WATCH: White Minneapolis Man Loses Office Lease After He Questioned Group of Black Entrepreneurs Using the Building’s Gym

A white Minneapolis venture capitalist’s office lease was terminated after a viral video showed him questioning black entrepreneurs using the gym in a building of which they were all tenants, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reported Wednesday.

Tom Austin, the managing partner of F2 Group, threatened to call the police on the group of black men on Tuesday. The men are the owners of Top Figure, a Minneapolis-based social media and branding agency. They work out of a WeWork coworking space in the building and are allowed to use the amenities.

Austin ultimately called the building manager, who confirmed the men have a lease in the building. He told the Tribune that his actions led to his company losing its lease in the building.

“Should have handled it differently,” he said in an email to the Tribune. “Not my job to have done anything.”

 

View this post on Instagram

 

Normally we don’t speak out about encounters of racial profiling and age discrimination that we face day to day in our lives as young black entrepreneurs. Although today May 26th 2020 7:51pm we encountered a situation where a man entered the facility, a shared private gym that we utilize in our @wework @mozaic_east office located in uptown Minnesota. Granted we’ve been in this office space and have rented and grown our business for the past 1 year and half here. As we were working out this man approached and immediately asked us who we were and if “WE BELONG” in this building. Granted in order to enter the building you NEED a key card to enter EVERY part of the building which EACH of our team members individually have. We all pay rent here and this man demanded that we show him our key cards or he will call the cops on us. We are sick and tired of tolerating this type of behavior on a day to day basis and we feel that we had to bring light onto this situation.

A post shared by Top Figure 🛩 (@teamtopfigure) on May 26, 2020 at 8:33pm PDT

//www.instagram.com/embed.js

Top Figure posted the video of the exchange to its Instagram page. As of Wednesday evening, it has 33,000 likes.

“I’m Tom Austin,” the man says in the video. “I’m a tenant in the building. Are you?”

In the Instagram caption, the men accused Austin of “racial profiling and age discrimination” and tagged the building’s Instagram page.

“As you guys can see, we’re dealing with racism here,” one man said in the video.

Click here to read more.

SOURCE: The Hill, J. Edward Moreno