Last week a video went viral of a group of Black teenagers in St. Paul who were refused service by a manager of a Chipotle in St. Paul, Minnesota. In the video posted by Masud Ali, one of the boys in the video, the manager is showed as saying to the boys, “You gotta pay because you never have money when you come in here.”
Horrible stereotyping of black youths, right? This set the social media into action, with people lobbing charges of racism at this woman and at Chipotle, exposing the private life of this Chipotle manager, and eventually Chipotle gave in and fired her.
Well, it looks like Chipotle is reconsidering its firing of the manager after some info came to light about Masud Ali:
In one post from July 2015, he tweeted: “Dine and dash is forever interesting.”
In another 2015 tweet, Ali wrote: “Guys we’re borrowing food … that’s it and if the lady tires (sic) to stop you at the door don’t hesitate to truck the s— out of that b—-.”
In January 2016, he tweeted: “aye man I think Chipotle catching up to us fam … should we change locations…”
Here’s the screenshots:
Oh, and then there’s this one from just a few months ago:
The point here, of course, is that while it’s tempting to vent your outrage at every video that appears to be demonstrating racist behavior or racial stereotyping, it’s always wise to wait until all the facts come out before casting judgment. The social media mob got this Chipotle manager got fired and her private life destroyed — apparently because she simply did her job by refusing service to someone who she recognized as a serial dash and diner.
There’s real racism out there in the world and it should be addressed and extinguished. But social media vigilantism is not the way to address racism for the same reason that vigilantism is not the way to prosecute crimes. Video, like eyewitness accounts, often does not tell the whole story. There is a reason for things like due process.
Furthermore, cases like this undermine genuine, legitimate efforts to combat racism. We need to cut this shit out.