A Manhattan Drybar worker is fired after describing Briana ‘Bree’ Tae- a woman of Asian descent as ‘chinky eyes’ on a customer slip.
A Manhattan hair salon employee has caused disconcert after using an offensive racial slur to describe a client of Asian descent.
Briana Tae (Bree Tae), 26, in anticipation of celebrations of her graduating nursing school visited a Drybar outlet in Manhattan’s Murray Hill district on Monday- only to be stunned upon discovering what had been written about her on a slip called ‘The Tab’ which is used by employees at the salon.
Under a heading labelled ‘Description of client’, an employee had written ‘chinky eyes’ in reference to Tae.
After speaking to the worker, Tae shared a photo of the receipt on her Facebook page describing what happened to her.
She wrote: ‘I’m quite disgusted by this experience, especially the night before a day of celebration for all my accomplishments in nursing school.
‘I demand a call from corporate regarding this incident as I will not let racism be silenced.’
Briana Tae: ‘She could not understand why it was an issue.’
Tae, an Astoria resident who attends New York University’s nursing school, was disappointed to see the inappropriate comment and walked over to ask the receptionist about it.
Posted Tae in part, ‘She could not understand why it was an issue and why it was highly inappropriate to write such a description.
‘She tried to make me feel somewhat better by saying she had chinky eyes too’.
Tae later told NBC News that she did her best not to let the incident overshadow her special day.
She said: ‘I wanted this day to be really special. I saw that, and I couldn’t let it go.
‘I didn’t cause a scene, and I told her privately this was racism.
‘There are so many people of so many colors, so when she said she has the same eyes, it was very upsetting to me.’
On Thursday the company posted a statement on Instagram apologizing for the incident and saying it does not tolerate racism.
In the post, the company confirmed that it terminated the employee involved in the incident.
It added: ‘We sincerely apologize for the hurt this has caused.
‘We are committed to working harder on improving our training to ensure this does not happen again’.
Tae claimed that she wanted more awareness about terms that can be offensive to people.
Adding: ‘We’re all humans and we all want respect. I was graduating that day… this was a big day for me.
‘And unfortunately when I think about my pinning ceremony, I’m going to think about this incident’.
Drybar is a salon which offers in just blowouts.
