Black woman gets called the N-word for eating out – but her response takes the internet by storm

A woman's response to a racist Snapchat post from a Tennessee restaurant waitress who served her is itself making the rounds on social media.

The Daily News Journal reported that on Sunday afternoon, Chelsea Mayes and her four friends had left the Cheddar's restaurant in Murfreesboro after having what they thought was a pleasant experience with the waitress who served them. But later that day, Mayes received a text from her friend, letting the 22-year-old African-American woman know what the server really thought of their interaction.

According to the DNJ, the server posted a Snapchat that read, "I am so hungover. And I have a section full of n*****s right now."

Mayes told the DNJ that it was "shocking" and "hurtful" that the Cheddar's waitress made such racist remarks about her and her friends, especially since they all had academic backgrounds. Mayes said that she, herself, is pursuing a degree in business administration while working two jobs.

"We are people who contribute to society," Mayes said.

The young college student told DNJ that the social media revelations were especially troubling, considering that the waitress laughed and made jokes with Mayes and her friends while serving their table.

"Now I wonder, is this how she felt the whole time?" Mayes asked. "What if she did something to our food? What else did she say about us?”

The DNJ reported that the server was fired as soon as the restaurant's management learned of her racist Snapchat post.

“We, ourselves, were shocked and offended after learning one of our servers had posted comments on social media that were hurtful and derogatory,” Lee Greer, the president of Mint Julep Restaurant Management Group Inc. and the owner and operator of Cheddar's in Murfreesboro, told DNJ. “This type of behavior will never be tolerated in our restaurants.  The server was immediately suspended and ultimately terminated after our internal investigation.”

But while Mayes admitted to DNJ she was angry at the server's bigoted comments, she "wasn't going to stay angry."

Instead, she took to Facebook, and penned what may be a more thoughtful reply:

“This ‘n-----' is pretty nice,” she wrote. “This ‘n-----' actually enjoyed your company. This ‘n-----' is praying for you. This ‘n-----' loves you and there isn’t anything you can do about it.”

Mayes told DNJ that after her four-month-old son died from respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) in January, she has "learned how to keep the faith." She admitted, however, that she is glad the Cheddar's waitress lost her job over the social media post.

“If there’s no repercussion for these actions, it’s as though they’re saying it’s OK for these actions to happen again,” Mayes said.

Racist remarks on social media have been a recurring cause of employee firings in the United States lately. Colorado's NBC4 news station reported on Sunday that a waitress at a Texas Roadhouse in Denver was fired after she complained on Twitter about a customer's lack of tip, claiming, “If we had a real life purge I would kill as many Mexicans as I could in one night."

The New York Daily News noted that in May of last year, a waiter was fired from the New Orleans sports bar, Huck Finn's, after writing the phrase, "N*****s, 100% Dislike" on a receipt he gave to African-American customers.