Two Black Men Sue Apple Store For Racial Discrimination

Apple staff ‘told’ black men: your kind not welcome. Law suit’s racism claim against New York store employee is latest in spate of racism accusations

Apple has become embroiled in a racism scandal after a lawsuit was filed accusing an employee at the company's flagship Broadway store of telling two African-Americans their "kind" was not welcome.

The incident allegedly occurred on December 9 2010 when Nile Charles, 24, and Brian Johnston, 34, entered the Apple shop in Manhattan's Upper West Side at around 3.20pm. Dressed in "baggy jeans and large sweaters with hoods", the plaintiffs say they were looking to purchase headphones, but soon attracted the attention of an Apple staff member.

The unnamed employee – said to be white and in his fifties – allegedly approached the customers in an "intimidating fashion", invading their "personal space", and saying: "You know the deal. You know the deal."

Having been asked to leave the store unless they made a purchase or saw a Mac Specialist, Charles and Johnston were then supposedly told: "And before you say I'm racially discriminating against you, let me stop you. I am discriminating against you."

The employee continued: "I don't want your kind hanging out in the store."

The incident didn't end there, according to the lawsuit. Feeling "shocked and humiliated" by their treatment, the two customers began to use their mobile phones to record the conversation when a second Apple employee approached them.

"Now you have to go," one of the employees is accused of saying. "If you want to know why, it's because I said so. CONSIDER ME GOD. You have to go."

Demanding to see the store manager, Charles and Johnston's request is said to have been ignored. Having eventually found the manager of their own accord, the two men tried to make racial profiling allegations, only for the manager to ask the store's Head of Security to call the police.

The lawsuit, evidence of which appeared on the website Apple Insider, is currently working through the New York legal system. While the incident is yet to be substantiated – they remain allegations, nothing more – it is the latest in a growing number of racism accusations levelled at American Apple employees.

Last year Owen Stone, a black American who blogs under the pseudonym 'OhDoctah', set the blogosphere alight when he described an incident in which he claims he was accused of attempting to steal a MacBook Pro by staff in Apple's Santa Monica branch.

In June 2010, New York's Attorney General Andrew Cuomo said he was investigating claims by local politician Grace Meng that Apple's SoHo store was discriminating against Asian people by refusing to sell iPads without proof of American citizenship. Not yet released in Asia at the time, employees allegedly feared iPads would be bought in America and sold on the Asian black market.