While he and his family dined in at a Chipotle restaurant in South Carolina, Indianapolis Colts linebacker #DariusLeonard experienced a racist encounter.
According to Leonard himself, while his family ate their meal, they were complained on to management by a white person who claimed Leonard was “verbally abusing him.”
Leonard denied those claims, but that didn’t stop the manager from taking the white person’s side and kicking Leonard out the restaurant while threatening to call the police as well.
Leonard connected his experience to the meaning behind the #BlackLivesMatter movement, saying that black people are treated unfairly and can get in trouble despite their being no evidence of wrongdoing.
“We’re talking about Black Lives Matter and for the guy to look at us and lie and laugh in our face as we walk out and the manger just come up here and just basically kick us out of Chipotle,” he explained. “We felt like he was very disrespectful, and that’s the white privilege that we are talking about.”
Leonard captioned the video, “This is what being BLACK in America is.”
“We are tired of this,” Leonard continued in the video. “I’m telling you what I go through as a Black man in America. Ya’ll don’t understand what I go through. …Ya’ll see the police killing us. Ya’ll seeing all the injustices that we go through. I live it. Day in and day out. And, I’m f**king tired of it. Yes, I’m upset. I’m tired of it.”
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The restaurant chain’s CEO Brian Niccol, launched an investigation following the incident.
“We have a zero-tolerance policy for discrimination of any kind, and we have suspended our manager while we conduct a thorough investigation,” Niccol said in a statement to TMZ Sports.
Niccol has also personally reached out to Leonard, stating that he is “committed to ensuring the appropriate action is taken once the investigation concludes.”
