“Plaintiffs Brian Johnston, 34, and Nile Charles, 25, have accused Apple of discrimination after an incident they claim occurred on Dec. 9, 2010. Both Johnston and Charles went to the store at 1981 Broadway when the incident allegedly began with an Apple employee, said to be white and in his 50s,” Neil Hughes reports for AppleInsider.
“The lawsuit notes that Charles and Johnston, who are black, went to the Broadway Apple store wearing ‘baggy jeans and large sweaters with hoods’ to purchase headphones. It was around 3:20 p.m., they claim, that the Apple employee, about 6-foot-2 and 225 pounds, confronted them,” Hughes reports. “The lawsuit alleges that the Apple employee approached the customers in an ‘intimidating fashion,’ invading their ‘personal space,’ and said to them, ‘You know the deal. You know the deal.'”
Hughes reports, “The employee allegedly told the plaintiffs that they must leave the store unless they planned to purchase something or see a Mac Specialist. Johnston and Charles claim that before they could respond, the Apple employee told them they were not welcome there because of their race… The lawsuit accuses Apple of discrimination under both New York and federal civil rights laws. The plaintiffs seek punitive damages, and originally argued that those damages exceed the jurisdictional amounts of all lower courts.”
More details in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Lynn W.” for the heads up.]
I work in corrections.
Many of the young people I babysit scream racism all the time, it is the go to excuse for everything.
he’s racist, he gave a smaller piece of cake than that guy.
Your racist for writing me up for hitting that guy, yeah I hit him but your racist.
Blah, blah , blah.
I hear you.
A friend of mine is a Mailman.
one of his customers complained that the mailman was being Racist cause he wouldn’t deliver his mail. (customer’s dog attacked him one day…)
He didnt realize that his mailman…. is also Black. lol
He never saw his mailman, he just “assumed” he wasn’t.
Not saying there isn’t racism out there.. but some people just claim it no matter what. and sadly, it works alot of the time..
In the late 80’s baggy wore pants too. We were constantly asked to leave music stores.
The fact was that half the kids we knew had walked out with “free” merchandise in their baggy clothes.
The same stores watched pregnant women very closely.
Later I worked at one of those stores while I went to college.
I learned early on that spotting a potential shoplifter has nothing to do with race as much as it does behavior. Most of our busts were middle class white kids and adults.
This is not a tech story. It’s barely a story.
I hope they win enough money to afford new headphones so then they can come back to the store and with baggy jeans, baggy hoods, and headphones… and try for an iPod!
I can’t wait for apple to pull out the video surveillance to show more to the story then what is being told. No one in their right mind ( ie intelligent apple employee ) would say to leave because youre black. they could have been lurking around looking suspicious in hopes to get negative attention, and asked to leave as a result of their mischievous acts… to later stir up trouble.
Den da apple employ-yee got in mah face yo! it wuz muh couzins fault! MmHMmmmmMmmm
Apple is sho’ racist. They’s sold da Black MacBook for mo’ money dan de White one.
;o)
Two words. Prove. It.