# I pit the soon-to-be-named racist lady from Danville, VA (Lowe's delivery story) **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [August 10, 2015, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-soon-to-be-named-racist-lady-from-danville-va-lowes-delivery-story/727458 "2015-08-10T16:13:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 12
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2015, 1:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-soon-to-be-named-racist-lady-from-danville-va-lowes-delivery-story/727458/221 "2015-08-13T13:19:02Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > Quotes from _Airplane!_ are even older. Do you ever use any yourself? Looks like I picked the wrong week to give up _Airplane!_ quotes. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2015, 1:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-soon-to-be-named-racist-lady-from-danville-va-lowes-delivery-story/727458/222 "2015-08-13T13:38:04Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > What’s with the defense of the manager? If the manager is screwed either way, why do you think that makes it okay to choose the racist option? Better to be fired for doing the right thing than the wrong thing. Giving into a racist about doing something racist just makes you racist. The manager (as I pointed out, it’s more likely to have been a low level dispatcher than A Manager) may have legitimately believed that he _was_ doing the right thing since the black driver was obviously going to be abused once he arrived at the destination. He did the wrong thing, but it’s not \*immediately \*obvious that it was wrong. Most people just don’t think things like this through. ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2015, 1:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-soon-to-be-named-racist-lady-from-danville-va-lowes-delivery-story/727458/223 "2015-08-13T13:40:17Z")
**running coach** : It would have been funnier if you’d posted: > [@](#): > > I decided to give up _Airplane!_ quotes just one damn day too late! ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2015, 2:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-soon-to-be-named-racist-lady-from-danville-va-lowes-delivery-story/727458/224 "2015-08-13T14:05:07Z")
> [@Monty](#): > > **running coach** : It would have been funnier if you’d posted: Remember, he was indulging in the very vice he gave up that week. I was continuing the tradition. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2015, 2:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-soon-to-be-named-racist-lady-from-danville-va-lowes-delivery-story/727458/225 "2015-08-13T14:07:43Z")
> [@madmonk28](#): > > Okay, there is a lot of stupid in your posts, but this can. not. stand. > > Stripes is a 34 year old movie. The Francis line got a big laugh when it was said in the movie in 1981. Since then, slack jawed yokels have been repeating it and diminishing it’s impact ever since. There is no humor left in that line you all killed it by repeating it for the last three and a half decades. It’s over, move on to something more culturally relevant, like a quote from Weekend at Bernie’s (1989), or Where’s the Beef (used during the 1984 election), or “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall (1989).” All of those are more current than the line you used. “Lighten up, Francis…” ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2015, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-soon-to-be-named-racist-lady-from-danville-va-lowes-delivery-story/727458/226 "2015-08-13T14:24:02Z")
So, has any “human flesh search engine” managed to find out what the name of the racist customer is? ---
**Author:** ![Jan\_John\_Cobham\_Salad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/898d66/32.png) [@Jan\_John\_Cobham\_Salad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jan_John_Cobham_Salad)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2015, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-soon-to-be-named-racist-lady-from-danville-va-lowes-delivery-story/727458/227 "2015-08-13T14:59:38Z")
> [@Snowboarder\_Bo](#): > > may your progeny find themselves hopelessly confused by life and unable to reproduce This is a top shelf insult right here. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![OneCentStamp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/13edae/32.png) [@OneCentStamp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OneCentStamp)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2015, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-soon-to-be-named-racist-lady-from-danville-va-lowes-delivery-story/727458/228 "2015-08-13T15:10:06Z")
> [@Monty](#): > > So, has any “human flesh search engine” managed to find out what the name of the racist customer is? Not that I’ve been able to find, and that’s fine with me - I doubt the fury of the Internet Shame Mob™ would do much to someone that old and out of touch other than make her dig in her heels, anyway. But I guarantee the people who really matter - her neighbors, people she goes to church with, etc. - identified her immediately, and if the world is a good place, they’re all inching slowly away from her right now. That might actually teach her something. ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2015, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-soon-to-be-named-racist-lady-from-danville-va-lowes-delivery-story/727458/229 "2015-08-13T15:12:48Z")
> [@OneCentStamp](#): > > But I guarantee the people who really matter - her neighbors, people she goes to church with, etc. - identified her immediately, and if the world is a good place, they’re all inching slowly away from her right now. That might actually teach her something. Oh hell no. Her friends are all comforting her and telling her that she does have those rights and those people are wrong to be looking down on her, and they don’t want “those people” delivering to them either. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2015, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-soon-to-be-named-racist-lady-from-danville-va-lowes-delivery-story/727458/230 "2015-08-13T15:15:25Z")
> [@OneCentStamp](#): > > But I guarantee the people who really matter - her neighbors, people she goes to church with, etc. - identified her immediately, and if the world is a good place, they’re all inching slowly away from her right now. That might actually teach her something. Bless your heart for assuming they don’t agree with her views. ---
**Author:** ![OneCentStamp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/13edae/32.png) [@OneCentStamp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OneCentStamp)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2015, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-soon-to-be-named-racist-lady-from-danville-va-lowes-delivery-story/727458/231 "2015-08-13T15:15:58Z")
> [@Chimera](#): > > Oh hell no. Her friends are all comforting her and telling her that she does have those rights and those people are wrong to be looking down on her, and they don’t want “those people” delivering to them either. I did qualify it with “if the world is a good place.” 😛 But seriously, it could go either way, or a combination of the two. I could see her being my next door neighbor, having a cordial relationship with her for years without realizing what a loathsome person she is, and in the aftermath of this revelation, never speaking to her again except to tell why I’m not ever speaking to her again. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2015, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-soon-to-be-named-racist-lady-from-danville-va-lowes-delivery-story/727458/232 "2015-08-13T15:16:54Z")
> [@Gyrate](#): > > Bless your heart for assuming they don’t agree with her views. And bless \*her \*heart most of all. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2015, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-soon-to-be-named-racist-lady-from-danville-va-lowes-delivery-story/727458/233 "2015-08-13T16:35:34Z")
> [@Mr.Nylock](#): > > Lowe’s fired the manager, but did they ban the overtly racist customer? There is nothing to stop them from banning the customer for life. Who knows? I doubt she’ll be ordering stuff from that store again, and if she does I bet they send Mr. Bradley to deliver it. In any case you don’t want to make her a martyr. ---
**Author:** ![DoctorJ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doctorj/32/2904_2.png) [@DoctorJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DoctorJ)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2015, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-soon-to-be-named-racist-lady-from-danville-va-lowes-delivery-story/727458/234 "2015-08-13T16:44:15Z")
I’m a primary care doc out in the sticks of Kentucky, and most of our specialists and such in this area are foreign, mostly from India. People ask us fairly often not to send them to a “foreign doctor”, in which case we tell them that we need to schedule them with the next one who can get them in. (In most cases there aren’t really any choices.) I had a patient a few years ago who needed to see a cardiologist; he said three or four times that he “didn’t want no Indian doctor”. So I sent him to the one from Sri Lanka. The reason cited by most of these folks is that they can’t understand what the Indian doctors are saying, and in the case of some of the docs they have a point. But I’ve worked with a lot of docs who are second-generation immigrants, who may look Indian/Asian/whatever but speak perfect English without a hint of an accent, and patients who see me after they see them will often say, “I don’t know what he said. I couldn’t understand a word he said.” ---
**Author:** ![VinylTurnip](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b2d939/32.png) [@VinylTurnip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VinylTurnip)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2015, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-soon-to-be-named-racist-lady-from-danville-va-lowes-delivery-story/727458/235 "2015-08-13T16:48:52Z")
> [@Chimera](#): > > Oh hell no. Her friends are all comforting her and telling her that she does have those rights and those people are wrong to be looking down on her, and they don’t want “those people” delivering to them either. What’s her GoFundMe total up to? ---
**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2015, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-soon-to-be-named-racist-lady-from-danville-va-lowes-delivery-story/727458/236 "2015-08-13T17:06:54Z")
> [@DoctorJ](#): > > But I’ve worked with a lot of docs who are second-generation immigrants, who may look Indian/Asian/whatever but speak perfect English without a hint of an accent, and patients who see me after they see them will often say, “I don’t know what he said. I couldn’t understand a word he said.” That’s when you schedule them for the ear exam. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2015, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-soon-to-be-named-racist-lady-from-danville-va-lowes-delivery-story/727458/237 "2015-08-13T18:01:07Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > The manager (as I pointed out, it’s more likely to have been a low level dispatcher than A Manager) may have legitimately believed that he _was_ doing the right thing since the black driver was obviously going to be abused once he arrived at the destination. He did the wrong thing, but it’s not \*immediately \*obvious that it was wrong. Most people just don’t think things like this through. The delivery guy was a veteran, and I suspect knows how to handle obnoxious customers. If the manager thought that the guy needed protection, then there is indeed a problem - especially because the guy did not get asked. What would have happened if they didn’t fire the manager? I suspect a shitstorm about why not, and then Lowe’s would have had to anyway. They investigated, they got out in front of the problem. On The Nightly Show last night the lead was of course “Lowe’s did this stupid thing” not “Lowe’s employee did this stupid thing.” Though the bit ended with the white delivery guy who refused to do the delivery. Lowe’s is going to come out of this no worse off or maybe better off than they went into it. This is what at-will employment is all about. This is what zero tolerance is all about. Maybe he didn’t get trained well enough (or it didn’t take) but you know damned well every other Lowe’s dispatcher - not to mention ones at other companies - just got a full course on dealing with bigots. ---
**Author:** ![Gary\_Kumquat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/4491bb/32.png) [@Gary\_Kumquat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_Kumquat)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2015, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-soon-to-be-named-racist-lady-from-danville-va-lowes-delivery-story/727458/238 "2015-08-13T18:54:48Z")
> [@Grotonian](#): > > I see. So “racism” is a morally neutral term, and there’s good racism and bad racism? Tell me more about your good racism; I only want to be the kind of racist that good people approve of. Fuck me, what is it with reading comprehension these days. Let’s go through that sentence that’s confused you so much: “The question is whether the **negatives of that racism** are outweighed by **the positives of whatever cultural goal you’re trying to achieve**.” Being considerate to the hard of thinking, I’ve highlighted the bits you’ll want to finger read through. See where it says that racism is negative? With me so far? Then see where it says “the positives of whatever cultural goal you’re trying to achieve”. That means the good thing that you’re hoping to do. So no, it’s not talking about good racism. It’s talking about an adult concept called the lesser of two evils. I hope (but rather doubt) this helps you to follow. ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2015, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-soon-to-be-named-racist-lady-from-danville-va-lowes-delivery-story/727458/239 "2015-08-13T18:55:55Z")
> [@Jan\_John\_Cobham\_Salad](#): > > This is a top shelf insult right here. 😃 Why, thank you very much! Glad to see that I can rise, or stoop, to the right level as needed! ---
**Author:** ![Gary\_Kumquat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/4491bb/32.png) [@Gary\_Kumquat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_Kumquat)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2015, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-soon-to-be-named-racist-lady-from-danville-va-lowes-delivery-story/727458/240 "2015-08-13T19:02:47Z")
> [@Hilarity\_N.Suze](#): > > I have preferences about physicians, too. In this order: (1) white female (2) black female (3) other female. > [@Hilarity\_N.Suze](#): > > I’m not treating anyone differently, and I’m not going by skin color. You are making a judgement based upon their perceived race. To claim that this is not treating someone differently dependent on their skin colour displays a truly impressive level of denial. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-soon-to-be-named-racist-lady-from-danville-va-lowes-delivery-story/727458.md?page=11) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-soon-to-be-named-racist-lady-from-danville-va-lowes-delivery-story/727458.md?page=13)