I encountered it today, and it was a bit of a shock to hear it so openly. “Only white people should be allowed to vote.” That was the comment from one of my helpers.
I’m still upset and angry about it because the make up of my family is (well was, folks have died over the years) multiracial, my friends and dating pool is multiracial.
I asked the young man how he defined white? Irish people were once called black, as were Italians, what about Greek folks? Spanish people can be rather tan. Jewish folks? In the end, with each of his definitions of whiteness being indefensible, he retreated to “it was just a joke”.
I’m not sure how to deal with this, aside from venting here. I don’t know, do I go to my boss? My boss’s boss(who happens to be Mexican). It hasn’t affected my work or the company, yet, but we have, to a greater or lesser degree over time, a very diverse workplace. I don’t want to go up the chain of command angry but I also don’t want to wait on this.
Have you guys encountered this? I’m thinking someone here has, and I could use a little advise or anecdotes to figure out how best to proceed
If you got shocked or angry, it was workplace-inappropriate behavior. And a violation of current federal law.
Go to the boss.
This was an example (and we’re going to see a lot of it) of newly emboldened RW racists testing how much impunity they have. And the amount they have is exactly as much as the rest of us allow them to have. Don’t grease his skids through inaction.
We have training each year on this sort of thing. IIRC if you have a concern in this space, you should discuss it with your manager. Making room at the workplace for intolerance will only encourage more of it. Best to nip it now.
I"ll scond talking to your boss. It’s possible that this isn’t the only unprofessional thing he’s said or may say in the future. He won’t be fired for this one event, but it will support that he demonstrated similar actions
I had a co-worker who would proselytize if you and he were te first on a call. And he made sure he was first. I didn’t say anything until they fired him, then my boss told me that he wished I had said something, that they might have fired him earlier. Note that this was the least reason to fire him. He was a poster child for Dunning-Kruger syndrome.
I’m going to be extra cynical, and add to the chorus of talking to the boss or HR depending on what’s available, but for a different reason.
They may act against you. These people have become very good at using the system themselves, or abusing it. So if you “discussed politically motivated material in the workplace” by calling them out, they may, barely, have an offense they can complain about.
It’s an unspeakable abuse of the intent, but it’s not absolutely out of the ballpark, especially if they spin it. So report it. In fact, I’d have recorded it and reported it rather than challenging them because of the risks. So I salute your honesty but in this post-Trump world? CYA (cover your A**) first.
It’s going to be the only way to survive for the next 4+ with the lunatics in charge of the asylum.
Hey, as I said, I respect you and your efforts. And 20/20 hindsight is easy. I have the advantage that my wife was dealing with an IMHO abusive supervisor during her PhD, and advised her to record any verbal conversations during the worst of it.
Thankfully, at the time, my wife was ALSO working for her supervisor’s wife who ended up verbally thrashing him for not treating her with respect.
Follow up all verbal communications with an email summary, and keep a copy. I haven’t had to use that advice myself yet, but it seems really useful if the situation turns bad on you.
When I worked at a museum, I was in charge of directing the workflow of some volunteers. One of our volunteers referred to the Latinos who were playing soccer in the nearby park using a very derogatory term. I immediately told him to never, ever use that kind of language or I’d have to speak to the director about it. He never used that kind of language in my presence.
Now I work in HR and occasionally take part in employee relations investigations and some of them have involved racist language. As a general rule, my advice is for employees to speak up if they feel as though something a coworker said was an egregious offense. You don’t have to be a member of the disparaged group to make a complaint by the way.
We had a manager who used a disparaging word for African Americans during a staff meeting. A staff meeting attended by some of his African American employees. After some investigating, we really got the impression this was a Freudian slip on the part of the manager, but we retired him. It’s company practice to retire workers who are eligible rather than fire them. Helps us avoid age discrimination suits.
We had another manager who made an off color joke. Something along the lines of, “Oh, look. They put all the dark employees in the back.” As part of the investigation, we interviewed employees who were there, and the common consensus among them was that they didn’t believe his comment was deliberately meant to be hurtful, but it was hurtful. We ended up giving the manager a final written warning which meant he lost his bonus for the quarter. This was years ago and we haven’t had any additional problems for this manager.
I’ve had to deal with employees posting pretty vile, racist things online. On a particularly bad day I got a call from a man in Chicago (I’m in Arkansas) who wanted to know if I was aware of what one of my employees was posting online. I fielded several such calls that day. I know you might be thinking, “Who cares what the employee does on their own time?” Good question, but when this is a supervisor over several African American employees it becomes our problem. And, yes, we got calls from employees too.
If you have a halfway decent management team, they’ll take complaints about racist language/behavior seriously.
I can’t answer for every company, but this isn’t true in my experience. As a general rule, I start with the assumption the employee making a complaint is doing so in good faith. There have been a handful of times I’ve had employees complaining about their boss being bullies, but the bullying activity was their boss expecting them to do their job. But it isn’t the pervailing opinion of any professional HR organization that I’m aware of that says anyone making a complaint is problem employee.
While I don’t disagree with this, at most companies, HR will see an employee who is opening the company up to legal action by creating a hostile work environment (in this case, the guy making the racist statement) as a bigger problem than a whistleblower.
While that is certainly true, as shocking as this sounds, protecting the employee is often the most efficient way to protect the company. But there are enough employers who are indifferent to are actively encourage harassment (Activision-Blizzard I’m looking at you) that I understand why people are cynical. And protecting the company isn’t just about litigation. Supervisors and managers who tolerate or create a hostile environment often drive good employees away.
I think LSLGuy is right on with his advice. Just report it, and try to minimize its effects on you as much as possible. With the election of Trump and what he represents, these people have been emboldened to display their bigotry and hatred. They need a reminder that, for now at least, we are still an equal rights democracy.
I thought about it, but by that time, I was tired of it, and I think he was embarrassed and getting ready to go full defensive mode and so I just ended the conversation with a declaration that it was time to change the subject.
Yeah hindsight is perfect vision, should have handled the situation completely differently from the start.