Coast grocery store worker placed on leave after shoppers say they were called N-word
A couple who say they were called the N-word by a Froogel’s employee joined members of Black Lives Matter Mississippi to protest outside the store at the Hardy Court shopping center in Gulfport on Sunday afternoon.
“Black people, stop shopping where you are not respected,” Anastassia Doctor, a Black Lives Matter Mississippi board member, chanted through a megaphone as she and a handful of others walked back and forth in front of the store entrance for nearly two hours.
Kimiyatta May, 45, said in an interview that she and her fiance, Bobby Anderson, had been shopping for meat on Friday morning when a male employee refused to slice fresh lunch meat. When they asked if he could get someone else to help them, a white female employee came out.
“She said, ‘Don’t worry bout these (N-words), they just have (N-word) crumbs,’” May said.
The couple’s account was recorded on Facebook Live on Friday by Jeremy Marquell Bridges, a Black Lives Matter Mississippi board member. By Sunday evening, the video had been shared 2,700 times and gotten 1,300 comments.
In an interview before the protest Sunday, store general manager Richard Fillingame told the Sun Herald that Froogel’s was investigating the incident and the female employee had been placed on leave pending the conclusion of the investigation. Fillingame said there is video footage of the interaction between the couple and employees and that it is being reviewed.
Doctor, who lives in Hattiesburg, said the goal of the protest was to make Froogel’s patrons, especially Black shoppers, aware of the allegations.
“If you know better, you do better,” she said.
On Sunday, most shoppers looked at the protesters as they crossed the parking lot and then continued into the store. At least three people who had planned to buy groceries at the store in the Hardy Court Shopping Center said they decided not to after hearing the chants and talking with the demonstrators.
Keef Jackson, 19, had come to the store to buy supplies for his mom’s birthday, but changed his mind.
“I ain’t fixing to go in there,” he said. “I don’t want nobody disrespecting me.”
Viral video account
May said that she called the police on Friday to report what had happened. When two Gulfport police officers arrived, they said she could be arrested for causing a disruption in the store. (The Gulfport Police Department did not respond to a request for comment.)
When they left, she called her cousin, who helped her get in touch with Black Lives Matter Mississippi. Bridges then met the couple back at the store about an hour after their first trip and recorded them recounting what had happened.
Fillingame also appears in the video, mostly standing to the side as the couple speaks to Bridges.
A Black Froogel’s employee whom Fillingame identifies as the meat department supervisor said the store needs to “look at the cameras, see what’s going on.”
“We got witnesses back there...,” he said.
“No, you don’t, sir,” May interjected.
Before walking back into the store, the supervisor said to Fillingame, “You’ve done what you’re supposed to do.”
“I was gonna investigate the situation and [May] in turn told me not to worry about it because I wasn’t going to do anything about it, she had an incident here before,” Fillingame said on the video. “And I don’t deserve to be in the position I’m in...”
Fillingame said that if the employee had used the slur, “She probably would be fired.”
Several other Froogel’s employees told the Sun Herald that the security footage does not contain audio.
Making groceries
On Sunday, May said there wasn’t much the store could do to regain her business; for years, she has shopped there two or three times a week, she said.
On Friday, she sent an email to the Froogel’s main contact email address, a copy of which she shared with the Sun Herald. As of Sunday evening, she had not received a response.
“I just want them to recognize the fact that we are here,” she said. “We are human.”
The flow of customers continued throughout the afternoon, the crowd reflecting the diversity of Gulfport.
Deshanti Dickey, who is Black, said she has shopped regularly at Gulfport for years and was shocked to see the video of May’s account. The employees are always nice to her son, a toddler, and she had to watch the video twice to make sure it was her Froogel’s.
“I’ve never seen that side of them at all,” she said.
She said she hoped the store would address the situation. But she hadn’t come to protest.
“I’m just here to make my groceries,” she said.
‘Inextricably linked with violence and brutality’
“Black men, and Black women, are being disrespected,” chanted one of the protesters as she marched . “They are being called (N-words). They only give (N-word) crumbs. What do that mean? They are not using the N-word. They are using the word n-----.”
Around 3:30, two employees left the store and walked across the parking lot. One of them cheered, “I love Froogel’s!” as the protesters’ chants continued.
The two women, who declined to give their names, called the allegations “all a lie.”
“The poor girl that they’re accusing of doing this has been crying for two days,” one of them said.
“This is the kind of people that cause the (expletive) disturbances in America,” said the other, gesturing toward the protesters.
One employee, who is white, said she believes the racial slur is not actually a racial slur but a word that can describe a person, Black or white, “acting stupid.”
The word, derived from the Spanish and Portuguese word for “black,” entered the English language along with chattel slavery, and became a derogatory slur for Black people as early as the 17th century.
“The poison is still there,” Arizona State University Professor Neal A. Lester, who has taught a college course on the slur, said in 2011. “The word is inextricably linked with violence and brutality on black psyches and derogatory aspersions cast on black bodies.”
Doctor, the Black Lives Matter Mississippi board member, said that the protests would continue if Froogel’s didn’t respond to the allegations.
“The Montgomery bus boycott lasted 381 days,” she said.
On Monday, Bridges posted on Facebook Live that he was back at the Froogel’s parking lot. He urged viewers to boycott the store.
“We’re gonna be out here every day,” he said. “We’re not gonna stop. We’re really out here just to make more people aware of the situation.”
