ELKHORN — The owner of an Elkhorn car dealership has apologized to an African-American customer after a now-former salesman sent her text messages she found highly offensive.
"You sent a customer, a good customer at that, a text message with an ape on it, it's definitely racial,” Carolyn Word said.
Word, who has purchased four cars from the Kunes dealership in the past, said she received the texts on March 25 from a salesman she had never met.
The text messages, provided to TMJ4 by Word, show that the interaction began when the salesman sent a GIF of a waving bear, asking, ‘is this Carolyn?’ and whether she was still interested in buying a car.
"I actually wrote, ‘This is an insult to ask if I'm a bear. Are you trying to be like Trump when he posted the Obamas as monkeys?’ And I did tell him I was going to report it," Word said.
Watch: Elkhorn car dealership apologizes after salesman texts customer an ape image
Word said while she was on the phone reporting the incident to a dealership manager, the salesman sent another GIF showing a dancing ape in a bathing suit. Word said she felt humiliated, furious, and violated.
"It just makes me feel terrible that someone would portray me as an ape dancing," Word said.
Word said the lack of any follow-up call from the dealership manager she spoke with added to her frustration.
"The greater insult was also when I spoke with a manager, and he said he would take care of it, and I didn't receive a call saying, 'sorry,' or 'it was a mistake,'" Word said.
After not receiving an immediate apology from the manager, Word hired civil rights attorney William Sulton.
"Oh, here we go again. It's Kunes, it's racist conduct and no apology, no follow-through," Sulton said.
Sulton also represents Makayla Starks, a biracial woman who found an oil change sticker with a racial slur on her windshield at a Kunes dealership in Oak Creek last year. Kunes acknowledged that a former employee was responsible for the incident.
Sulton believes what happened to Word is just as offensive.
"This is common racist imagery. Everyone knows it, everyone knows that it's wrong, and you should expect someone to be fired, you should expect an apology," Sulton said.
Mike Kunes is the regional manager for Kunes Auto Group, and his family owns the company. He said Kunes Auto Group has parted ways with the employee and called Word to apologize.
"We feel terrible," Kunes said. Ultimately, it was a disgusting act, and that employee's no longer with us at this time," Kunes said.
Word claimed she did not get a response from Kunes until after TMJ4 reached out to Kunes about the incident.
"When I found out about it, obviously, we jumped to action, so I can't recall why that would have happened," Kunes said.
Word and Sulton said they now want Kunes to require anti-racism training for all employees.
"We know that if you don't train and retrain on this, then this kind of misbehavior will happen," Sulton said.
Kunes says it’s taking steps to make sure its 3,000 employees treat all customers with dignity and respect.
"We are taking action right now, from top to bottom. From executive level to all levels of our organization to ensure these acts don't happen," Kunes said. “It goes against our values. It’s not something that we condone; it’s not something that we want to happen. It’s a disgusting act.”
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