How do I say?

What's your wildest racist experience?

Yeah, there you go.

I'm not doing it.

Monsieur home going.

My stomach is growling.

Do you still?

Do you still get asked about this.

Sometimes people say, oh, yeah, remember I saw your and at some point, even when I was in the metro, in the subway, and people would like, Oh, you're the guy from the Tim Hortons, like the coffee shop.

And that's why I was like, Hey, I don't want to be the guy from and that's what in my head.

I was like, Hey, I have to one day when I get back on TV, is for something that I do and that I love.

Meet mactar, Mumbai, a man who is indeed now doing what he loves.

In fact, you may recognize him.

Maktar lives in Montreal, and he's one of the hosts of HGTV Canada's hoarder house flippers, along with his three brothers, this series features teams like the Mumbai brothers who take cluttered, neglected homes and properties and transform them into renovated and hopefully profitable homes.

It's messy, even filthy, sometimes incredibly disgusting work, but whatever, it's mactar's dream job.

He has always loved real estate.

You know, my passion is real estate.

So I became the real estate Mac.

Before Mac was on HGTV, he was throwing up videos of himself on YouTube and Instagram, checking out cool architecture in different cities, offering tips and tricks of the trade and introducing folks to trendy neighborhoods while Mac's journey from YouTube to broadcast television was built on the chaotic spectacle of hoarding messes he could sort stack and clear away, another far more complicated moment in his life proved harder to tidy up.

In February 2016 before he even started making YouTube videos, mactar was sitting inside a Tim Hortons cafe in Laval, just north of Montreal.

He was interviewing a woman for a position at his fledgling construction company.

When police officers entered the cafe, they weren't looking for coffee.

For context, at this time, authorities across the Montreal region were responding to growing concerns about sex trafficking between 2009 and 2016 Montreal was identified as one of Canada's primary census metropolitan areas for police reported human trafficking cases.

Of course, those were just the ones that were reported in Laval.

Specifically, a number of teenage girls had recently gone missing from a youth Protection Center with several cases later linked to gang related sexual exploitation.

So a tall black man meeting a young white woman in a coffee shop in a climate of heightened suspicion in a city on edge, you get the picture.

The officer came in, and he came to me, and he was asking me, sir, we need to talk to you.

So I stand up.

I went with him, and he was telling me, look, so someone called, and there was a pimp trying to recruit a woman into prostitution.

So I was like, okay, so you're like, ready to help.

You're like, ready to help out.

Okay, oh, wait It's, I'm the pimp.

from Vermont public this is home goings, a show that invites you to eavesdrop on candid conversations with people who will challenge what you think.

You know, I'm Myra Flynn, and today, maktar Mumbai, he traveled from Montreal to sit down with me at Vermont public studios and share the story of the most jarring experience of racial profiling he's ever faced, when police assumed he was something he wasn't.

We get into how it happened, what it cost him, and how he flipped that moment from his past into a completely different kind of flipping, house flipping.

This is his journey, and this is home goings.

We're a proud member of the NPR Network.

Welcome home.

How do I know you're not a pimp?

If I'm not, I just, I don't know you wouldn't have talked to me if I was right.

I mean, I might talk to a pimp.

I'd have a lot of questions to, you know, to unpack.

You cannot tell.

If that's true, you cannot tell.

But I'm telling you, I'm not right.

I have, I have properties.

That's what I do, buying properties.

That's okay.

You pimp your properties.

There you go.

There you go.

I think I just gave you a new property name.

Also, I think what we're saying is highly problematic.

I should probably stop.

Okay, so.

So take me back to square one.

Start from the beginning all the way back.

This was back in 2016 Okay, so this was 10 years ago, and I was young.

I was 23 years old, and I had my little company, like a construction company, and I was hiring someone, but at the time I didn't have any office, right?

So I was doing my interviews in coffee shops.

So we had an interview in the Tim Hortons, and we call you, call her up, and you're like, I want to interview you.

And Tim Horton, exactly.

Why didn't you have an office?

I was young, I started, but you had enough money to hire people.

Exactly, okay.

I had enough money to hire people, but I didn't have enough money to have, like, an office where I could, like, pay every month rent, right?

So it was, for me, it was a way to save money.

Got it.

So at the time, I had another employee, and I remember the first interview.

We did it in the school, but this time I just wanted to do it in a tomorrow.

Tim Hortons, yeah, it was, it was great.

So it was the wrong coffee shop.

I picked the wrong one that day.

Tim Hortons, you owe him some money.

Okay, so she comes in for the interview.

Yeah, she comes in for the interview.

And then we are sitting down.

We're talking about what she's going to do, and then she asking me question.

And I remember I was sitting in that side of the table where I'm able to see the outside, and I remember I saw like, police.

Police car came in, just arrived.

And I was like, No, I don't want to say that, but as a black person, when you saw it, when you see police, you're like, oh, wow, police.

Okay, you just notice them.

Nice.

Now it's the same in Montreal as it is here, yeah, oh, imagine if they come to see me like, I don't know why.

Imagine if they come to see me, but I was like, I didn't do nothing, so they're not gonna come and see me.

But the officer came in, and he came to me, and he was asking me, sir, we need to talk to you.

So I stand up.

I went with him in the front door, and he was telling me, look.

So someone called, and there was a pimp trying to there was a guy, a pimp, who's trying to recruit a woman into prostitution.

So I was like, okay, so you're like, ready to help.

You're like, ready to help out.

Okay, oh, wait It's I'm the pimp, like, and then he was like, Yo, yes, I'm sorry, but do you have, like, your IDs?

And so I gave him my business card, my IDs.

And then I was like, this is really funny.

How many women were you interviewing in this Tim Hortons?

Was there, like, a bunch of them or something, or just one?

It was just one.

Wow.

First of all, it was really humiliating, because the whole coffee shop was looking at me, because the police came in and and at some point, even the person that I was interviewing, she was like, imagine, if you're you're doing an interview with someone that you're trying to hide.

And then the police came and said we need to talk to you.

Imagine, what would you say?

What would you say in your head, in your mind, like, Hey, I'm not talking to, yeah, I'm not working for this person, you know, what a job interview over, you know.

But also question was the girl you were interviewing white?

Yeah, yeah.

So yeah.

I think if it was a black girl you were interviewing, she might have been like, what is yeah, of course, because we all know, right, how black men are treated.

So the police come up to you and they say, there's stories of a pimp pimping girls in the neighborhood.

Did you know about these stories, like what was happening in Montreal during this time that all these women were being prostituted?

It was not like a guy, it was more of I remember there was a situation at the time in LA van.

It was all over the news and they were talking about it.

There was a youth center, and there was a lot of girl that was escaping from there, and then they realized that they were being prostituted, or they were bringing into prostitution.

So it was a hot subject at the time, wow.

So the moment you realized, Oh, the pimp is me, yeah, did they say why they thought it was you?

Were you asking, like, is it just because I'm sitting with somebody?

Did you explain to them I'm in the middle of a job interview?

Everything went by so fast that I was in shock at the time, and then when they they left, I was just sitting down.

I finished the interview, and then I was driving back home, and I was like, This is unfair.

Like, why?

And then I just realized it's only because of the color of my skin, right?

Literally.

So, so you get in the car and you're leaving this situation, and you took to social media, yeah.

Fair.

I just went on social media and said, like, this is unfair.

You cannot judge someone just because he's black.

But I didn't even know how big the story would be.

The day after, I started to see like, I think I was like, 100,000 views at.

Time that was a lot, you know, and then the journalists were starting to write to me, Hey, could you come to the station?

And then I just realized, like, home, and that's something with social media.

I think that's exactly the moment that I realized that with social media, it's so powerful that when you have a nice message that you want to share with people, and it's well and you're well spoken.

It could be really like, massive, and that's when that's the power of social media, right?

And but not, but still, not everybody was seeing it as a positive message.

So what were some people asking you in the comments?

A lot of people, I remember in the comments were saying, like, but how was he dressed?

How was he this?

Was he doing anything wrong?

Look.

I was doing an interview.

I remember, I was with, you know, nice dress, well dressed.

And I was asking myself, like, why people were saying mean things and stuff like that.

Even people say, Oh, he's well spoken for a black person.

And I was like, oh, you know what?

At this point, Forget it.

I'm not even gonna read the comments.

I think that's the thing people don't understand about racism, or racist experiences, if they've never had them, is that they are always out of nowhere.

You're always under prepared for them when they happen.

You don't have a good comeback.

They're always humiliating.

There's two type of people, right?

There's two type of people I could have took that offensively.

And like, really, like, started to like, you know what?

They're racist and this and that.

And just really started to, like, shrink myself and me maybe not trying to be out there, because I was, like, too shy of this happening again, because it was too it was very humiliating.

Honestly, it was really humiliating.

I can imagine me, I was, I'm a positive person.

I'm always trying to see the positive in things.

But if there's some someone that is like, really in shock, because I wasn't shocked, it could have been something totally different, and this could have changed his life into the worst, you know, because this is so humiliating that you're like, oh, so whatever that I whatever that I'm going to do, I could be judged because of my skin, right?

You know what I mean?

So, right?

It's tricky.

Your self esteem could have really gone down, yeah?

Did you have a moment where you're like, I don't want to go into any more Tim Hortons or like, or it's not safe, right?

Yeah, I had at that point.

At some point, I was like, You know what, I'm not gonna go there anymore.

Yeah.

But you know, it was not, I felt like it was not the Tim Hortons.

It was just someone that called, and I don't even know who called, because at some point it was so much attention on me, and I was 23 years old, and it was too much.

And I was like, You know what?

I don't I don't even want to hear about it anymore, like, I really want it to stop.

But, um, and I decided to go back to Tim Hortons after that, so you have returned to the scene.

Yes.

I mean, has I know that this is the wildest racist experience you've had, but like, you've experienced racism before, of course, what made this different was it because it was public, because it was public, and also it's because I was it was literally because of the color of my skin, nothing else.

I remember when I was younger, sometimes me and my brothers.

I remember we were going to school, we were walking in the streets, but at this time, you know, we had swag, we were dressing in certain way.

And I remember sometimes there was like, police man that was stopping us and say, Hey, what's your color you're wearing?

What gang?

Which gang are you in?

Like, stuff like that, you know, so and at the time, was like, Okay, so, because maybe the way I was dressed, but like this time, there was nothing that could justify it, like, even if you're dressed in a certain way, you cannot just go to young people and say, Which gang are you in?

And they're walking by, they're walking on the street.

That's not justified either.

So yeah, but at this time, was really like, Hey, I was well dressed.

I was sitting down, I was having an interview, I was doing, like, business thing, and it happened to me, so that's why it was so shocking, right?

And felt so different.

Yeah, it's tricky.

Because, like, you know, these women who are being trafficked or brought into prostitution, you want to, you know, have, if people, like, what's the saying?

If you see something, say something, you want people to be able to call and be like, I suspect, right?

Yeah.

So how do you think they'd be able to differentiate between a pimp and you, honestly, I don't know, right?

I know what I'm I'm not a pimp.

But the thing is, how could you, how could you tell just by looking at them, right?

Maybe, if there was, like, I don't know, maybe some action that I've maybe done over there, I bought her coffee.

I was gentle, I was, you know, a gentleman.

So I don't know, honestly, I don't know.

And that's why I was like, hey, because Put yourself in my shoes.

And sometimes I was asking myself.

Off.

If it was a white guy, would it be the same?

Would they call the police and say that the pimp is trying to recruit a woman into prostitution?

Or if you were with a black young girl, would they have cared Exactly So, right?

That's some question that I'm asking myself.

And yeah, honestly, the answer is no, yeah, if I was white, it would have not happened, literally.

So yeah, some crazy shit that happens to us.

I can't help but think about in America right now, what's happening with so many immigrants, what's happening with so much racial profiling?

I mean, just legally happening now, people being detained, people being disappeared, people being yanked out of their homes and and off the street.

Has Has that been on your mind lately as you've thought about your experience?

You know we're we're seeing it on the news, and, you know, I cannot imagine how it feels like to just maybe walk in the street and maybe someone's gonna come and arrest you because you look a certain way.

Because I, I know that right now, it's more of the Hispanic people that are living this right.

But as a black person, I know what is it?

Well, how it feels like when someone looking at you and they have perception of you without even knowing you.

And for the people here that are living this, and they're walking in the street, they're afraid, and imagine their parents, like my kids going out today, is he going to come back?

And this is something that is really similar into black people, Hispanic and any immigrants and in the world and that are living here.

So, man, I don't even, like, I cannot put in words how the fear could be, like, really high.

Yeah, imagine that you're just walking in the street, and then you've been taken out, and you don't even know what's going to happen next.

This is, this is scary.

When I was actually driving in, you always have question, even my girlfriend was calling me, like three times, did you pass the border?

Did you pass the border?

Because I remember I at some point when it was all started, I took a plane to go to Dallas to see the Lakers play, because I'm a Lakers fan, right?

And that was the return of lukadan church in Dallas.

And I remember, I was at the airport, and they stopped me, and they put me in the bag.

They were asking me a bunch of questions.

And when, I remember, when I told that to all my family, my friend, they were like, hey, right now the borders to go to the States.

It's difficult.

It's difficult.

So obviously, when I was King, when I was coming in today, that was in my mind, right?

I'd be stopped, would I?

You know?

I mean, so, so, yeah, it's we know that if we come here, the word that we have is that it's going to be a little bit more complicated.

Yeah, okay, 10 years have gone by.

Yeah, you've sought the positivity in all of this, what started to happen in within you, to make a change, so that you didn't have low self esteem, so that it didn't You didn't take it on internally too much.

Me, personally, I decided to flip it.

You know, what's funny is, because my name is Mac tart, right?

So everybody's called me Mac, right?

But the thing is, in English, I pimp, it's Mac, you know.

So everybody's like, Oh, you think I haven't thought about this already, you know?

So, yeah, it was funny.

So I turned that into, you know, my passion is real estate.

So I became the real estate Mac.

And I was like, You know what I'm gonna buy properties.

So I started my YouTube channel where I was, um, flipping houses, and I started to share it with everybody.

And till now, there are some people that see me in the street and they call me the Mac or the Mac.

They don't even know my real name.

So it's like, funny, like, dark, exactly.

It's like, fun.

Yeah, that YouTube channel eventually got me to national television, you know, because as a young kid, I was a fan of ag TV.

I was always watching ag TV.

Property wasn't Property Brothers, Bryant bomb, yeah, I was my number one hotel watch whenever I travel, and put it on and just zone out.

There you go.

You see, yeah, I was a I was a fan of it.

So when I started my YouTube channel, for me, it was a way to have my own ag TV, yeah, and because of the YouTube one day, I received a message from ag TV saying that, hey, we saw your YouTube channel.

We don't know what you're saying, because I was doing it in French, we don't know what you're saying, but you know, we love the energy.

Do you speak English and all of that.

So you see life, it's Life is funny.

You know it Life is funny because, because of that bad experience, but I decided to see the positive in it.

I ended up like achieving my dream, which is to be on TV and.

Having a show on ag TV.

So life is crazy, man, the right kind of Mac now, yeah, I gotta ask, like, has your story, your viral video, your story of being racially profiled, come up in any of these situations?

I just wonder, did you leave it in the past, or was it also just like, hey guys, guess what this happened once?

And they were like, Oh, we know.

Did it come up in a background check?

No, it never, actually never came up.

But I remember, like, last year, I had an interview with the reporter that interviewed me nine years ago.

And we actually did a, what now.

And, like, exactly, we did a follow up of what I was doing now, and I remember at some point she said I flipped the script because I was racially profiled.

I turned, turned this into positivity, and now I'm on HGTV.

So it was all about a positive, like, it was more of a positive, like report and it was, it was really nice, flipping houses and flipping your past exactly.

I love it, flipping your past, but it was not really my past.

It was just like someone thought that I was a pimp, right?

So it was, yeah, but it's still a humiliating, like moment in time that you got to put in the past.

You know, my phrase is trust the process I even have tatted on me for me trust the process is just to be able always to see the positive into all the situation.

Because if you see the positive, you're only always going to see like the vision.

Personally, I have goals that I want to achieve, right?

And to be able to achieve those goals, I have to always look in the front.

I don't I cannot look in back.

When you trust the process, you make sure that you're going forward.

You cannot let anything, and I mean anything, make you look in the back and slow the process down.

So not even process, not even racism, not even racism, not even racism, not even racism.

Thank you so much for joining us.

If you want to continue to be a part of the homegoings family, like and subscribe to our show on YouTube.

Stay in touch and subscribe to the podcast wherever you listen, take good care.