Toyota fires employees for making fun of George Floyd killing with ‘that will keep them down’ kneeling

Toyota has fired two high-level employees from a plant in Indiana, after they allegedly mocked the killing of George Floyd. Though their jokes got them the sack, Toyota itself has been in the spotlight for racism before.

In a video filmed by his colleagues, supervisor Patrick Talley knelt on a binder full of documents, exclaiming “that will keep them down.” The onlooker who filmed the video told Yahoo News that Talley was referencing Floyd’s murder, and “everyone who saw him do it was disgusted.”

“It was a disgusting gesture Talley made to imply that kneeling on a black man's neck until he dies is a great way to ‘keep them down’ and continue to repress them,” the onlooker said.

The carmaker also fired another employee for allegedly posting racist comments on an internal Facebook group. A source told Yahoo that the employee wrote “If black people don't like it in this country they can go back to Africa and talk to the village chief that sold them into slavery.”

Toyota, like most of corporate America, has walked a woke, anti-racist line since the death of Floyd triggered a nationwide wave of unrest. Talley’s “disgusting” display came hours after the company’s Indiana plant held eight minutes and 46 seconds of silence in Floyd’s honor, and the firm released a statement reading “we remain steadfast in our belief for equality, respect and inclusivity for all people.”

Despite cracking down on its employees’ misdeeds, the Japanese automaker has been accused of racial discrimination before. Following a Justice Department investigation, Toyota Motor Credit Corp. in California was ordered to pay black and Asian customers more than $20 million in compensation, after its dealers marked up interest rates for minority customers. More than 100,000 borrowers were affected.

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