‘I don’t know his DNA’: Craft brewery manager says he can’t confirm black employee’s race in discrimination lawsuit

By Teo Armus
Oct. 22, 2019 at 7:26 a.m. EDT

Tracy Evans is black.

He was black enough to become one of the first employees of color at Founders Brewing Co., a famed craft brewery in Grand Rapids, Mich. His race was never a question when a co-worker called him the n-word, he said, or when he started speaking up about that comment and other offensive remarks from colleagues. In fact, it’s the reason he ended up suing Founders in late 2018, charging that the company treated him differently and ended up firing him for being African American.

But his former general manager, Dominic Ryan, insisted in a deposition for that lawsuit that he could not definitively conclude whether Evans is black.

“I don’t know Tracy’s lineage, so I can’t speculate on whether he’s — if he’s from Africa or not,” Ryan said in the deposition, which was first obtained by Detroit Metro Times and later provided by Evans’s lawyer to The Washington Post on Monday.

In front of several attorneys, Ryan — who is white — was able to muster up that his former employee’s skin is “different.” He eventually admitted that Evans was “darker.” But Ryan didn’t know his former employee’s DNA, he said. Asked whether Evans is a man of color, he avoided the question. What about Michael Jordan? “I’ve never met him,” Ryan said. Former president Barack Obama? Same thing.

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Founders Brewing manager claims he didn’t know Black employee is Black

Posted By Tom Perkins on Mon, Oct 21, 2019 at 10:31 am

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Evans, a former manager who worked at Founders' Detroit and Grand Rapids locations, alleged “a racist internal corporate culture.” Some white coworkers exhibited multiple examples of “blatant” racism. Among other issues, they repeatedly used the “N word” around him, and management allegedly named a printer it used the “white guy printer” while labeling the printer for lower-tier employees the “black guy printer.”

Management, Evans says, did little about the racism he encountered, and he claims he was fired while preparing to make a second formal complaint to human resources about such issues.

The suit is moving through the trial process and is in in depositions. That’s where Founders revealed a startling and arguably ludicrous defense: The manager who fired Evans is claiming he didn’t know that Evans is Black.

A transcript of the exchange between Founders' Detroit general manager Dominic Ryan and Evans’ attorney, Jack Schulz, shows Schulz shifting from shocked to incredulous and perhaps a bit angry as Ryan claims he had no idea Evans is Black. Instead of just answering the question and moving on, Ryan digs in deeper and deeper, repeatedly asking for clarification when Schulz asks questions like “Are you aware Tracy is Black?”

At one point, Ryan even claims that he doesn’t know if former President Barack Obama, Kwame Kilpatrick, or Michael Jordan are African-American, because he has “never met them.”

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