An employee at a Smoothie King in Conroe, Texas, has been terminated from his job.
This came after he gave three African-American teens their receipt that described them as “3 negros,” last Tuesday.
On March 29, a news conference was conducted at the Smoothie King.
“These young beautiful brothers are three young African-American men. They are three young Black men. They are not three negroes,” stated Quanell X, an activist.
The Rainbow Push Coalition, the activist, and the parents of the teenagers were in attendance at the news conference.
“They should be able to walk into any establishment and not be racially profiled by the color of their skin,” one of the mothers said.
They called for the employee to be fired.
However, Smoothie King stated that the worker was terminated on March 24.
“We were told he was going to be suspended and retrained,” Quanell X said.
In a statement, Smoothie King said that they have a “zero-tolerance policy. The local franchisee decided the best course of action was to terminate the team member.”
Activist Quanell X said, “I’m very disappointed that they chose not to terminate in the beginning.”
Smoothie King added that they called the teens’ parents to apologize and to come up with a resolution. Additionally, all employees will be trained again which will entail effective inclusion guidelines.
