a group of young black entrepreneurs have owned a office building in uptown minneapolis for over a year& got racially profiled at the private gym today🤦🏾‍♀️smh pic.twitter.com/iKmAuW5Tli
— nisa (@anisalrh) May 27, 2020
Tom Austin, AKA “Venture Kapitalist Karen,” had his office lease terminated after a video showed him calling the building manager to complain about a group of black men in the office gym.
From The Hill:
The incident comes just days after a video of a white Minneapolis police officer kneeling on the neck of George Floyd until he died of asphyxiation went viral. The death of Floyd, an African American man, led to massive protests in the city and calls for an investigation into the officers’ behavior.
Stuart Ackerberg, CEO of Ackerberg Group, which owns the MoZaic East building, said he was still heartbroken from seeing the video of Floyd when he decided to terminate the lease.
“My heart hurts,” he told the Tribune. “This is not how we do business. … I’m alarmed by what I saw.”