Exercising While Black

An entitled white venture capitalist has now had his company's lease cancelled after viral video shows him practically accusing a group of African-American entrepreneurs of trespassing in an office building's gym. Tom Austin owns the company F2 Group, which was renting office space in the Mozaic East building-- the same building that house WeWork, which the young black men were leasing space from.  So Tom Austin was no more entitled to the building’s shared gym space than the black men who came to work out at about the same time.  But something about the men appeared to be wrong-- at least to Tom Austin-- wonder what that was?

Tom Austin felt the need to approach a group of black men who are part of the marketing company Top Figure, which also leased space at Mozaic East.  This is how it started:  "I'm Tom Austin. I'm a tenant in the building. Are you?" he can be seen on video asking the men. “We're all tenants of this building," one of the men answered. 

But that apparently didn’t satisfy Austin’s urge to play building security-- so he asked the men: “What office?”  At that point, one of the renters told Austin they didn’t have to answer his questions. A person narrating the recording described the situation as “racism.” Austin, who had earlier taken photos of the men using his cell phone, started calling a woman he referred to as Nicole (presumably Nicole Lavere, assistant property manager with the Ackerberg Group).

 “I don't know what you can do here, but there’s a whole bunch of people who don’t appear to be part of the [building],” Austin told her.   He insisted Wednesday in an interview with the Star Tribune that he is not racist.   Austin later claimed that by the end of the night, the group of them were on talking terms, and that he told them, "I’m sorry you thought I was being racist, but I was not. If you were a bunch of women, I would have done the same thing."  Not that sexism has anything to do with racism, but that was definitely not an apology.

One of the black men later posted to social media:

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.

As it turns out, this Tom Austin guy has a little baggage that may help shed some light on the situation.  Austin was the guy who led a failed effort to prevent the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources from reverting Lake Calhoun to its original name of Bde Maka Ska. 

Lake Calhoun was named after slaveowner and pro-slavery politician John C. Calhoun, who was the architect of forced Native American relocation.   Minnesota residents felt it inappropriate that the lake should be named after someone whose views were derogatory toward African-Americans and who was known to flog his own slaves.

Austin funded a lawsuit to prevent the name change, and in 2019, succeed in the Minnesota Court of Appeals in having the name change reversed.  Austin, who had never been a civic activist or previously had expressed interest in the workings of local government, tried to claim that he was motivated to fight the "unfairness of the renaming process."  He also claimed to be fighting for the rights of "thousands" of everyday Minnesotans who were being bullied into changing the name.   His website "Save Lake Calhoun" never listed any members and local news sources reported that the organization and newspaper ads were primarily funded by Austin himself.  In addition, several of the other neighborhoods surrounding the lake not only supported the name change, but also began pursuing the removal of the name "Calhoun" from their neighborhood names.

But nooooo-- Tom's not a racist.   He only wanted to make sure that all of the guys were tenants, since he didn't see each of them use a separate fob to get into the gym. Did the fact that Austin's lawsuit was finally defeated in the Minnesota Supreme Court just two weeks prior to the gym incident have anything to do with it?   I wonder what it was about the men that made Tom Austin doubt that they weren't tenants of the building?  He was heard telling the assistant property manager that they "don't appear to be part of the building."  Hmm-- what was it about their appearance they made him think they didn't belong?  I'll let you all decide for yourself.