Even if I were actually on FB, that would still be a hard and fast rule.
I’m not saying it’s impossible that ‘payback’ was the motivating factor, just that it doesn’t make much logical sense; especially since all it ended up doing was getting the involved employees fired.
Dumbest “revenge” ever.
Thanks to Ken Snider for moderating this thread. I’ll be the first to admit that my comments earlier were perhaps a little out of line so I apologize for that.
According to this article
The L.A. Fitness incident took place the day before Starbucks announced that stores across the country will close for one day next month to conduct racial bias training in the wake of the controversial arrest of two black men last week at a location in Philadelphia.
I would like to give them the benefit of the doubt and think maybe there was some other reason they wanted him out besides his skin color, like maybe he’d been regularly breaking some club rule or something and they just finally decided to end his membership without warning. I would really like to believe that, but it’s getting harder and harder to be that generous.
I know a number of people who’ve joined fitness clubs just to shower and change clothes because they’re technically homeless. I’ve considered moving into an illegal living space that had no shower, so that’s something on my mind: could I get kicked out of a gym for no other reason than they realized I was basically homeless?
The modern world is making it very hard to live in the modern world.
Pay gym fees for 8 years and never go? 
“Oh you’re a girl?! You’re clearly just doing this for male attention (ps y wont u date me)”
First one EXACTLY.
Second one…yeah them too. 
Not really. When you live in a racist, misogynist, homophobic, transphobic (etc) society, you take on those societal messages, whoever you are. Now, obviously, for example, a black lesbian is going to internalize those messages in a quite different way than, say, a white, heterosexual man, because having those messages apply to “the other” isn’t the same as being the subject of them, but still it’s going to have an impact.
When you’re on the low rung of the social ladder, finding someone even lower makes you feel better. Study after study shows, that in hierarchical societies, the important thing for happiness is having someone underneath you.
In the service of deescalation, I will throw in my two cents that it is quite possible that it was just a personality conflict or power trip.
I used to go to a corporate gym and I had a card checker tell me that I was lying when I told them that another employee had printed out my barcode and stuck it on my drivers license. I can believe that many people do scams to share memberships but this would be the stupidest way to do so when they have my drivers license right there to verify it is me.
It was then that it clicked for me that this was simply a power play on her part. I am sure it must get annoying being bound by silly corporate policies while seeing customers violating rules right and left. She was doing this for herself, not for the company. I suspect so much of this LA fitness manager as well; he is clearly not following any articulatable policy just trying to maintain some sense of agency in the face of a soul numbing job.
I’m a gamer, across huge swathes of the spectrum. I don’t believe I’ve ever looked down on someone for the types of game they play. Except politicians. Fuck those guys.
As for this situation… I’m not from California. Is this gym a “big deal”? Meaning, are they jockeying to be the place to pump weights, or are they the place already?
If jockeying, did they see what went down with Starbucks and think, “Hey?! That’s some real inexpensive advertising right there!” and not give it any further consideration before putting the new plan into action?
Are they suddenly racist? Or is some other thing going down that we aren’t seeing?
I’ll admit, I haven’t watched the video yet, but I will. If they were doing this to more than one guy, I could see race being a motivator; but maybe they are just testing the waters in Trump’s Great Again America™ to see how it goes before dragging out the banhammer and going wild.
Or maybe this guy did something unrelated to his race that has pissed of the peeps in power, and they are going about handling it in a very stupid way?
My last employer was the primary salesman for the company he owns in southern California. He primarily uses 24-Hour Fitness to shower and change clothes while he’s on the road.
Oops. Ditto.
About a month ago they took my and my wife’s photos to add to our profiles in their system when we went to the gym. Certainly in an effort to eliminate account sharing.
Looked to me like the manager was trying to lose his job. Even if you overlook the fact that he only did this to the only two black people in the gym, he’s doing a terrible job of running a customer-oriented business. And he knows it, which is why he doesn’t want any video record of it.
The local police department culture probably has a lot to do with this much more rational reaction.
Basically, it would not at all surprise me that the Secaucus Police department is less terrible than Philadelphia’s.
Why?
Keep in mind that by giving the gym employees the benefit of the doubt, you’re withdrawing it from the men who were discriminated against.
“Benefit of the doubt always goes to the white people” is part of the problem here.
No, this is LA Fitness the chain, not the place. It happened in New Jersey, so not that far from PA.
I find it curious that people are willing to posit some supposed yet unknown transgression on the part of the black men for which there’s no evidence, rather than take at face value the video documented actions of the people discriminating against them. I don’t think people are even aware that’s what they’re doing. It just seems more credible to them that the black people did something entirely hypothetical than that people are really as racist as they behave in the video.
Thanks, but I’ve been informed already and I already acknowledged my mistake.
SSDD.
If anyone looks at a clearcut video like that and the first thing that comes to mind is “Well there has to be more to it!” then congrats; you’ve identified yourself as part of the problem, inadvertently.
Sorry, I’m late to the party. That’ll teach me not to read everything before replying.
after having lived, so far, the majority of a 57 year lifespan in texas i don’t find it curious at all.
sad, disappointing, disgusting, outrageous, unfair, inequitable, depraved–sure. just not curious.
personally, again given my lifetime of experiences in place and time, i think that’s giving the benefit of the doubt to way too many racists who know in their hearts that they are racists. seriously, i think the number who are truly unaware of what they are doing would be 10% or less of those doing it. i’ve reached a point where i have no more patience for racism and i tend to call it out when i see it or hear it.
