My xenophobic coworkers

The BBQ Pit
1

I hereby pit my xenophobic coworkers, for whom anyone not named Susie Jones or Bob Smith is a “foreigner” :mad: deserving of their scorn and ridicule. I work at a customer service oriented business, and I have no problem with someone getting frustrated over a language barrier and venting about it. But there’s no excuse to slur and make fun of anyone with a Hispanic or Asian sounding name before you’ve even spoken to them.

The last straw was a conversation I overheard today about a new hire whose first name is a Hispanic variation of a common English name. These two people were making fun of the guy’s name, and pronouncing it incorrectly to amuse themselves, when he’s within earshot a few cubicles over! Maybe they assumed he couldn’t understand them because anyone with a name like that obviously couldn’t speak English. :rolleyes:

Darn you all to heck!!

2

Jesus wept. :smiley:

3

Was it “Chun Wen”?

'Cuz you know, that’s a terrible cowboy name.

4

I’ve been working in a call center for a few months and have been really impressed at how diverse and tolerant the atmosphere is. We get a lot of language problems on the phone, but I rarely even hear about those.
Sucks for you, working with lame-asses. Maybe you could dig down on their ethnicities (i.e. Italian, Irish, French) and get some shots in.
Because I’m all about sinking down to the other guy’s level…I think I’ll have to roll my eyes at myself, there.

5

You know, in most places making comments like that is considered racist and is totally and completely frowned on by management. Have you considered reporting it to a supervisor? And if your supervisor was one of the assholes making the jokes, to their supervisor? Because I know most corporate HR departments go nuts when they hear about this kind of stuff.

6

I might if anything ever rose to a hostile/threatening level. Mostly it’s just “annoying hoosier” level stuff.

7

One of my hubby’s coworkers just had to go through several hours of “sensitivity training” for a joke he made that wasn’t even made with ill intent, just poor timing. Management is on the hook for creating a “hostile work environment” if someone is harassed or mocked because of their national origin. It’s a lot easier to stop it before it rises to that level. I recommend you mention it to your supervisor, especially since the poor guy they were mocking could hear every word!

8

How old are these guys? Late teens, early twenties? Maybe they’re just very immature and “high schoolish.”

Have you told the boss? These guys could get him sued.

9

Both women, actually. They’re just ignorant redneck-types who think anyone named Hernandez probably snuck across the border last week.

10

I meant to add, age range, probably late 40s.

11

HEY! What’s with the interstate disparagement, there?

I think you need to clean your own house, first.

:smiley:

12

Did you say anything to them? And if not, why not? Are they your bosses? Venting on a message board isn’t going to make that guy feel any better. If he could hear, and if he knew that you were in the vacinity and could hear too, and you didn’t say anything, he probably thinks you agree with them but were smart enough to keep your mouth shut.

13

To you it’s simply annoying, but to the person who it’s directed at, it could very well be a lot more. They might be hesitant to speak up about it since they’re new there.

14

Thanks for the responses and advice. I’ve decided to contact a supervisor about it.

15

May I offer one more suggestion? Are you on good terms with the fellow your coworkers were making fun of or can you be? If so, you might want to work with him to set them back a bit. Five years ago, a few weeks after the events of September 11th, my coworkers were still a bit jumpy (understandably so, especially since Flight 93 crashed within 100 miles of us). One day a few of them were talking when one of them said rather loudly, “If you weren’t born in this country, you should get out!” At that point, I looked up from what I was doing and said, “In that case, it’s going to take me a bit longer to fix your database”, emphasizing my British accent a bit. This immediately prompted a round of, “Oh! We didn’t mean you!”

Remind them that people named “Hernandez” and such have been in America as long as anyone else. Depending on what nationality or ethnicity they claim, you might also want to remind them that many cultures were seen as threats to the American way of life, including the Irish, the Polish, the Germans, etc. It makes me wonder who we’ll be complaining about 100 years from now.

16

That’s golden. :smiley:

Oh, I would wager that there were people named Hernandez here long before any of THEIR ancestors were here. :slight_smile:

17

Heck, the oldest city in the US is Florida’s St. Augustine, settled in 1565 by Pedro Menéndez de Avilés. Vote for Pedro!

18

Yes, I was actually thinking of Florida when I posted my comment.

:slight_smile:

19

I told this story last year, but I though it was apt here:

My husband works as a deputy warden in a prison, which is admittedly a type of place not generally famed for its racial sensitvity. But my husband is, as it’s often put, (albeit in stronger language) one of those “Minorty-lovin’ college boys” who won’t put up with racist remarks.

About a year ago, he recived a complaint that one of the prison doctors had been been repeatedly mocked by some of the officers. When the doc entered a room, the officers would pound out a drum rythym on the table and start singing a Native American war chant. My husband asked the doctor about this, who confirmed that the officers had been doing this to him for a while now.

Hubby called them into his office, and repeated what he’d heard they were doing. They vehemently denied it.

“Why do you think I called you in here about this?” Hubby asked.

Sullenly, one of the officers said, “You’re going to accuse us of doing something wrong, and punish us, but we didn’t do it.”

My husband smiled. “Of course you didn’t. I know you guys, and you’re not stupid. You know that if I ever caught anyone doing something like that, I’d ruin their careers. I’d make it my personal mission in life to see to it that they lost their jobs. As you guys know, I won’t stand for that racist bullshit in the workplace. If any of you guys were racists, you WOULD be punished, but we don’t have to worry about that, do we? Do you understand what I’m saying to you?”

They all nodded. Hubby sent them back to their posts. The next day, apparently after some time to think it over, and most likely being told by their union rep that they didn’t have a grievance, the officers asked to come into my husband’s office. He bade them to be seated, and one of them spoke up, sounding nervous but earnest.

“Uh, sir, we’re not saying anything happened, but if it DID, it wasn’t meant to be offensive-- it was a joke, and, uh, it’ll never happen again.”

Hubby nodded. “I understand completely. Thank you.”

As the officers headed towards the door, my husband called, “Guys?”

They stopped.

Hubby shuffled some papers. “He’s not Native American.”

“What?” The one who had made the apology stared at him. “What do you mean?”

“He’s not Native American. He’s Hispanic, you fucking idiot. You’d think the fact that his last name is Gonzales might have given you a clue.”