A Whataburger in Fort Worth, Texas, became the center of protests after an employee of the restaurant quit over a dispute about her mask.

Ma’Kiya Congious told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram that she had been wearing her mask with "Black lives matter" stitched on it for days before a customer complained about it on August 4. She had even received compliments on the mask before the complaint.

“I asked, ‘Is it something I did wrong?’ She said, ‘They should not allow you to wear that mask…don’t worry about it you’ll be hearing from corporate,’” the 19-year-old told the newspaper.

She began recording her bosses berating her after she told them the customer planned to contact management about her mask.

“Whataburger wants you to wear a mask that has no opinions whatsoever on them. You’re entitled to your personal opinions, that’s fine. But at Whataburger we don’t want to portray them because some people may be offended. This is a big business … Whataburger doesn’t want to get into anything political because we’re just hamburgers and fries," her manager said in the recording.

The manager, who is unnamed, demands the workers follow the restaurant's guidelines but is pushed by other employees who question why the mask is a problem at a restaurant in a predominantly Black neighborhood. The manager says she "is the minority here," apparently referencing that she was white and most of the workers were Black.

She goes on to reiterate that the masks cannot have "political opinions" on them. Another worker in the audio clip explains that the mask was important because of the racism she has faced on the job.

"My attitude has been kinda crappy the last couple of days because I had a Whataburger customer call me a n****r, and that's why my life matters," the woman said.

The manager and another senior official at the restaurant begin arguing with Congious and the other workers before she said she was quitting.

“You want to put your two weeks notice in? We accept it and you don’t have to come back at all,” the manager said.

Ma'Kiya-Congious

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