Apple Accused Of Racism After Ejecting Black Teens From Store

An Apple Store has been hit by accusations of racism after a group of black teenagers were asked to leave because staff thought they might shoplift. The episode at the shop in Melbourne, Australia, was caught on camera and uploaded to Facebook with the caption ‘Simply Racism’. It has since been viewed tens of thousands of times. The clip shows an Apple employee telling the group: “These guys are just a bit worried about your presence in our store. They’re just worried you might steal something.” One of the group replies: “Why would we steal something?” The member of staff then says: “End of discussion. I need to ask you to leave our store.”

What those boys were doing in that Apple store was no different to what every other kid does in that Apple store, which is fawning over really cool devices, playing with them, taking photos of each other.

The teenagers’ school principal Nick Scott

The six teenagers, who attend the nearby Maribyrnong College, are all of African or Middle Eastern descent. Their school principal Nick Scott, who spoke to his pupils after the confrontation, said they did nothing to deserve being kicked out of the shop. The teenagers believe their skin colour was the only motivation for their ejection. Mr Scott said: “I’m inclined to agree there was an implicit kind of racist response that just generalized an expectation of how they would behave.“ The manager of the Apple store has since apologized to the teenagers.

We believe in equality for everyone, regardless of race, age, gender, gender identity, ethnicity, religion, or sexual orientation.

Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook in a diversity statement on the company website

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