Thanks. That sounds reasonable. It often amazes me how people who have never been managers think that a manager’s favorite thing is to screw employees with no reason and who cares about the impact. I’ve been a manager in several large companies (not retail) and the idea that my managers would back up any kind of racist behavior is just laughable.
The timeline is unclear from the articles, but my impression is that Lowe’s did the investigation and then the firing as soon as they heard about the situation from the TV station, before the storm broke - so they didn’t do it under pressure.
Because, like an idiot, the name Dr. Villalobos brought to my mind a vision of a doctor who didn’t speak English well and might not make me comfortable.
But I said to myself “Self, don’t be a racist dick and go meet the doctor. You might be surprised.”
So I did and I was happy to prove my initial reservation wrong. Having a question, reservation or doubt is not inherently wrong; it’s how one acts and learns from the experience that one can measure their character; and here I am satisfied with my experience.
I don’t think **Hilarity N. Suze’s **position is hard to understand, but yes, it’s racist.
You’re ranking people by skin color. Preferring blacks to other non whites doesn’t make it less racist. Things like this make me think of those polls that measure the shift in racist attitudes. Most people don’t want to be racist, so you have the people who examine their beliefs and try to change, and you have the people who convince themselves that their racist views aren’t actually racist.
Got it. Now, I’ve spent quite a number of years in a very multi-cultural area so a Spanish name, Indian name, German name, etc. wouldn’t be out of the ordinary. Well, there was this surgeon–and I’m not making this up–named Dr. Shakin.
That is NOT what racism is; and I’m pretty sure you don’t even believe what you wrote. If a school has a black studies club, and let’s anyone in but actively seeks out and recruits black kids, you think that’s RACIST? A Hispanic house, affiliated with a public university that gives housing preferences to Mestizos over Caucasians in the Spanish-speaking dorm is RACIST? A police department that publicizes that it is actively seeking well-qualified non-white candidates is RACIST? Getting out of a cab when you see the driver is a female Asian is RACIST?
None of those things is racist. (Well…maybe the last one. A little.) But the first three are perfectly reasonable responses to the well-established fact that race frequently correlates with cultural experience. So does gender. So does age.
In-(Out-)Group Bias is not the same as racism. Having a preference for those we consider to be our in-group is something we all do. All of my closest friends, my doctor, my lawyer, and my dentist are white males. And Christians. (Except my lawyer, he’s a Jew, but aren’t they all?) Why don’t I hang out with 80-year-old Asian women? Figure it out. (Because they keep crashing my car!)
But white people who live in white neighborhoods, went to white colleges, go to white churches, work at predominantly white businesses, send their kids to white schools, shop in white stores, play white sports, watch white tv & movies, listen to white music, read white authors, eat white food, and do countless other things that are associated with White People are supposed to say with a straight face, “I don’t prefer white people, though.”
You white people crack me up with your white whiteness.
Actually the first three are reverse discrimination, so yes there’s an unavoidable element of racism to them. The question is whether the negatives of that racism are outweighed by the positives of whatever cultural goal you’re trying to achieve.
The final one is just overt racism with a dash of sexism.
So it’s only OK to be racist for the big things? Little things like the colour of the delivery driver dropping off a package, you’re not going to sweat. Big things like who you judge to be most competent as a doctor, that’s perfectly ok to go by skin colour?
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.
At least retail has the privilege of telling such racists to take their business elsewhere.
I work in a 9-1-1 center. From time to time a caller makes some demand about the race and/or nationality of the emergency responders. And we cannot cannot refuse to dispatch or tell them to go call 9-1-2 instead.
But what we pretty simply do is tell such callers that in no uncertain terms we cannot and will not accommodate their requests. The next available police unit, ambulance, or fire truck gets the call. I have no idea about the race or nationality of the vast majority of the staff anyway, I just talk to them by radio.
But we also go ahead and advise the responders of the demands made by the caller. And then we tell the boss of the responders so they are clued in just in case any BS complaints result. Fortunately we have all calls recorded so there is no doubt about the demands made by the caller.
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.
First off, Hilarity N. Suze: You said that you would prefer a white female doctor over a black female doctor. That means that, given the choice between a white female doctor and a black female doctor, you would choose the white doctor. That is racial discrimination against the black doctor. You do treat black people differently–you said it. Either say you misspoke, or be labeled a racist for the rest of the time you are on the Dope.
Second, if black people make you uncomfortable, that’s something you need to work on.Giving into your racist feelings is what racists do. We’re all born with a natural tendency towards bigotry, and what we have to do is fight that natural urge. How the fuck do we get better if we give into our bigoted urges?
“Everyone is a little bit racist” is not a license to be racist, but something to stay aware of lest you actually do something racist. You know, like discriminate against a doctor because you’re less comfortable around black people.
Third, Grotonian: you made fucking racist comments about everyone in your fucking “it’s not racism” post, including the same type of anti-white racismthat Honesty got banned for. (Granted, she did it outside the Pit.) And this is far from the first time you’ve demonstrated your racism, as well as other forms of bigotry. People fucking expected you to come in and defend this racist bitch! Do you realize how fucking bad that is?
So of course you don’t understand any of the issues about racism. You couldn’t even manage not posting racist shit when saying something wasn’t racism. You say racist shit all the time.
Second, Gary Kumquat was about to educate us all about the good kinds of racism until you went on your rant.
Third, Who the hell is Honesty?
Fourth, I never defended the old lady.
Fifth, No one expected me to defend the old lady. Emiliana made a joke because she has a crush on me. You all are lucky I’m even here because I avoid The Pit but Emiliana made a special request so I complied.
Sixth, I never posted anything racist. Are you honestly suggesting Asian females AREN’T terrible drivers?! (Can you not take a joke?)
Seventh, enumerated lists are for retards.
And Eighth, “Lighten up, Francis.” It bears repeating. This is The Pit, where the norms of respectful debate are different from the other fora. If you people don’t appreciate my humorous contributions, don’t ask me to come comment, regardless of how bad you’re crushing on me.
This one decision was stupid, but it doesn’t mean that all of his decisions were stupid. It’s entirely possible that the manager’s record was otherwise pretty strong in other areas.
Complying with the customer’s bigoted request doesn’t make the manager any more of a racist than accepting payment from a customer who walks in wearing a flag with a Confederate flag on it. All it means is that he was trying to process a transaction so that he could move on to the next one.
Unfortunately, this transaction and the manager’s poor handling of it, became a front-page news story. The public relations backlash trumped whatever accomplishments the manager had achieved up to that point. He’s just one manager out of many, in one store out of money, who gets paid a fraction of what the people who fired him make.
I’m not defending the manager’s decision, which was obviously not the brightest move he could have made. I just don’t necessarily buy the argument that because a guy makes one dumb decision - one that was understandably offensive - that it disqualifies him from employment. The failure seems to be that the anti-discrimination training was probably not adequate to cover this situation.
My opinion’s based on the assumption that this guy has an otherwise clean record. It’s possible that other things came to light once they interviewed African American and minority employees, in which case the dynamics would obviously change.
But assuming that this was a one-time incident, while this was clearly a poor response on the manager’s part, I just wonder how many times he’s dealt with something like that. Reprimanding him, suspending him, sending him to do more human relations training, and actually making him a better employee and person in the long run would have been the right move. Terminating his employment and threatening his financial stability and his ability to gain future employment anytime soon, for a mistake, doesn’t seem right.
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.