There’s nothing to indicate the employee believed him or herself superior to another race so your position does not make sense. At the worst it was an inappropriate notation.
It’s not a straw, it’s relevant information from which to make in informed opinion. If it was given to the employee by mistake then the key word is “mistake”.
Do you really want every stupid thing you ever thought be the determining factor with your job?
The thing is, whether or not the customer was intended to see the slur, or could even have reasonably been expected to see it, the bottom line is that she did. Now that it’s out there, if CVS wants to make clear that they do not endorse this sentiment, then then need to fire this guy.
Personal anecdote time (you can skip this part): Back in the day, when I was an administrative assistant, I helped prepare mass-mailings for customers. One particular mailing was going to a very select group, including a number of board members and corporate partners, and it was up to my department head to decide, on a case-by-case basis, whether they should receive the letter, and if so, how it should be customized. So I selected the initial group from the database, did the mail merge, and then my boss and I started going through them one by one. But rather than trying to remove individual letters from the merged document, we decided it would be faster and easier for me to type “DELETE” in giant, bold font across the top of the ones we weren’t sending. Then, I’d just print the whole document, and weed those out when I stuffed the envelopes. The edit-and-delete process ended up taking well into the night, and my boss and I started getting a little punchy. I started writing things like, “DON’T DELAY, DELETE!”, “DELETE THIS, NOW!”, and finally, “DELETE THIS MOTHER!”
No, the letters did not go to the customers. But they did end up on the desk of the CEO, since they were getting her signature. I came within millimeters of getting fired over this. My boss really went out on a limb for me, and explained that he had encouraged me, and could personally assure that none of the customers would have ever received one of those letters. And if they had? I would have been out on my ass in a heartbeat, and rightly so.
The point (don’t skip this!): It wouldn’t have mattered that I didn’t intend for the customers to see the letters - quite the opposite - or that they wouldn’t necessarily be considered personally insulting. All that would have mattered was the fact that I sent an extremely unprofessional message while acting as a representative of my employer. By firing me, they would have conveyed, “We did not say that, it does not represent how we do business, and we do not employ anyone who would say that on our behalf.” If all they had required of me was an apology (and some MS Word training), they would have essentially been saying, “We did say that, but we’re, like, totally sorry you saw it.”
Do you really stand by this? A person can be a racist only if nobody knows? But if someone knows he “deserves” to be punished? That sounds very much like thought policing.
But then you say that if a racist makes a writing for “SOMEONE” to read, even if not a member of the protected group, then that is deserving of some sort of extra punishment.
I have a problem with either or both of those. I certainly believe that a person of any race, religion, etc. is entitled to equal access to places of public accommodation. From what I can tell, this woman received her pictures just like a white man from Mississippi would have received his pictures. Now, if the racial insult was intentionally directed at her in a way that made her not want to return, I can see a case. But an accidental showing of a racial animosity without a corresponding lesser service? I don’t see any violation of the law.
The cognitive dissonance is strong with this one.
How do you measure intent, though?
What if the intent was to create just enough hostility the lady wouldn’t come back but not enough to get punished for it? How do you measure something like that?
If a cashier accidentally said, “Here’s your change, n*****” to a black man but in a light breezy tone, that wouldn’t be corresponding lesser service but it would certainly be completely unacceptable in any case.
Yes, “ching chong” is a racial slur.
I would enforce it like any other intent crime. “Here’s your change, [slur]” is an obvious direct insult at a customer which would make him less likely to return, and actionable.
If the cashier said, “Here’s your change, sir, and btw, I love Tupac Shakur, but I hate how he makes y’all seem like gangsters. No Colt .45 tonight? That’s surprising.”
The second is ignorance that isn’t unlawful, even if degrading. You can’t measure subtle intent, except by collecting evidence. And I don’t think the guy at CVS had that intent.
Surely the standard can’t be “any insensitivity.” No guy over age 63 would have a job..then you would have age discrimination. 
Really? I’d say the customer had a valid complaint to the manager, even if it’s not necessarily illegal.
If it really is an accident, why is [slur] actionable? It may be “obvious” but it may not be the truth.
In this case, we ARE measuring intent. And apparently, your conclusion is that the extent to which intent matters in racially inspired acts depends on the situation.
So, apparently, using [slur] is always bad, no matter the intent or harm inflicted? Or that using the word itself is always harmful despite intent?
In that case, some acts are inherently harmful, no matter intent. So which acts are those? Apparently, you draw the line differently than some people.
Let’s see if I have this straight: Magiver, you do not think that referring to an Asian person whose name you do not know as “Ching-Chong Lee” is an example of what a typical English-speaking human being would consider to be a racist act.
Is that correct? If so, I’m sorry to inform you that you are wrong.
Yep, losing one person’s business = serious hurt. Losing tons of business because employee(s) outed as racist = whistleblower being a “pain in the butt” and having embarrassment heaped on them.
Result of this opinion? Laughable.
As to the last stated belief? So hilariously ridiculous that it has to be either a parody or Rush Limbaugh is a member here.
They did make it clear they don’t indorse the sentiment. I think it’s relevant as to whether it was intentional or not. I had to look up this emotionally traumatizing word only to discover Rosie O’Donnell said it over the air to all 12 of her viewers. Apparently the network sensors were as up to date on pejoratives as I am. As far as I know, nobody curled up into a ball and sued her over her remarks.
IMO firing someone over this is overkill. The customer wasn’t discriminated against and is not entitled to destroy someone’s livelihood on an unintended insult.
I bet the judge won’t ask for your opinion.
Nor yours. Since there is no monetary damage she isn’t entitled to any of that. The only thing the court will deal with is emotional trauma and since I’m pretty sure she got a very sincere apology and a promise of corrective action I don’t see any money coming her way. The clerk in question is going to use the Rosie O’Donnell defense and that will be that.
BTW, I would love to see CVS go down in flames, but not over this. This is a tempest in a teapot.
Of course the customer has a valid complaint to the manager. That’s different than a lawsuit. I think that the N-word has progressed to the point that everyone knows that you can’t use it directly to a black person’s face in a place of public accommodation. I would argue that it is a per se violation of civil rights law.
But, as ** Magiver** has stated, pejoratives like “Ching Chong” can be borne of insensitivity instead of hostility. I don’t expect minimum wage workers to be up on the latest in politically correct terminology. I would warn the guy, and not give this women a penny (but I would give her an apology).
Magiver, didn’t you say in the Trayvon thread, “You don’t get to be racist on the job.”?(re: cop w/ Trayvon targets) What’s the difference here?
Why has it progressed to that point?
There are still people who don’t think that way (many, as you noted, older Americans). They may know they can’t do it, but they’re certainly not convinced of the reasons.
It’s only progressed to that point because other people have made it clear that using that word is inherently harmful. That the use of specific words in a derogatory fashion towards minorities (whether black, Asian, women, etc) is harmful regardless of intent or monetary harm.
At this point, I’m only seeing a difference of degree - that using n***** towards a black person is NOW recognized as inherently harmful but that “ching-chong” has not reached that level of recognition.
There’s no real difference in the fundamentals, only in our society’s acceptance of some forms of casual racism over others.
To those who don’t know what is being referred to, an officer used a silhouette of Trayvon Martin as a shooting target for training. This was a black teenager shot during a fight. The silhouette showed a person holding a can of tea and a bag of Skittles which Martin had on him at the time.
In this case, there was no possibility of inadvertent use of the image in a workplace involving others or what the image stood for. Actually if I remember correctly he asked someone else in the department if it would be appropriate to use the silhouette for the purpose of training. He was turned in for this and subsequently fired. He tried to claim it was a symbol of who NOT to shoot.
The case in this thread (as I understand it) is someone using a term that is less well known and was not intended for anyone to see. Nobody sued Rosie O’Donnell nor was she fined by the FCC over her use of the term.
Lets look at the “N word”. it’s progressed to the point that typing the actual word while discussing racism will cause the Sun to implode or at the very least a swarm of locust will appear.
Yes, it is about degrees, cultural preferences, knowledge of what is or isn’t an insult and the intent for which it was used. The world isn’t black and white/good versus evil and neither is language.
How exactly does CVS discriminate against white people?