# "Excuse me while I whip this out--you're FIRED!" **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [January 5, 2005, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/excuse-me-while-i-whip-this-out-youre-fired/283134 "2005-01-05T02:56:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![TwistofFate](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/cdc98d/32.png) [@TwistofFate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TwistofFate)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2005, 1:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/excuse-me-while-i-whip-this-out-youre-fired/283134/21 "2005-01-05T13:23:37Z")
Perhaps you might want to read the thread again Brutus. It wasn’t just white folk that got screwed over. ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2005, 1:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/excuse-me-while-i-whip-this-out-youre-fired/283134/22 "2005-01-05T13:33:56Z")
> [@TwistofFate](#): > > Perhaps you might want to read the thread again Brutus. It wasn’t just white folk that got screwed over. You make the unjustified assumption that **Brutus** reads _any_ thread on this board with comprehension. ---
**Author:** ![Frank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Frank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frank)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2005, 1:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/excuse-me-while-i-whip-this-out-youre-fired/283134/23 "2005-01-05T13:40:30Z")
A plain and simple (and typical) case of cronyism in my eyes. No big deal. The snipers were a nice touch though; I wonder if that will catch on in the private sector. ---
**Author:** ![Brutus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/91b2a8/32.png) [@Brutus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Brutus)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2005, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/excuse-me-while-i-whip-this-out-youre-fired/283134/24 "2005-01-05T13:42:01Z")
> [@TwistofFate](#): > > Perhaps you might want to read the thread again Brutus. It wasn’t just white folk that got screwed over. Really? That was demonstrated to be true in which post? All I see is where ‘The fired employees included four of the highest-ranking officers, all of them white. Hill told the newspaper their replacements would be black.’ That alone should be enough to raise the hackles of any of the purported civil rights-minded crowd around here. No hearing? Hell, no charges? No, but we do have some wonderful mucking around by **Diogenes** and company and a judge nixing the whole damned thing. Regardless, it seems Sheriff Hill is the main culprit in all this. One can only hope he gets a taste of justice, but I doubt that will happen. ---
**Author:** ![OtakuLoki](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ac8455/32.png) [@OtakuLoki](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OtakuLoki)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2005, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/excuse-me-while-i-whip-this-out-youre-fired/283134/25 "2005-01-05T13:42:36Z")
> [@TwistofFate](#): > > Perhaps you might want to read the thread again Brutus. It wasn’t just white folk that got screwed over. Where did it say that anyone who wasn’t white was fired? AFAIK only the top four officers race was mentioned. The other 23 fires are cyphers, so far. What disturbs me is that the new sheriff didn’t simply fire these people but did so while having armed officers present and stationed on rooftops. If he has legitimate concerns about safety that are _that_ drastic, I want to see the charges that will follow up. Additionally, I am suspicious about how valid these firings are when another of the _newly_ elected officials, the County Comissioner mentioned earlier, is the one who’d begun the legal proceedings to rescind the firings. But DtC is right, so far we don’t have enough information to actually judge the validity of these actions or not. Just a lot of red flags. ---
**Author:** ![TwistofFate](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/cdc98d/32.png) [@TwistofFate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TwistofFate)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2005, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/excuse-me-while-i-whip-this-out-youre-fired/283134/26 "2005-01-05T13:51:42Z")
from mhendo’s link > [@](#): > > However, Hill also said the decision was not based on race, adding he first offered his chief deputy position to a white person. that would assume that one of the people not fired was white. I’m willing to put $10 that at least one of the people fired wasn’t white. ---
**Author:** ![OtakuLoki](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ac8455/32.png) [@OtakuLoki](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OtakuLoki)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2005, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/excuse-me-while-i-whip-this-out-youre-fired/283134/27 "2005-01-05T14:04:30Z")
> [@TwistofFate](#): > > from mhendo’s link > > that would assume that one of the people not fired was white. > > I’m willing to put $10 that at least one of the people fired wasn’t white. I certainly hope so. But, all we have, at the moment are assumptions and very vague details. OTOH, the statement in the CNN piece that **gobear** quoted in the OP doesn’t really strike me as the statement of the most open-minded of people. Again, I’m not saying it is impossible that this is a justified course of action. I just have more questions than answers at the moment. ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2005, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/excuse-me-while-i-whip-this-out-youre-fired/283134/28 "2005-01-05T14:13:01Z")
[And the judge says…](http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2002140987_fired05.html) 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![vetbridge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b5e925/32.png) [@vetbridge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vetbridge)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2005, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/excuse-me-while-i-whip-this-out-youre-fired/283134/29 "2005-01-05T14:21:03Z")
In mice, this sort of thing is called the Bruce effect. From [http://www.lvma.org/mouse.html](http://www.lvma.org/mouse.html) > [@](#): > > The exposure of a recently bred mouse to the pheromones of a strange male mouse may prevent implantation (or pseudopregnancy), a phenomenon known as the Bruce effect. ---
**Author:** ![PunditLisa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/4af34b/32.png) [@PunditLisa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PunditLisa)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2005, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/excuse-me-while-i-whip-this-out-youre-fired/283134/30 "2005-01-05T14:35:29Z")
> [@](#): > > “Excuse me while I whip this out–you’re FIRED!” Am I the only one who thought this was going to be a tawdry sexual harrassment thread? ---
**Author:** ![Tapioca\_Dextrin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Tapioca\_Dextrin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tapioca_Dextrin)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2005, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/excuse-me-while-i-whip-this-out-youre-fired/283134/31 "2005-01-05T14:46:31Z")
> [@Bosda Di'Chi of Tricor](#): > > …& play the TV card. All the fired cops would claim to be transvestites? 😕😕 ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2005, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/excuse-me-while-i-whip-this-out-youre-fired/283134/32 "2005-01-05T15:17:57Z")
> [@Tapioca Dextrin](#): > > All the fired cops would claim to be transvestites? 😕😕 Go do your deep breathing exercises, **Tap**. :smack: ---
**Author:** ![Neurotik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/91b2a8/32.png) [@Neurotik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Neurotik)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2005, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/excuse-me-while-i-whip-this-out-youre-fired/283134/33 "2005-01-05T15:56:43Z")
> [@OtakuLoki](#): > > Where did it say that anyone who wasn’t white was fired? AFAIK only the top four officers race was mentioned. The other 23 fires are cyphers, so far. From **mhendo’s** link, it says that the racial makeup varied. Sounds to me like they’re saying that black employees were among those fired. But maybe it just means they had Irish, Italians and Dutch folk. ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2005, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/excuse-me-while-i-whip-this-out-youre-fired/283134/34 "2005-01-05T16:37:29Z")
Clayton County is an interesting place these days. As Atlanta’s older intown neighborhoods have been gentrified, one after another, a lot of working-class black people have moved out of the city. Some have been forced out by escalating property taxes. Others have taken the money and run when offered a nice price for their homes. Those who move are relocating mostly to Clayton County. Clayton County, just south of Atlanta, had until recently been a mostly white, working-class conservative bastion. But now the newcomers are flexing their political muscle. Black commissioners recently captured the majority of seats on the county commission. Some of those commissioners conducted racially divisive campaigns to win their seats. There is undeniably a racial “we’re in charge now” element to what’s going on there. There is a [photo of the fired employees](http://img.coxnewsweb.com/B/02/11/98/image_1298112.jpg) in today’s paper. It looks like all but one (possibly two) are white. The county commission (IMO) recognizes the possibility of a discrimination lawsuit. (There have been several successful and well-publicized reverse-discrimination lawsuits in Atlanta in recent years, stemming from similar situations.) Eldrin Bell (who is black) chairs the Clayton County commission, and has sought to overturn the firings, taking the position that they violate civil service rules. Yesterday, a judge agreed and ordered the fired workers reinstated. [Here’s the story.](http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/clayton/0105/05claytonsheriff.html) The “black flight” from Atlanta has caused some interesting phenomena in some formerly-white suburbs now absorbing the “refugees.” For example, Stone Mountain, once the very symbol of the unreconstructed South (and the birthplace of the reconstituted KKK in the early part of the last century) is now _very_ integrated. These days, if you go to Stone Mountain Park you often see more black faces than white faces enjoying the place. ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2005, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/excuse-me-while-i-whip-this-out-youre-fired/283134/35 "2005-01-05T16:50:18Z")
Oh yeah, and I should point out that the assassination of the newly-elected DeKalb County Sheriff a while back (referenced in the OP’s link) was not a racial incident. It had more to do with corruption in the ousted sheriff’s department. Both the outgoing and newly-elected sheriffs in that case were black. ---
**Author:** ![mhendo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mhendo/32/3159_2.png) [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2005, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/excuse-me-while-i-whip-this-out-youre-fired/283134/36 "2005-01-05T17:37:13Z")
> [@spoke-](#): > > (There have been several successful and well-publicized **reverse-discrimination** lawsuits in Atlanta in recent years, stemming from similar situations.) Bolding mine. Can i just hijack for a minute to whine about how much i hate this term? Discrimination is discrimination, no matter who is the perpetrator and who is the victim. There’s no “reverse” to it. Thankyou. Carry on. ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2005, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/excuse-me-while-i-whip-this-out-youre-fired/283134/37 "2005-01-05T17:49:53Z")
> [@mhendo](#): > > Can i just hijack for a minute to whine about how much i hate this term? Discrimination is discrimination, no matter who is the perpetrator and who is the victim. There’s no “reverse” to it. Point taken. I was simply using the phrase as shorthand for situations where a black politician wins office (or gets appointed) and then purges white employees, which has happened with some frequency in these parts over the years. Rather than explain all of that at length, I employed a two-word phrase which captured the essence of the situation. ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2005, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/excuse-me-while-i-whip-this-out-youre-fired/283134/38 "2005-01-05T20:31:26Z")
Update: The racial breakdown of the fired employees is 19 white, 7 black. Sheriff sought legal advice on avoiding lawsuits before conducting the firings, so it’s possible the 7 blacks are “token firings” to head off litigation. Or there may be no racial motivation at all. Maybe the new sheriff just wants to clean house and install his own employees, beholden only to him. Waters muddy. More info needed. ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2005, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/excuse-me-while-i-whip-this-out-youre-fired/283134/39 "2005-01-05T20:55:28Z")
> [@jayjay](#): > > > [@TwistofFate](#): > > > > Perhaps you might want to read the thread again Brutus. It wasn’t just white folk that got screwed over. > > You make the unjustified assumption that **Brutus** reads _any_ thread on this board with comprehension. Well, the newly-elected sheriff _is_ a Democrat. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![pizzabrat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/e9c0ed/32.png) [@pizzabrat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pizzabrat)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2005, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/excuse-me-while-i-whip-this-out-youre-fired/283134/40 "2005-01-06T00:42:03Z")
> [@mhendo](#): > > Bolding mine. > > Can i just hijack for a minute to whine about how much i hate this term? It’s a term used for a specific phenomenon - discrimination for the sake of revenge. What’s wrong with having a term for that? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/excuse-me-while-i-whip-this-out-youre-fired/283134.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/excuse-me-while-i-whip-this-out-youre-fired/283134.md?page=3)