the driver, James W. Bode, posted it after the Friday night incident.

Bode is taken aback by the comment. “Excuse me?” he says.

“You’re like, a normal guy?” Harford says. “You speak English?”

She laughs and pats Bode’s shoulder, but he tells her the comment was inappropriate and orders her out of the car. Then the woman’s male companion joins the conversation. “You’re a f— a—,” he tells the driver. “I should punch you in the f— face.”

Bode calls the pair racist. The man responds by calling him “a f— n-lover.”

The video has spread across Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Reddit and elsewhere, and the fallout has been immediate for Harford. She shut down the bar’s website and Facebook page and deleted her personal page. The bar appeared to be closed Saturday and the phone rang unanswered Sunday. Harford could not otherwise be reached for comment.

Warning: This video contains graphic language.

Bode, who posted the video to his Facebook page, could not be reached for comment, but in a follow-up post he thanked people who had reached out to him.

“I appreciate it, truly,” he wrote. “But this is the way it should be everywhere, every time. I shouldn’t be “the guy” who did it or said it…we should all be that person. Speak up if you’re uncomfortable with it because it makes them uncomfortable, as they should be.”

In the original post, Bode said he filed a report with Catasauqua police. No one from the department responded to a request for comment.

On Facebook and Yelp, the review site, people thanked Bode.

“Every white person should watch and learn from your example,” one woman wrote. “Don’t let it go in the name of keeping the peace — call it out.”

People also savaged Harford and the man. He was identified as Harford’s boyfriend but his identity could not be confirmed by The Morning Call.

“Are masks required (at Fossil’s Last Stand) or do customers need to bring their own white hood,” someone wrote on Yelp — one of many comments referring to the Ku Klux Klan.

On Facebook, a Black man posted a video taken early Saturday in which he goes into the bar and asks about the incident.

A man off-camera says it was “a misunderstanding.”