World News – GB – PureGym trainer compared slavery to heavy training in Facebook post Some members say they will cancel their contracts

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UK gym operator PureGym came under fire after a Facebook post from one of its sites compared slavery to heavy training

The post from his Luton and Dunstable gym in southern England announced a special Black History Month workout, claiming that « slavery was tough and that’s also the case « 

The training was called « 12 years of slave », a reference to the movie « 12 years of slave »

After intense backlash on social media, PureGym released a statement apologizing « wholeheartedly » and said it deleted the post « as soon as it came to [her] attention »

The post was « completely unacceptable » and was not approved or approved by the company, the statement said

« We take this issue extremely seriously and are urgently investigating how and why this post was made, » PureGym said. Each of the company’s 271 gyms has their own social media channels which are managed locally, a he added

But the assistant gym manager who originally posted the image, then reposted it on his personal Instagram and defended the workout In caption, the personal trainer, who is black, explained that he must have deleted it from the PureGym Facebook account because « apparently the wording was a problem » He has since deleted the message from his personal account

Twitter users expressed disgust at PureGym’s post, with some saying they would cancel their subscriptions

Members of the black community also condemned the post, with one Twitter user saying: « People like [the coach] should not represent ‘black’ culture when they think they are making fun of our history as a gym routine « 

« I just want to know who woke up this morning and decided that comparing training to slavery was a good way to commemorate Black History Month Hasn’t 2020 arrived at Pure Gym? « said another Twitter used

Sarah Owen, MP for Luton North, said « offensive publicity shows exactly why we need Black History Month and why the Black Lives Matter movement is so important »

PureGym, Exercise, Black History Month, African American History, PureGym Luton and Dunstable, 12 Years of Slave