If you, dear reader, were actively looking for a place to lose your peace, to witness all manner of buffoonery—particularly of the racist variety—then your best bet in 2019 is a Florida McDonald’s.
For the second week in a row, an altercation at a McDonald’s went viral—this time in Spring Hill, Fla., where an employee called a customer at a drive-through window a racial slur.
As the Miami Herald reports, the video, which was posted by Zacch Barnes on his Storyful account last week, begins in the middle of a heated argument between Barnes and several McDonald’s employees. It’s unclear what started the confrontation, but one employee, a white woman, is already on the phone—presumably with the police.
“You just called me a [n-word]!” Barnes yells several times. At which point, another a male employee comes up.
“I don’t care. I don’t give a fuck,” he says, getting increasingly irate. “I don’t give a fuck, [n-word]!”
Behold: the energy one has when they’re protected by brick, mortar, a very thick slab of glass and a grip of coworkers.
Behold, as well: nary one of his coworkers—including his manager—bats an eye at this young man quite literally hollering the n-word at the top of his lungs.
Barnes, in response, yells what is clearly the most logical thing to yell when you have just obtained video footage of someone exposing their whole ass.
“Ahh! Got you on camera,” he says. “Worldstar!”
When our McVillain returns back on camera to hurl some more racial slurs, as well as the unverified claim that he will “fuck up” Barnes, Barnes states the obvious.
“You’re getting fired,” he says, before pointing to each person behind the glass window.
“You’re getting fired. You’re getting fired. Fired. Fired! Fired!”
He lingers on one woman standing to the right, who has busied herself this entire time...not doing a damn thing to quell the situation.
“You’re getting fired, too, because you’re a manager. You’re supposed to handle this differently,” Barnes says.
Is Barnes a prophet? Or just a man with a shred of common sense? Because the young man with big slur energy did end up getting “Fired. Fired! Fired!” by the fast food chain (notably, the other employees were not disciplined).
In a statement to The Washington Post, Javier Ilias, the owner of the Spring Hill franchise, wrote that he was aware of the incident
“The disturbance with the customer prompted our management team to call the police right away; and we did an immediate investigation on this matter,” Ilias wrote. “This behavior goes against the values and standards that I expect from employees in my restaurants. This employee displayed improper and unacceptable conduct and is no longer with the company.”
Earlier this month, McDonald’s made headlines for the extraordinarily shitty way they handled another confrontation in which a white man attempted to assault a black employee over a straw. The employee, Yasmine James fought back and her attacker was ultimately pulled off her, but many criticized McDonald’s management for not doing more to protect James.
As the Post reports, a spokeswoman for Ilias said Barnes was not charged with a crime.