A San Francisco coffeehouse owner has fired her husband after he confessed to her that he had repeated a racial slur after being called that word in an altercation over a parking spot.
Eileen Rinaldi announced earlier this week that she had “terminated” her husband, John Rinaldi, from working at Ritual Coffee Roasters in any capacity. The move came after he told her about an argument that he had last month with another man while managing construction work at the company's warehouse.
“[He] asked me and I quote: ‘What's your name, bitch ass n**ger?’”Rinaldi explained to the San Francisco Chronicle. The former mayoral candidate snarkily replied, “Yup, that's my name. Bitch ass n**ger.” He also told the newspaper, "I have apologized for repeating the derogatory word that was shouted at me – a word I never, ever use.”
“This incident is extremely upsetting to me,” Eileen Rinaldi wrote in an Instagram post. “While he had only this freelance construction role at Ritual in the last year, I'm deeply regretful for allowing John to oversee this project or to do any work with Ritual."
John Rinaldi had stayed away from Ritual Coffee's six cafes for the past year after current and former employees accused the business of lacking diversity and mistreating black customers. Among the allegations were that a manager had called the police on a non-white customer who angrily shouted expletives at employees when told to wait in the correct line. The customer had asked that employees call the police or serve him.
John Rinaldi was criticized for being “standoffish” with employees and vilified for a 2019 incident in which he allegedly helped pin a black customer to the floor after the man put his hand in the cafe’s tip jar.
Eileen Rinaldi, who vowed last year to “make a meaningful change within Ritual,” said she’s committed to “doing the necessary work of evolving how we are an anti-racist, inclusive and equitable business and place for our employees, customers and community.” She added that “this work has no closure.”
She condemned her husband’s use of the N-word, saying, “Words have power, and the word he repeated is undoubtedly racist and harmful. To me, it means hate and dehumanization. I am thinking about and gutted by the unimaginable pain, anger and trauma this word has caused throughout history and in every moment a white person uses it.”
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