Video shows a Black Iowa business owner defending his position after he was kicked out of his rented office space and accused of supporting criminal activity by protesting for George Floyd on Saturday. The protest in Des Moines was one of several held across the nation after video went viral of a white Minneapolis cop kneeling on Floyd’s neck for more than eight minutes, according to KCCI.
Jeremiah Johnson, chief executive officer of the athletic wear company Stylent Brands, told the news outlet he and his co-CEO, Exodus Bargblor, were protesting peacefully at the event, but former landlord David Harkin assumed they weren’t. The business owners were later evicted, a violation of their First Amendment rights, Johnson said. He posted video of a discussion between Bargblor and Harkin on Twitter. “Please share this video,” Johnson asked. “When other people protest for haircuts, it’s great! But when I protest peacefully it’s bad!”
In the video that picked up four million views, Harkin can be heard saying: “I will tell you flat out, if there is something illegally going on in a place I am at I don’t want to be a part of it. I am personally going to leave.”
Bargblor responded by trying to explain that he was not one of the people accused of looting and in fact was at the protest speaking with news media. “I was protesting the right way,” he said in the video. “Why get mad at me then?”
Still, Harkin said he exercised “poor judgment.” Harkin later told KCCI the eviction had nothing to do with the protest and he shouldn't have mentioned the two in the same conversation. “They suckered me into a racial issue, and it was not about race,” Harkin told the news outlet. “I am not … I am not a racist person.”
Johnson tweeted that he is pursuing legal action.