It’s Shakes’ call to make, of course, whether to report the post to HR. But would it really trigger the guy getting fired? I guess it depends on company policy, but in terms of the bottom line it’s expensive to recruit/hire/train someone new. Wouldn’t a typical HR response be to begin a progressive discipline track… perhaps starting with a verbal warning only, then responding to any repeated offences with written warning [perhaps other stuff] then firing?
If progressive discipline is company policy, maybe everyone would win if he was reported - nip it in the bud before it blossoms.
Right, thanks Mate. I really should have cited that. In fact the only British Empire areas that had any significant German sympathies were in the Mandate area (although it is kicking in the back of my mind that I read of Indian (or Indo-Pak in modern terms) nationalist contacts with German agents and some added actions, this really highlights that the Mufti of Jerusalem was not a Muslim or an Arab phenomena, but a local reaction (and Wiki provides sources indicating important colleagues and family disagreed with this German approach).
How about this: Western civilization wouldn’t even exist if it weren’t for Islam. The Muslims were one of the few groups who preserved the knowledge of antiquity through the Middle Ages. For instance, every single copy we have today of Euclid’s Elements was translated from Arabic.
That’s not true. The first translation into Latin in the middle ages was from an Arabic translation, but most modern English translations come from the Heiberg manuscript, which was Byzantine.
Isn’t it the job of HR to determine the severity of this infraction and balance it against the employee’s history and deal with him accordingly? He’s spreading hate. Maybe it didn’t affect you, but that’s what it is, and he’s using company time and company resources to do so. If that gets him fired and has a negative repercussion on him and he has to bust his hateful ass to keep food on the table for his poor little kids, it would be his own damned fault. Dealing with this sort of thing is outside of your purview. Report him.
Note that reporting something to HR marks the reporting person as a troublemaker as well. It’s unfair, but it happens all the time. You get tagged as someone who complains, and if something even worse happens in the future, you may be taken just a little bit less seriously.
Or the reporting party could manage to make an anonymous report regarding the issue.
Regarding “taken less seriously,” I would hope that a corporation large enough to have a human resources deparatment would have such a department staffed by professionals who would realize that not taken something seriously–as in actually looking into the matter–would put the corporation at risk in litigation later brought by the individual not taken seriously.
Agreed. But from that perspective, we’d also hope that this corporation would have a workforce professional enough not to send around race-baiting emails. The trouble comes when those aspirations are not met.
I guess all I’m saying is that HR is not your friend; it serves the company. Reporting this guy may be doing the company a favor, but it’s not necessarily doing anything positive for the OP and may even work against him in little ways.
The workforce, in toto, isn’t sending out the race-baiting e-mail. One individual is. HR is supposed to address such issues so that the individual (the employee) gets the message that such things aren’t acceptable. Plus, I just plain don’t buy into your “HR is evil” routine.
Perhaps one problem with this message is that it does not mention one of the first contacts between the young Republic of the United States of America and the Muslim Barbary Coast States that regularly preyed upon US ships, enslaving captured Americans.
According to Wikipedia: "In March 1785, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams went to negotiate with Tripoli’s envoy to London, Ambassador Sidi Haji Abdrahaman (or Sidi Haji Abdul Rahman Adja). Upon inquiring “concerning the ground of the pretensions to make war upon nations who had done them no injury”, the ambassador replied:
It was written in their Koran, that all nations which had not acknowledged the Prophet were sinners, whom it was the right and duty of the faithful to plunder and enslave; and that every muslim who was slain in this warfare was sure to go to paradise. He said, also, that the man who was the first to board a vessel had one slave over and above his share, and that when they sprang to the deck of an enemy’s ship, every sailor held a dagger in each hand and a third in his mouth; which usually struck such terror into the foe that they cried out for quarter at once.
Such sentiments, by the way, can still be justified by the Koran and are still actively espoused by Muslims living today. I have seen videos of Imams preaching that a Muslim has the right to seize any infidel and either sell him into slavery or kill him. The extensive slavery practised by Muslims in the north of Sudan against the non-Muslims in the south is precisely justified on these grounds.
Luckily, the Barbary Wars had a happy ending. The US fought back. Good thing Americans back then didn’t need to grow a pair.
Apart from that, you might also want to just point out to the guy that The Pilgrims weren’t, in fact, the original colonists to come to the continent. I assume he’ll be shocked.
According to the Wiki profile, the first contact was the Moroccan Sultan recognising the Americans, which doesn’t quite fit your narrative it would appear.
Anyway, one neglects to mention that the warring European powers rather encouraged the pirates to attack said power’s enemies. Part of the American problems was the UK…
Eh. So what, there’ nutter Christians who can use the Bible in the same manner.
I’m willing to bet that this a colourful fabrication.
Eh?
The Americans cut a bunch of deals and paid tribute to certain states.
What this has to do with the OP really does escape.
I agree with everything up to this point - but it was the interaction of America over the barbary thing that Obama was mentioning in his speech that triggered the bigoted screed in the OP.
The Treaty of Tripoli:
This treaty was basically about the payments the US was willing to make to the Barbary nations for immunity of American ships from attack and slavery.
The importance of the treaty is two-fold. It is usually cited for Article 11 - that’s what Obama is doing in his speech - which states as follows:
Significant stuff.
The second significance is that it is, of course, a treaty for the payment of “danegeld”; and it didn’t work - the states involved demanded more cash, and commenced preying on Americans again when they didn’t get it, leading to further warfare.
This is perhaps not so happy a precedent for Obama to invoke. Not, of course, that this has anything to do with Muslims in America.
Hey, no prob. I just thought the president’s speech a very interesting launch into the history of US-Muslim world relations, which is in fact a topic as old as the US iteslf, much to my surprise - I read a very timely book on that subject (popular history but well-written) whose title escapes me at the moment.
I dunno. As you cite states, the version actually ratified by the US has that text in it.
I would have thought that the more significant critique would be that article 11 is clearly a bit of puffery designed to make the treaty more acceptable - remembering that the context was to pacify slave-taking Muslim predator nations with a dollop of dollars as ‘danegeld’ (rhyme!) - and so does not really represent any sort of actual official position of the US vis. Islam or religion generally.
Of course, if Obama was so intent on proving how lovey-dovey and close Islam and America are, he could have mentioned that rarely a Friday passes without both America and Israel being significantly mentioned in thousands of Mosques around the world. . . . . .no wait, maybe not!:rolleyes: