JP Drake blasts "keyboard warriors" after racist comments

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Well, he calls himself the charismatic director of Drake's Supermarkets
and he has gone viral again. Today we're talking about
JP Drake because he has defended an employee who has
had racist comments put towards them, and Australia is going yay,
what a hero. He's all over the news and he's
now on the radio. JP, good morning, what happened?

Speaker 2 (00:19):
Good morning?

Speaker 1 (00:20):
Well, you're trending everywhere today because of your latest social
media post. Do you want to tell let us know
what happened?

Speaker 2 (00:27):
So basically, we have posts where we don't want to
pay actors, so we get our team members and most
they offer to be in the photos that it might
be a supplier photo, so like this particular team member
was in the photo. And then over the weekend there's
a high rate of racist comments memes that were all

(00:49):
coming through, not about the product, not about Drake's, about
the specific team member and and it's bad. Those are
some of the worst word racist comments I've seen on
a post that we've had. And I'm not taking this shit, Like,
how do people think they can say those sort of comments? Disrespectful, racist,

(01:12):
whatever you want to call it. You know, over that
team member and people went to town. In fact, we
don't normally delete comments on our pages. We haent to
delete over fifty comments.

Speaker 3 (01:23):
Oh did you have people commenting back defending the staff
member at those comments at all?

Speaker 2 (01:29):
Yeah, there were some, but it was so many racist
marks to me, it just wasn't acceptable, you know. I
contacted the team member and I said to him, as
I said, mate, I've read all these are UK and
he was like, yeah, I'm fine. I said, look, we'll

(01:50):
take the post down and he turned around and said, no, no,
I don't want you to take the post down.

Speaker 3 (01:56):
I said, well, I really need to write something about
this because it's this this sort of behavior is just
not acceptable and no one in our team deserves to
be a subject to this kind of behavior.

Speaker 2 (02:10):
Yeah, a team people are a most valuable asset.

Speaker 1 (02:14):
I think it's the way you called it out as well, though,
like you're the hero boss of Australia today. I mean,
we all love you anyway, but the fact I can't
read the post out on air, but you've basically written
an open message to people who hide behind a keyboard
f off, and I have that from you know, the boss.

Speaker 2 (02:31):
But really, I mean, I think you know me well
enough that I sort of understand what cuts through and
when I started to read it, I mean, I'm responsible
set the tone and expectations of my business and if
that's the sort of language that I need to use
to cut through them, people need to really wake up

(02:52):
and have a look at themselves. Because I just got
asked before, Oh, what happens if this behavior happened in
your in your own stores, would you deal with it?
Of course we would deal with it. But what I
find it doesn't happen in the supermarkets too often. It's
more the keyboard warrior, the hidden identity, the loser behind

(03:13):
the keyboard that would not be prepared to say anything
to someone's face, but to do memes and have a
go at people they don't even know, not realizing they're
real people. I think people forget how hard it is
working on the front line or in a service in
an industry, and it doesn't give anyone the right to

(03:34):
be rude disrespectful to any of our team members. When
you see comments like this, I just can't believe in
the day and age of like that's in a country
that is built on multiculturism, we're having to call out
extremely shameful behavior and there's no excuse for it, no

(03:55):
place for racism in any form, and even less so
directed at a team member. It's just totally disgraceful and
people have got to stand up to this. I feel
I think not enough people just draw the line, which
we've drawn our lines many times and talked about issues
that for some reasons, people don't want to talk about.

(04:18):
I just don't see how this is still going on
in this country.

Speaker 1 (04:22):
Well, you've stood up for a lot of people today,
not just that team member. So we say well done
to you, and we just love you for so many reasons.
And here's another reason. Thank you so much for joining
us today.

Speaker 2 (04:35):
Thanks guy, thank you. Good catch up, Jacob.

Speaker 1 (04:38):
Let's go down to the aisles again. Come on, ay,
I know, trolleys and Junes. It's time again.

Speaker 2 (04:44):
Yeah, ever careful what you wish for.