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Members of ASU football team detail racism incident at Whataburger location
Three people claim a woman called them by an offensive racist epithet during the incident, and that they were accused by a store manager of harassing clients. FOX 10's Matt Galka reports.
TEMPE, Ariz. - On Wednesday, three members of the Arizona State University football say a trip to Whataburger ended with a racist outburst from another customer that they say was directed towards them.
The three people reportedly targeted -- Nolan Matthews, Jordan Clark, and T Lee -- say this is not the first time they have health with racism. The three say they walked to a Whataburger location near ASU on Tuesday night. The dining room was closed, so they asked a person in the drive-thru lane to get them some food that they'd pay for.
What happened afterwards, Clark said, can only be described as an attack on their skin color.
"She proceeded to tell the manager -- she asked for a store manager -- and she told him that we're harassing her," Clark said. "We were harassing her. We were begging for food or whatever. He proceeded to comp her meal, give her free food, and she rolled the window down and said, 'thanks for the free food, n-words.'"
N-word, according to Merriam-Webster dictionary, is used euphemistically to refer to a word that is used as an insulting and contemptuous term for a black person.
They tweeted about the incident, and said the Whataburger employee didn't provide much help after the woman allegedly yelled the slurs. In fact, the manager allegedly escalated the situation.
"We asked him, like, 'did you not hear her say that to us just now? You didn't hear her just scream the n-word at us?' He said no, he didn't hear her, and then threatened to call the cops on us and told us to stop harassing his clients."
Clark later detailed the incident on his Twitter page (Due to use of offensive, racism-related word, viewer discretion is advised). Whataburger officials did reach out to Clark, and have released a written statement that reads:
"We condemn racism in any form, and were horrified to hear how these customers were treated by another customer – this will not be tolerated. We are reinforcing training with our employee on how this incident was handled and have spoken with the customers and their families to apologize for this terrible experience."
The incident happened just days after Whataburger officials announced a $1m designation of their charitable funds to a program.
"The funding will go toward scholarships and programs that promote the success of black and other minority students," a portion of the statement reads.