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A D.C. bar is under fire after a woman says she experienced “racist, sexist, colorist epithets” while visiting as a customer.

Pierrea Naketa detailed the incident in a Medium article and explained that she visited Copycat Co. in the H Street neighborhood after leaving a silent dance party in the same area. At first, Naketa says she and her friend were having a good time but right when they were about to leave, the two witnessed a major disturbance at the bar area.

Naketa says a male bartender “with deep brown skin” had “aggressively approached two black women sitting at the bar and snatched their plate of food.” Then, Naketa says he yelled to one of the women who was dark-skinned, saying “This bit** gotta go!”

“Bit**? Why am I bit**,” Naketa says the woman responded.

This is when Naketa says the bartender escalated things and went into a tirade screaming multiple times “YOU BLACK AND YOU UGLY BIT**! YOU BLACK AS F*** AND YOU UGLY!”

Naketa noted that the dark-skinned lady’s friend had a lighter complexion. According to Naketa, the bartender was mad about another incident that happened the last time the dark-skinned woman was there. He argued that she was banned from Copycat.

Naketa explains, “the woman stated someone she was with got into an altercation with the bartender and they left, but she seemed to genuinely not know she was not welcomed to return.” As a matter of fact, Naketa says the woman and her friend were buying drinks and food with no interruption up until the bartender’s confrontation.

Once the woman left, Naketa says she felt obligated to talk to the manager: “I explained to him that while I do not know what happened before, and Copycat may have had good cause to want the woman to leave, the way she was asked to leave was disturbing. I asked him if he would be addressing the colorist rant with the bartender.”

That’s when Naketa says the man said, “What? Do you want me to fire him?” He then tried to explain that the bartender was Black too, according to Naketa. She responded to the presumed manager in her article, saying, “the bartender’s race is irrelevant and that his employee had screamed colorist remarks in front of a room full of people. I told him that my friends and I were uncomfortable and offended.”

Naketa argues that the presumed manger didn’t take her concerns seriously and as she began to respond, “a young Black man who worked in the kitchen appeared from around the corner with a ladle in hand.” Naketa says he wrongfully assumed that Naketa was the woman who had been kicked out. Naketa says that he yelled, “Man quit talking to these bit**es! You been talking to these bit**es for 10 minutes! Kick the bit** out!”

After Naketa’s masculine partner came over and corrected the cook, Naketa says he apologized. However, when she asked for the presumed manager’s name, he replied, “I’m not giving you my name.” Naketa argues that if she hadn’t been a dark-skinned Black woman, her “complaint would have been taken seriously.”

The next day, when Naketa Googled the restaurant, she realized that the man she was addressing who she thought was the manager was actually one of the owners of the restaurant Devin Gong.

Since Naketa has shared her story on Medium, some folks across social media have supported her situation, saying they will never go to CopyCat Co. again.

 

Asian-Owned D.C. Bar Accused Of Calling Woman ‘Black’ And ‘Ugly’  was originally published on newsone.com