Racism is truly life or death when it comes to Black Americans. Thankfully, one man is alive to tell his story.
During a delivery, Amazon Driver Associate, Nikolas Mayrant was harassed by a white man who would then go on to complain and leave Mayrant suspended indefinitely. The entire interaction was caught on a Ring Doorbell.
REVOLT reports that the incident took place in Cornelius, NC, where, just like any other day, Mayrant set out to conduct his daily deliveries for the marketplace giant. However, when he arrived at the home of Brad Boynton, another Amazon employee, things took a turn for the worst.
Boynton alleges that Mayrant broke several Amazon policies, which included accusations of parking his car incorrectly and walking across a lawn.
Mayrant says that he “park[ed] awkwardly on a narrow street” in an effort to avoid surrounding parked cars.
After Boynton submitted the video to an Amazon colleague and station manager, Mayrant was terminated (Yes, in a pandemic). He then created a GoFundMe to cover living expenses and the campaign has since been taken down.
1. How Things Went Down
“After waiting behind my van for no longer than 20 seconds, the individual slammed the door in my face whilst I was trying to deliver his package to him,” said Mayrant in the now-deleted GoFundMe post.
He then shared that Boynton began to take pictures of him. While on a call with another Amazon colleague, Mayrant shares the white man began to call him derogatory names, including the N-word.
2. Enough Is Enough
Mayrant’s sister, Heather Rose, described the entire incident as “heartbreaking” via a post shared to Instagram.
View this post on Instagram
“I know racism is still alive, [I] mean I see it all the time on the internet & it hurts me then, but it’s a little more heartbreaking & shocking to see when it’s my blood brother,” she wrote. “Anyone who knows my brother knows he is the most quiet person & stays to hisself! Yesterday while on the job for [Amazon] he was delivering a package to this man in Cornelius, [North] Carolina. He begun to take pics of my brother and calling Amazon filing a complaint. We later found out it was because the man didn’t like the way he parked his Amazon truck.”
The incident has also grasped the attention of civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump who took to Twitter to call out Amazon for its actions against Mayrant.
“This is unacceptable!” he tweeted. “A Black Amazon driver was FIRED from his job after a neighborhood resident called him racial slurs & harassed him while taking photos of him. Why was this young man terminated when he was the victim of this shameful harassment?!”
This is unacceptable! A Black Amazon driver was FIRED from his job after a neighborhood resident called him racial slurs & harassed him while taking photos of him. Why was this young man terminated when he was the victim of this shameful harassment?!
🎥: msheatherrose on IG pic.twitter.com/h5Q5XTycgp
— Ben Crump (@AttorneyCrump) September 8, 2021
How many more incidents like this have to occur before America realizes that the true problem in this country are the racists?