McDonald’s is under intense scrutiny after 10 former employees filed a federal civil rights lawsuit on Thursday, claiming that they were fired in May 2014 because of their race. They allege that they were told there were “too many black people working in the store,” according to a press release.

The employees—nine black and one Hispanic, who worked at three different franchise locations in Virginia—claim that supervisors habitually called one of the branches the “ghetto store” and called the black employees “ghetto” and “ratchet.”

“All of a sudden they let me go, for no other reason than I ‘didn’t fit the profile’ they wanted at the store,” Willie Betts, a former cook at one of the restaurants, said in a press release. “I had no idea what they meant by the ‘right profile’ until I saw everyone else that they fired as well.”

The employees say that when 17 minority staffers were fired in May, managers said that the restaurants were “too dark” and they “need to get the ghetto out of the store.” However, Mike Simon, who owns the three franchises is black himself, has denied any discrimination.

“I continually strive to maintain an environment in which everyone feels valued and accepted. To protect the privacy of current and past employees, I’m not at liberty to discuss issues regarding employment or termination,” Simon said in a statement released in May, the Washington Post notes. “However, my organization has a strict policy of prohibiting any form of discrimination or harassment in hiring, termination or any other aspect of employment.”

The plaintiffs in the lawsuit intend to hold McDonald’s Corporation accountable, even though the company has repeatedly claimed that it is not in control of the franchises.

“We asked McDonald’s corporate to help us get our jobs back, but the company told us to take our concerns to the franchisee—the same franchisee that just fired us,” plaintiff Pamela Marable said in the release. “McDonald’s closely monitors everything we do, from the speed of the drive-through line, to the way we smile and fold customers’ bags—but when we try to tell the company that we’re facing discrimination, they ignore us and say that it’s not their problem.”

In a written statement to the Root, McDonald’s USA said, “We have not seen the lawsuit, and cannot comment on its allegations, but will review the matter carefully. McDonald’s has a long-standing history of embracing the diversity of employees, independent Franchisees, customers and suppliers, and discrimination is completely inconsistent with our values. McDonald’s and our independent owner-operators share a commitment to the well-being and fair treatment of all people who work in McDonald’s restaurants.”

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On Saturday, Sgt. Valerie Deant went to a shooting range with other troops from the Florida Army National Guard for “annual weapons qualifications training,” according to NBC Miami.

North Miami Beach police snipers had used the range before them, and once Deant and her fellow guardsmen arrived they were shocked to see that mug shots of African-American men were used as target practice. Deant found that one of the men in the photos was her brother, Woody Deant, whose mug shot was taken 15 years ago. Woody Deant was 18 years old when the photograph was taken

“I was like, ‘Why is my brother being used for target practice?'” Deant told the news station. “There were like gunshots there, and I cried a couple of times.”

Nearly 50 percent of Americans said that race relations in the U.S. “have gotten worse” since Obama took office and a mere 15 percent said that race relations had improved under Obama’s tenure, results from an Al Jazeera and Monmouth University poll reveal.

People’s opinions about the state of race relations differed along racial lines.

“White respondents were most likely to say things had gotten worse, whereas African-Americans were nearly evenly split on the question,” Al Jazeera explained.

By Breanna Edwards, theRoot.com

Commuters driving along Interstate Highway 59, located near Birmingham, Ala., are once again being greeted by a billboard bearing a racially charged message steeped in segregationist belief, AL.com reports. It is the second time in less than a year that such a billboard has popped up in the area. This latest one reads, “Diversity means chasing down the last white person,” and includes a #whitegenocide hashtag.

According to Al.com, the phrase is used by the White Genocide Project, a white supremacist and separatist group. This particular phrase appears to be one of the group’s “repeater phrases,” which the group encourages activists to use often.

Another such phrase, “Anti-racist is code for anti-white,” appeared in June 2013 in a billboard near Leeds, Ala., leading the mayor of that city, David Miller, to condemn the “racist message.”

Al.com reports that Dyar Signs in Trafford, Ala., appears to own the Birmingham billboard but did not respond to requests for comment.

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New York mayor Bill de Blasio made waves with the police union last week after comments that his biracial son needed to take special precautions when dealing with police.

According to the Huffington Post, De Blasio commented that after the Staten Island grand jury decided not to indict an officer responsible for the choking death of 43-year-old Eric Garner, he and his wife “had to literally train” Dante on how to handle dealing with police.  

“The head of the city’s police union said De Blasio’s statement ‘threw cops under the bus,” the Huffington Post notes.

De Balsio, who has refused to endorse the grand jury’s Eric Garner decision, didn’t back down from his position that the country, and the way children of color are policed is different from their white counterparts.

Demonstrators walk together during a protest Dec. 3, 2014, in New York City after a grand jury decided not to indict Officer Daniel Pantaleo for the death of Eric Garner, who died after being put in a choke hold on July 17, 2014.

We’ve heard much over the past week about how Ferguson, Mo., police Officer Darren Wilson’s description of Michael Brown as a “demon” suggests that Wilson didn’t see Brown—and by extension doesn’t see black people in general—as fully human. And while these are different cases, in the wake of the failure to indict Eric Garner’s killer, I can only think of New York City police Officer Daniel Pantaleo’s less overt, but no less insidious, demonization of Garner in his version of an acknowledgment and “apology” for what he did.

His words are so incommensurate with what he did that they strain belief as having come from someone who, months ago, killed someone with his bare hands for nothing anyone would consider even a serious provocation.

“It is never my intention to harm anyone,” he said.

“Harm” is a formal word; it comes from a clinical distance and also implies survivability. Someone with a dog bite is harmed. Calling someone choked to death “harmed” verges on abdication of responsibility.

“I feel very bad … ” Me, too—about the time I forgot to keep a neighbor’s lawn watered when she was on vacation once. If I had choked a man to death, however, I would express horror, guilt, the task of carrying the burden to my own grave. Pantaleo just feels bad. Aw.

“ … about the death of Mr. Garner.” Why the noun “death”? Here, using the noun connotes formality and therefore, again, distance: that is, his recoil from his having caused this death. More appropriate here would be “that I killed Mr. Garner” or even “that Mr. Garner died because of my actions.” A noun versus a verb can say much. Imagine someone who always said “since my marriage” as opposed to “since I got married.” Note that you would immediately smell that the person felt a certain distance from his or her spouse.

“Personal condolences” is a phrase one finds on cards sold in pharmacies. It’s so antique and overused that in this context it stands in relation to actual feeling as the phrase “How are you?” does to actually wanting to know. What’s next—a box of Whitman’s chocolates?

It is painfully clear from this statement that Pantaleo lacks the true feeling of horror we would expect of someone responsible for taking someone else from this earth for all but nothing. And it may well be that if he had killed a white man, his expression of responsibility would be equally chilly and distant. However, we are justified in suspecting not, given the realities of American psychology.

I am aware that some will say that it’s hasty of me to bring race into Pantaleo’s statement at all. However, it surely isn’t hasty to note that too many black men get killed by cops for murky reasons in this country. With not just Garner but also with Michael Brown, Akai Gurley, Tamir Rice and John Crawford all within one year, it’s time we turned a corner. What kind of nation is this, in which a race of people think of how the cops treat them, or mistreat them, as a core facet of their very identity?

Anybody who thinks that saying this is to bring up race unnecessarily is, frankly, not thinking very hard.

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