A man who posted a selfie with his co-worker's child to Facebook and then made a series of racist jokes about the child being "poor," "feral," and comparing him to a slave has been fired, News One reports.
The man, identified as Gerod Roth (who went by Geris Hilton on Facebook, apparently), has made his page private or taken it down since he made the comments on Friday. But news sites including News One captured screen shots before the profile disappeared:
The news organization also captured some of the comments made on the photo. "I didn't know you were a slave owner," said one commenter. "He was feral," wrote Roth, in response to the question, "Dude where the hell did you get a black kid??"
The boy's mother, who goes by Sydney Jade on Facebook, wrote a public response to the post on Saturday. "This is Cayden Jace! The love of my life, the apple in my eye, my EVERYTHING. All this lovely personality wrapped up into one small person's body," she wrote. "When people hear about him, these are the pictures I want them to know about. Not that disturbing image and its comments. We are above all of this nonsense that has been going on. Cayden and I truly appreciate all of the love that we have been shown in the last 24 hours. You guys warm my heart, more than words could ever express.This little guys has every piece of my heart, he is my world and #HisNameIsCayden."
Roth worked at Polaris Marketing Group in Atlanta with Sydney Jade until Friday, when his boss found out about his post and fired him. "It breaks my heart that Sydney and her adorable son Cayden were subjected to such hateful, ignorant and despicable behavior … PMG has terminated the employee responsible and will ensure that none of the businesses that we associate with will ever do business with him again," wrote Michael Da Graca Pinto, President of Polaris Marketing Group.
Since his mother identified him, people have been posting messages of solidarity online tagged #HisNameIsCayden:
https://twitter.com/WindysRandoms/status/651118090231480321
https://twitter.com/MNJones/status/651117447567699969
One woman, Brittany Turner, set up a GoFundMe page for people to show their support with scholarship money for Cayden when he gets older.
https://instagram.com/p/8cGsD9ALKX/?taken-by=_kiddfr3shhh
https://instagram.com/p/7WV2R0gLFW/?taken-by=_kiddfr3shhh