Woman loses job over ‘n*gger-style’ hairdo
1st October 2018 · 0 Comments
A Black woman who worked at a fitness gym in Slidell, La. is fighting back after being told by a white supervisor that she had “n*gger-style” hair.
Aireial Mack, who worked in sales at LA Fitness in Slidell was reportedly eating lunch when she received a text from her white supervisor, Blake Mata, who told her, “We took you off the schedule because your (hair) doesn’t meet LA FITNESS STANDARDS in a fro. We want a classy appearance. We don’t want to leak off a n*gger style don’t take it wrong, just change it.”
While Mack told The New Orleans Advocate that the text sickened her, she acknowledged that it was part of a pattern of racially biased comments made by her white male supervisors at the Slidell fitness gym.
She says after immediately bringing the text to the attention of the gym’s general manager, Mark Mayeux, who is white, she was fired just days later.
On March 6 she reportedly filed a discrimination claim with the Louisiana Commission on Human Rights against LA Fitness and its parent company, Fitness International.
The commission investigates discrimination and harassment complaints in Louisiana and is the state equivalent of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
Mack, 26, told The New Orleans Advocate that the entire ordeal has left her devastated.
“I walked in confident, and left out a whole other way,” she said. “I left out broken.”
The Louisiana Commission on Human Rights reportedly told Mack in a letter in July that her former employer had violated Title VIII of the Civil Rights Act, which protects people from discrimination in the workplace, “because (Mack) was taken off the schedule due to her natural hair.”
An attempt by the commission to negotiate an agreement failed, according to the agency’s director, Leah Raby.
The commission acknowledged that LA Fitness provided a different set of reasons for terminating Mack that included a poor worth ethic. which represents defensible grounds for firing an employee.
In her complaint with the commission, Mack described another encounter with her supervisor during which Mata reportedly told a white customer, “Doesn’t she look good for a Black girl? Look at her butt.”
The commission confirmed that Mack had provided it with evidence of Mata using the same racial slur that he used in the text message on other occasions, “indica(ting) that this was a constant practice of his.”
The Advocate reported that numerous attempts to get comments from the company and its managers were unsuccessful.
Another former employee, former fitness manager Angelle Torres, told The New Orleans Advocate that she too had witnessed the racially offensive environment at LA Fitness up close and personal.
She said she heard Mata and Mayeux use racial slurs to refer to Blacks who came into the gym.
“It was sickening to have to sit there and bear witness to it,” said Torres, who is white. “But I had to feed my family. I didn’t have a choice. I was scared to speak up and say anything about it. Because I didn’t want to lose my job.”
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has agreed with the Louisiana Com-mission on Human Rights’ findings and will issue a “right to sue” letter to Mack, which means the agency itself has no plans of its own to take action against the company.
Mack confirmed last week that she does in fact plan to sue LA Fitness.
WWL News and The Advocate reported late last week that LA Fitness has removed the two managers named in Mack’s complaint from their positions on the staff as it re-opens its investigation of the case.
This article originally published in the October 1, 2018 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
