When Deianeira Ford ordered a $5 combo at a Dairy Queen in Zion, Illinois, she sparked a series of events that would eventually end up with the owner of the fast food restaurant losing his franchise over his use of racial slurs directed at customers.
According to media reports, Ford and her two young children were at the drive-thru on Wednesday but noticed the meal was incomplete. After she was told her order couldn’t be fulfilled, she asked for a refund.
“I asked for the manager for either a refund or for my food. And when he came to the window he handed me five dollars and then proceeded to tell me that if he was the one taking my order, he wouldn’t even have served me,” Ford told the Chicago Tribune.
Ford said the shop owner, James Crichton, continued and called her and her children the N-word and said “her people” weren’t welcome at his restaurant.
The 21-year-old was upset, but what shook her was when her nearly three-year-old daughter repeated the slur.
“Mommy, we n—-?” the girl asked, according to The Washington Post.
That’s when Ford called the police.
According to a police report, the responding officer witnessed Crichton using the slur.
“Crichton boastfully told me he would be happy to go to jail over the issue and proudly admitted to calling Ford a n—-. He added that he is ‘fed up with black people,’” read part of the incident report.
“During the course of my conversation with Crichton, he used the word ‘n—-‘ to freely describe black people.”
Although Crichton later denied the story, he issued an apology through a Dairy Queen statement Friday.
“I would like to sincerely and humbly apologize for my recent words and actions,” it read. “What I said was not appropriate and is something I cannot take back. I have no excuse. I can only ask for forgiveness and try to make it up to all involved.”
The apology did not address or specifically mention Ford.
Dairy Queen said Crichton and his employees would undergo sensitivity training, but as of Friday, Dairy Queen announced that Crichton’s franchise rights would be terminated and that the branch in Zion would be closing.
A protest organized by local activists for Saturday turned into a celebration, of sorts, as Ford and her supporters hailed their triumph over discrimination.
Ford’s lawyer, Renea Amen, told The Washington Post that there is still a possibility for legal action to be taken against the company since more customers and employees of Crichton’s franchise have come forward with their own experiences of racist treatment.
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