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Indian-origin creator slams TikToker for racist mockery
The original video showed the woman mimicking an Indian shoplifter’s interaction with police captured on bodycam footage.
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Malvika Choudhary - Mon, 04, Aug 2025
- 12:23 EDT
- 4
Cassandra Jerome and TikToker mimicking the Indian Accent / Instagram (Cassandra Jerome)
A US-based TikToker is facing widespread criticism after a video she posted mocking the Indian accent went viral, prompting Indian-origin creator Cassandra Jerome to call out the act as casual racism.
The original video, which garnered over 1.4 million views on TikTok, showed the woman mimicking an Indian shoplifter’s interaction with police captured on bodycam footage.
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In the footage, the Indian woman, accused of stealing items from a Target store, repeatedly asked if she could pay for the goods. The TikToker recreated the exchange, focusing on the woman’s accent for comedic effect, and titled the video “Indian lady at Target.”
Jerome, an Indian-origin content creator based in the US, responded sharply to the post in a video on Instagram, calling it a “sample of casual racism” and highlighting how jokes rooted solely in mocking accents can be harmful.
“If the Indian accent is used in a joke that has some context and is done so well that it shocks me, it gets a laugh. But when the punchline is that we sound weird, I have learned something about you. All it tells me is that your worldview has not moved much past your nose. When does it stop being funny?” Jerome said.
Reflecting on her own experiences, Jerome added that accents are a normal part of life for many people across the globe. “To me, it was normal. Thousands of people around me had that accent. You're hehe-ing and haha-ing over an accent that tons of people have. Expand your horizons and leave us alone. Please,” she said.
The incident sparked broader conversations online about racial microaggressions and the normalization of mocking non-Western accents. Several users on social media platforms echoed Jerome’s views, expressing frustration at the casual ridicule of diverse speech patterns.
“It gets especially frustrating when it’s coming from another person of colour, like why are we infighting, we should be on the same side, not put each other down,” one user commented.
Another noted, “When the joke is the accent itself, we’ve lost the plot.”
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