Jordan Clark, a cornerback for Arizona State, tweeted about the Tuesday evening incident at Whataburger in Tempe, where he and two teammates, Nolan Matthews and T Lee, had walked to get food, reported AZCentral.
The fast food restaurant was closed to dine-in or carryout orders due to the coronavirus pandemic, and many eateries don't allow walk-up customers at the drive-through for safety reasons.
So the Black players approached a woman in line and asked if she would buy food using their money, but she told them she was in a hurry and could not, so they asked a younger white man and he agreed, Clark said.
While the players waited for their food on a wall away from the drive-through window, they overheard the woman complain to the manager about them -- and he gave the woman her food for free.
"Thanks for the free food, n*ggers," the woman said as she drove off, according to Clark. "Bye n*ggers."
Clark said they were hurt and stunned by the woman's slurs, and they were upset by the manager's reaction.
"He didn't bat an eye, or think twice about what he had heard," Clark tweeted. "He didn't apologize to us for it happening, or show any sympathy at all."
In fact, Clark said, the manager threatened to call police on them.
"I am of course angry, but that isn't my reasoning for this post," he wrote. "I wrote this to reach the people around me who have decided to remain silent on the topic of racism."
"This isn't a problem that can be ignored or swept under a rug," Clark added. "This is a problem you have to take a side on. You are either condemning racism or allowing it to happen. And if you allowing it to happen then you're just as bad."
Clark and his teammates met with Arizona State vice president for athletics Ray Anderson and head football coach Herm Edwards, and Whataburger labor-employee relations manager Ron Campos spoke with the players and their parents.
"We condemn racism in any form and were horrified to hear how these customers were treated by another customer — this will not be tolerated," the restaurant chain tweeted in response. "We are reinforcing training with our employee on how this incident was handled and have spoken with the customers and their families to apologize for this terrible experience."
