Sitting in coffee shops and eating at restaurants while black have recently been the source of a lot of discussion. Now add "working out while black" to the list of things we can't do in public.
You may remember the New Jersey LA Fitness incident in early April where two black men were accused of not paying for their membership despite one of them being a member and the other holding a guest pass. Video of that incident went viral, and the nationwide gym ended up issuing a statement that the employees involved were "no longer with the company." The company also issued an apology.
Well, LA Fitness is under scrutiny once again. Ralston Masaniai is accusing the gym of racial profiling after they mistook him from another man suspected both of breaking into lockers and of credit card theft.
"We get downstairs, and they say that I fit a profile is what it was, and they wanted my ID," Masaniai told NBC Charlotte.
With his gym check-in logs as evidence, police took Masaniai to the station for questioning. However, Masaniai quickly realized that the check-in logs were incorrect.
"As I compared it to what she had, I noticed there was a three-hour difference on every single day. That's when I noticed, what she had printed out and recorded was the times and Pacific time versus Eastern time. And she realized she made a mistake," said Masaniai.
Um. That's a big "oops."
He was then let go and instructed to follow-up with police if he knew anything.
Masaniai was eventually cleared, and police arrested Tabari Grant, who has a longstanding record with over a dozen mugshots for crimes such as theft and larceny.
Masaniai's attorney has sent LA Fitness a demand for a cash settlement of $50,000, and the two parties are currently in negotiation. LA Fitness has not yet released an official statement on the matter.
Ultimately, Masaniai wants this to be about more than money.
"It's about change. It's about changing the way they do things, it's about getting rid of the profiling, the prejudices and those things have to be removed," he said.
