Welp… I can strike Joe’s Crab Shack off of my list of restaurants.
The popular seafood chain is under?fire this week after they were discovered using a historic photo of a black man’s execution as?table decor.
Read details about the outrageous incident below…
USAToday reports that Minneapolis NAACP,?Tyrone Williams?and?Chauntyll?Allen?were preparing to dine at Joe’s Crab Shack in Roseville on Wednesday night when they noticed a photo?embedded inside the table.
It appeared?to show a large group of white people watching a public execution of at least one black person. ?On the bottom of the picture, it reads: “Hanging at?Groesbeck, Texas, on April 12th, 1895.” At the top, the caption reads,?”All I said was that I didn’t like the gumbo.”
Williams posted the photo to Facebook with the following caption:
“Although the manager was apologetic about the lynching depiction, that does not change the fact that this sickening image of black men being lynched was intentionally embedded inside of a table,” Williams said.
“This type of blatant racism should not be tolerated in this country, or in our local and national eating establishments. I have felt sick to my stomach and stressed out since seeing that image on the table where I was planning to eat my food.”
“Seeing a picture of two black men being lynched was the last thing that I expected to see at what was supposed to be a family-friendly restaurant,” Allen said.
Nekima Levy-Pounds, President of the Minneapolis NAACP, said the incident “demonstrates that racism is still alive and well in this country.”
“It is sickening to know that someone would make a mockery of black men being savagely lynched and then use that imagery for decorative purposes in a restaurant,” Levy-Pounds said in a statement.
The Minneapolis NAACP is demanded an immediate public apology by the corporate offices of Joe’s?Crabshack; immediate?removal “of any and all lynching or otherwise racially-offensive imagery” from its restaurants; and a?donation to a local community-based organization that serves African American youths and teenagers.
The table was removed, and late Thursday night Ignite Restaurant Group released a statement to?KARE?that said, ?We understand on the photos used in our table decor at our Joe?s Crab Shack location in Roseville, MN was offensive.?
It was not immediately clear if the picture was present in other locations for the Texas-based company, of which there are nearly 100 around the country.
That was only one restaurant in a chain… I’m sure they all have the same or similar decor. ?I can only image how?many people are eating right on top of a lynching photo everyday without even thinking twice about it.
I can’t believe it’s 2016 and things like this are still happening across the country.?And you people thought racism was dead…. *sigh*