Texas Roadhouse to racist waitress: Hit the road

Nicholas Eckhart

A Greeley waitress broke from the modern expression of racial resentment, coded language and red-herring-ism by using explicit hate speech on Twitter. (This, by the way, isn’t an Onion article.)

Megan Olson was working at the Texas Roadhouse in Greeley earlier this month when, in response to an unsatisfactory tip, she turned to the Twitterverse, writing, “If we had a real life purge, I would kill as many Mexicans as I could in one night.” She followed her statement with a hashtag that contained profanity and a racial slur.

The tweet provoked outrage online, with many condemning its racist nature, and some simply admonishing Olson for not accepting lower tips as an occupational hazard in restaurant work.

Maria Handley, executive director of Generation Latino, blamed Donald Trump’s divisiveness for the hateful language.

“We have seen a fear-mongering campaign that has legitimized racist comments like this across all social media networks,” Handley said. “This vitriol and hate that we are seeing in our communities is real and the man leading that is running for president.”

Olson’s manager reportedly was mowing his lawn when he was alerted of the Tweet. He told her to hit the road.

“This employee has been terminated as discrimination of any sort is not tolerated at Texas Roadhouse,” reads the chain’s Facebook page.

Rest assured, Colorado: Olson won’t be serving any more Cactus Blossoms, Rattlesnake Bites or “Kenny’s Cooler’s”— blue adult beverages “inspired by Kenny Chesney’s island lifestyle,” according to the Roadhouse’s website— to anyone, regardless of race, creed, color or tipping tendencies.

[Photo credit: Nicholas Eckhart via Creative Commons in Flickr]

3 COMMENTS

  1. Thank you for defending CONSERVATIVE values…..

    in supporting the right of private business owners to hire or fire whoever they wish at their own discretion.

    She has a 1st Amendment right…. but TR and other businesses also have the right to determine who they want as employees.

    “Right to refuse service” also falls under this category for business owners. But so called “Liberals” seem to have a difficult time with it.

    Like when they cite “public accommodations” to FORCE people to do things against their own free will…. yet support BANNING people like Milo from “public accommodations” because they disagree with his opinions.

    And I won’t hold my breath for you Leftists to hash tag a #TwitterIsHomophobic in Milo’s defense. Because you only race/gender/sex bait when it suits your agendas.

  2. Well, I hate to tell you this, Mr King, but I’m just not interested in defending someone that I have NO idea who they are or on a platform that I don’t have anything to do with, so you lose with this Leftist.

    As to what is or is not a “conservative” value, I think that in this instance, you would find that pretty much every leftist out here believes she should be fired. She’s dealing with the public, and if her best response to them it so fire off a racist, violent, threatening comment, then she really shouldn’t be dealing with the public and needs a new job.

    Everything doesn’t have to be a divide and conquer situation, and it doesn’t really help to try and make everything into one.

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