A black man was kicked out of a restaurant in Atlanta for wearing sneakers even though a white woman was seen sitting at the bar with identical white sneakers and was allowed to eat there.
After the video went viral, rapper T.I called for a boycott of the restaurant, forcing the owner to apologize over the incident.
Viral video of the incident shows William Johnson, who is wearing a pair of Nike Air Force One sneakers, arguing with the manager of Umi Sushi in Buckhead after he was asked to leave even though he and his wife had a 5:15pm birthday reservation.
After the manager told Johnson to leave because of his footwear, he pointed out that a white woman sitting at the bar was also wearing a pair of sneakers.
Kaylan Colbert, Johnson’s wife who works as a personal injury attorney based in Atlanta, was recording the 10 minute argument.
‘How crazy is that? ‘I ain’t’ leaving, she has on Adidas sneakers, what’s the difference? says Johnson.
‘Please leave, the manager replied.
‘This is pure racism, she has on Adidas’, Johnson says in the video. ‘That’s not right.’
Once he made his way outside, one of the Chinese waiters tells Johnson, ‘I know where you are coming from, ‘I get where you are coming from Okay, but please, we are all minorities here’.
‘Y’all are not treating me like yall are a part of me’, said Johnson.
The owner of the restaurant, Farshid Arshid who was dressed in ‘sneakers’, jeans and and a baseball cap made his way out of the restaurant and tells Johnson, ‘Sir, there is no Adidas there is no Nike, we just don’t have sneakers, we do not allow sneakers’.
When Johnson asked him to come back inside to inspect the white woman’s sneakers, Arshid abruptly said, ‘’I’m not going to have an argument, there’s no Air Force Ones, done!
His wife who was filming the incident said to her husband, ‘Oh wow, your a ni*** at the end of the day’.
Arshid turns back and retorts, ‘Do you see what I am f***ing wearing?
It went downhill from there. ‘I’m not letting Air Force Ones in my establishment’, said Arshid.
Later on, TI posted a video on his Instagram showing him meeting with the restaurant owner and his brother.
‘They have apologized and they’ve made it know that they understand the failure in how they responded to the matter the other day,’ he said.
‘They’re interested in finding ways to become more diverse’.
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