BY NICOLE HENSLEY
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
October 5, 2015, 11:32 PM
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Gerod Roth, pictured in a selfie with a little boy named Cayden, was fired from his job at Polaris Marketing Group days after posting the photo that attracted racist comments.
A former employee at an Atlanta-based marketing firm is at the center of a firestorm after a photo he posted of himself online with a colleague's black son unleashed a wave of racist bile from the man's friends and other Internet hatemongers.
Polaris Marketing Group employee Gerod Roth was fired after snapping a seemingly innocuous selfie alongside 3-year-old Cayden Jenkins and posting it to Facebook on Sept. 16, triggering an immediate torrent of hateful comments, including "I didn't know you were a slave owner" and "But Massuh, I dindu nuffin" while also calling the young boy "Kunta Kinte."
It was unclear what prompted the string of hateful jibes, but at some point Roth - who goes by the name Geris Hilton on Facebook - replied to a friend asking "Dude where the hell did you get a black kid??" by saying, "He was feral."
Polaris Marketing Group President Michael Da Graca Pinto called the Facebook comments "disgusting," but insisted Roth's Sept. 29 termination two weeks after the post was the result of unrelated issues at work.
“It breaks my heart that Sydney and her adorable son Cayden were subjected to such hateful, ignorant and despicable behavior,” Pinto wrote in a statement over the weekend.“Cayden visits my office almost every afternoon after daycare, he's sat at my dinner table,”
The entire post was taken out of context, Roth told WAGA-TV, explaining that his intended meaning addressed a comment asking where he found Cayden.

Gerod Roth faced the media to defend himself.
“I just really feel upset, not only with myself, but also with the character that was based on the comments my friends made,” Roth told the TV station on Monday. “I feel as if, not only poor Cayden himself has been victimized, but also myself for being targeted.”
Little Cayden's mother, Sydney Shelton, took to Facebook with a handful of photos of her smiling son, saying those images should be what people see of Cayden — not the viral selfie captured in what appears to be the Polaris office.
He is nothing like the characterization woven in Roth’s since-deleted post, his tearful mother later explained.
“He is not a deaf child, he is not mute. He has never been abandoned,” Shelton told WAGA-TV. “He is a well-loved, fun-loving hyperactive 3-year-old.
A GoFundMe page started by a Phoenix, Ariz., woman, Britt Turner, is collecting donations for a college fund for Cayden in case the viral story marrs his name for future search results.
“I would hate for him to find all of this negativity surrounding his name,” Turner wrote.
Shelton is glad Roth is no longer employed at Polaris, but ultimately she is looking out for Cayden’s well-being.
“I do everything that I can to make sure he never has to want or need for anything,” Shelton cried. “To see people bashing him -- a small helpless child -- it breaks my heart.”
Polaris Marketing Group
October 2 at 3:20pm
This morning I was disgusted to learn that one of my former employees made several racially charged comments on his personal Facebook page. Even worse, the comments were directed toward the son of another employee.
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. Myself and the entire PMG family in no way condones this kind of behavior and would never willingly associate with anyone who does.
It has no place in the world.
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.
Sincerely,
Michael Da Graca Pinto
President
Polaris Marketing Group, Inc.