MadameNoire
Source: Hudson Marques / Pexel
A restaurant in Martha’s Vineyard has gone viral after a bouncer seemingly racially profiled a Black woman.
In a TikTok video, a bouncer at The Cardboard Box in Martha’s Vineyard accused a Black woman of trying to use a fake ID card to enter the restaurant on August 10. She insisted it was real, but instead of verifying the ID card on his own he called the police.
Even after the police verified the ID was real, the bouncer continued to insist it wasn’t real.
The restaurant owner, Ben DeForest, issued a lengthy apology via social media after the incident went viral.
To begin, we unequivocally and without reservation apologize to the young women who were treated poorly at our establishment. A personal apology has been given, but we realize that a public apology is also called for,” the post says in part. “We also apologize for failing to be sure that all our staff is educated about what is appropriate, especially in incidents involving Black people, who are so often unjustly targeted both by law enforcement and those seeking to weaponize law enforcement against marginalized people.
Michael Blake, owner of Offshore Kinetics MV, the security company that provided the bouncer, also issued an apology.
“The young man who scrutinized this young lady’s ID I guess identified some anomalies and as per our standard operating procedure he got the assistance of the Oak Bluffs police department,” Blake, who is Black, told the Martha’s Vineyard Times. “If the young lady felt like she was profiled, if the speech indicated something that alluded to that we obviously apologize for that. We definitely don’t want anyone to feel that way.”
He added that calling the police for ID verification is a common practice on the island but understands that visitors may not be too supportive of this considering race relations with the police.
The woman who posted the video to TikTok received an apology that she passed on to her friend.
“I passed it on to my friend and she just said she would like to move on from this whole experience,” she said in the video’s comment section. “With that being said, this whole experience was an unfortunate lesson for everyone involved.”
The video has since been taken down.
