‘Blatant disrespect.’ Video shows Fort Worth Braum’s manager calling guest the N-word
Kiemorian McDade’s 4-year-old son had a hankering for a cold treat late on Monday night so he decided to take him to Braum’s, the best spot in his opinion for ice cream.
They went to the Bridge Street location in Fort Worth along with McDade’s girlfriend and a friend, sitting down inside with their food and custard without trouble, he told the Star-Telegram. Tensions arose, however, when a manager stated they had to leave because the store was closing, and McDade’s friend — upset they couldn’t finish their meal — left his trash scattered on their table.
That interaction alone wouldn’t have been a big deal to the party, all of whom are Black, McDade said. But the manager, who is white, followed them outside to continue his argument before referring to McDade’s friend by the N-word in front of everyone including the 4-year-old, leaving the 22-year-old father “in disbelief.”
McDade, an Arlington resident, pulled out his phone to start taking video as soon as the manager came up to their car.
“Go back inside. I don’t care,” McDade’s friend can be heard saying in the video from the passenger seat of their car.
“You racist little (expletive),” the manager says in response. “I’m sorry if that offends you ma’am.”
The friend falls silent for a moment before laughing and saying, “Thank you. I swear to God, I’ll put that on my life, you will be fired tomorrow.”
The manager tells him in response, “Doubt it.”
McDade shared the video to his Facebook around 1 a.m. Wednesday, and within 24 hours, it had been viewed thousands of times and the manager was terminated.
Braum’s confirmed in a Facebook post on Wednesday morning the employee in the video is no longer with the company, calling his behavior “completely unacceptable.”
“Our sincerest apologies go out to our customers and community. This is not representative of Braum’s or our employees,” the company said in the post.
The company also said in an email: “At Braum’s, all of our employees go through hospitality training. We always emphasize how important excellent customer service is in all of our stores. We plan to use this incident to help facilitate more effective training measures in the hope of preventing incidents in the future.”
The video sparked a protest Wednesday night outside of the Braum’s restaurant, which is only about a mile away from the Whataburger on Brentwood Stair Road embroiled in its own allegations of racism. There was a concurrent demonstration going on in front of the Whataburger restaurant.
McDade, though he’s happy the Braum’s worker was terminated, has been left feeling sad about the whole incident and that it happened in front of his son too young to even understand the meaning of the hateful word.
“It really hurt my feelings,” he said. “My son — he don’t know what’s going on. He loves ice cream. And now I can’t take him to Braum’s anymore.”
A handful of protesters in face masks stood in front of the Braum’s on Wednesday holding up signs with messages such as “Silence is Violence” and “End White Supremacy,” as seen in videos from KXAS-TV. There were dozens more people in front of the Whataburger, chanting and blocking traffic in the street.
An employee at the Whataburger had asked for her two weeks’ notice on Tuesday after a customer complained about her Black Lives Matter face mask and a manager implored her to not wear it — a conversation she recorded on her phone.
The community response to these two incidents, which occurred less than 24 hours apart, coincides with ongoing conversations and protests in Fort Worth about the need for racial justice sparked by the killing of George Floyd.
The Monday night incident was made even more shocking and painful by “all this stuff going on right now,” McDade said. It was telling to him that of all the insults the manager could have chosen, he used the N-word. McDade believes he was trying to trigger and upset the group.
They had done nothing to deserve any sort of angry response from the individual, he said. His friend, he said, had been involved in what was a fairly innocent argument with the manager when he learned they couldn’t take an extra moment to eat their food.
The restaurant closes at 10:45 p.m., and McDade said his girlfriend and his friend had received their food on trays when they ordered around 10:30. He and his son were given their meals in to-go bags even though they had asked for the food to stay.
The manager’s behavior, he said, was inexcusable. “It was just blatant disrespect.”
‘Laugh to keep from crying’
The day after the incident, McDade filed a complaint through the Braum’s website and left a message with the corporate office. When he didn’t hear anything by that night, he said, he uploaded the video to his Facebook page with a lengthy post. He went to sleep.
He woke up to a phone call the next morning from someone stating they were a district manager. The person expressed shock at the situation but also asked him to take the video down, assuring him they were handling it, he said.
He didn’t get an official apology until later that day when another local Braum’s representative called him, he said.
He doesn’t feel like what the company has said to him or over Facebook goes far enough to condemn what happened or indicate they’re taking it seriously.
“It was like, ‘Hey, we’re sorry for what happened, leave us alone, that ain’t us, there was just one bad seed out of the bunch,’” McDade said. “But he was a manager and I don’t see how you can let somebody get up to a manager position that’s like that.”
He’s in the process of seeking counsel to represent him in litigation, though he couldn’t be more specific than that. He wishes Braum’s would have done more, such as giving him a more sincere apology sooner.
His friend laughed in the video, and he acknowledged he has responded the same way at times.
That doesn’t mean he was amused, he said.
“Laugh to keep from crying,” McDade said. “That’s kind of how I am right now.”
This story was originally published August 6, 2020 at 5:18 PM.
