In response to a reported racist incident at an Ohio McDonalds, a local NAACP chapter has started an investigation.
According to a police report cited by WTOV, after a group of kids went outside a McDonald’s on Sunset Boulevard in Steubenville, Ohio, late Thursday afternoon to “fight or watch a fight,” a supervisor from the restaurant told them to leave the premises and “go pick cotton.”
“It was disturbing,” said CJ Mitchell, Treasurer of the Steubenville Chapter of the NAACP, a national civil rights and social justice organization with local chapters.
Police were called to the scene, located near Harding Middle School, shortly after 4 p.m. Ohio School Report Card data shows that 22% of the school’s students are Black and 100% are at an “economic disadvantage.”
While McDonald’s staff told authorities about the fight, WTOV said there is no indication in the police report that it occurred.
“Three parents of the alleged effected students filed complaints with the NAACP for us to follow up on the incident,” according to Mitchell.
While the juveniles said the supervisor uttered the racist comment to them, McDonald’s personnel have denied that “racial language was ever said,” according to WTOV. They accused a parent of yelling obscenities.
According to a statement of principles from McDonald’s “unwelcome verbal conduct such as threats, epithets, derogatory comments or slurs, unwanted nicknames, derogatory jokes, or comments or teasing about an individual’s dress or presentation,” are some of the actions that are not to be tolerated at McDonald’s locations.
However, the American Civil Liberties Union has criticized McDonald’s in the past for having policies that perpetuate systemic racism.
“Discrimination has no place at my McDonald’s restaurants. I am deeply committed to running a values-led organization and have launched a full investigation of these claims,” said Tom Locke, the owner and operator of the Steubenville McDonald’s restaurant.
Locke also said students have always been welcome at the restaurant, but a possible fight led to calling police. As of 2103, a McDonald’s Standards of Business Conduct document said employees “must immediately report accidents and unsafe practices or conditions to their immediate supervisors,” though it did not specify if this requirement covered fights.
“I'm familiar with the kids traffic at the McDonald’s and I know that it can be challenging but the alleged words that were used and the tone of the words used is troubling and it was disturbing for all of us that read it,” said Mitchell.
Going forward, the Steubenville NAACP branch intends to look further into the issue to determine exactly what happened, he added.
“With the NAACP we pride ourselves in being the voice of the voiceless and it doesn’t get more like that than with middle school kids so we want to speak up on their behalf and find out the facts and if it is true we want to hold those responsible accountable,” said Mitchell.
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