A black police officer faced blatant racial discrimination at a Chick-fil-A location, which left him humiliated. The incident unfolded after Officer Reid’s white colleagues were given the meal for free, while he was singled out and asked to pay for it.
South Carolina officer Tracey Reid encountered the racist employees of the establishment when he and his fellow officers went there for a meal on their work trip. The officer explains how officers are given meals for free a lot of the time by restaurants to show appreciation for their service to the community.
“We came in together, same uniform, stood in line, there was never a time we were not together while standing in line,” Clover Police Sgt. J. Gordon, who is Redi’s colleague, said while in conversation with WSOC-TV.
Reportedly, the employees offered the meal to the three white officers for free. When it was Reid’s turn, he was asked to pay for the food. A second colleague of the man noted how angry the mistreatment made him. “He said he had to pay for his meal, and it infuriated me,” Detective Thomas Barnette shared.
Officer Barnette recalled how he asked Reid if he could intervene which the black officer said no. Reid reasoned with his fellow officer and said that they shouldn’t cause a scene.
“But I could tell the way he looked; he just looked at his plate, he looked sad and humiliated, and that made me really mad,” Barenette added. Reid later shared how he felt “humiliated and embarrassed” when he faced the discrimination.
Officer Reid decided to speak up against the mistreatment by writing a letter to Chick-fil-A corporate. In the letter, he demanded that the staff at the Augusta, Georgia, location where the mistreatment took place undergo retraining. The owner of the establishment apologized to Reid and sent him vouchers for two free meals.
“[The letter] said it was perceived that it was a racial incident, which I didn’t like, because it wasn’t perceived; it actually happened,” Officer Reid noted after receiving the half-hearted apology. His colleague also argued that it was not a note of perception.
“It’s not perception, it’s what happened,” Officer Barenette noted. He labeled the incident as a “racial issue” as well. The officer pointed out how the incident showed blatant racist behavior because Reid was clearly intentionally “singled out.”
The manager of the establishment claimed that the incident was a mistake. They revealed that the person working the register that day was a team leader who usually doesn’t work there. Netizens were enraged and quick to call out Chick-fil-A and its employees.
“To hell with that FAKE APOLOGY, there’s no excuse they can give for this. You can’t train a racist. Racism is an issue of the mind and heart,” one wrote on YouTube. Several others decided to boycott the company. “I’ll never eat at any of them again!” another enraged netizen wrote.
