An apology from Kyle Thomas, a radiology technician from Mississippi who was caught on video insulting a black woman and using the n-word, was not enough to save his job.
Thomas, who insulted Keaundrea Wardlaw multiple times, has been fired by the heads of Mississippi Baptist Medical Center.
The officials at the medical center were bombarded with calls by thousands of American citizens and high-profile activists who demanded that Thomas be terminated from his post after the disturbing and racist video went viral.
In the clip, Thomas was standing at the Donut Palace in Flowood near Jackson, Mississippi, still wearing his scrubs and trading insults with an employee of the donut shop for an unknown reason.
Wardlaw, who is also an employee of the pastry shop, pulled her phone and started filming Thomas, and all hell broke loose.
An angry Thomas turned to Wardlaw and said, “shut your f*cking mouth.” Wardlaw hit back: “Who are you talking to?”
Thomas stated: “You’re a child, shut up, and I will be back to talk to your manager. You’re a ngger. You’re a ngger, shut up.”
Wardlaw clapped back: “Oh, I’m a ngger? Now I’m a ngger? And you’re a b*tch. Repeat it.”
Thomas responded with: “Ngger,ngger.”
Ayoka Pond, a spokesperson for Mississippi Baptist Medical Center, shared a statement confirming that Thomas has been fired: “We are fully aware of the confrontation captured on video involving one of our off-duty employees at a local donut shop. We take this situation very seriously. This employee’s language and behavior do not represent our organization’s values, and his employment has been terminated.”
Thomas deleted his Facebook page, but before taking the drastic decision, he apologized for his behavior in a post that read in part: “I am so sorry, and there is nothing I can say now that will change what I said. I drove back up there and tried to apologize to her, and she was gone. I regret every word that I said there, and there is no excuse ever to say these horrible things.”
He concluded by: “I only hope that by me sharing a public apology in this incident you could show me some grace. I was upset about another issue, and it spilled over into this, and I can’t apologize enough.”
Some commenters have linked the political situation in the country to the rise in incidents of this nature.
