After a Chipotle manager was fired for refusing to give a group of Black customers their food before paying, the restaurant chain is walking back that decision after tweets surfaced showing one of the men had bragged about “dining and dashing.”
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Masaud Ali, 21, and his friends recorded a video that went viral showing a smiling Chipotle employee in St Paul, Minnesota telling the group, “you never have money when you come in here.” That statement conjured up notions that it was a #EatingWhileBlack situation and the Black men were perhaps the subject of unlawful discrimination by a white person that’s become all too common against unsuspecting Black folks in recent months.
Ali instigated the situation by tweeting: “’Can a group of young well established African American get a bite to eat after a long workout session. @ChipotleTweets??” accompanied by the video on Friday.
Can a group of young well established African American get a bite to eat after a long workout session. @ChipotleTweets ?? pic.twitter.com/Sj8RaeINj6
— Masud Ali ? (@Masudaliii) November 16, 2018
“It sounded really racist – the way she said it was racist,’”Ali told the Star Tribune on Friday. “She asked for proof of income as if I’m getting a loan.”
As anger swelled online, Chipotle quickly took action and fired the manager, whose name on Instagram is D0mMarie.
However, internet sleuths uncovered old tweets from Ali admitting that he dines and dashes, the Miami Herald reports.
“Aye man i think chopotle catchin up to us fam. should we change locations and yoooooo what should we do about the other thang,” read a post on Ali’s account from 2016, which has now been deleted.
“Dine and dash is forever interesting,” Ali wrote in another tweet from July 2015.
A post from March 2015 read: “if you a real ass n***a we [gonna go to] Applebees [sic] and eat as much a we can and tip the nice lady 20cents and walk the f**k out.”
Yet another old tweet revealed that Ali admits to stealing food and refers to it as “borrowing.”
“Guys we’re borrowing food… that’s it. And if the lady tries to stop you at the door don’t hesitate to truck the sh*t out of that b***h.”
Since Ali’s tweets surfaced, Chipotle admitted that the firing of the manager may have been done in haste.
“Our actions were based on the facts known to us immediately after the incident, including video footage, social media posts and conversations with the customer, manager, and our employees,” Chipotle Chief Communications Officer Laurie Schalow told Fox News on Sunday.
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“We now have additional information which needs to be investigated further. We want to do the right thing, so after further investigation we will re-train and re-hire if the facts warrant it.”