I sometimes wonder what the US would be like if segregation never ended, but technology like the internet still developed.
Would there be black ISPs and white ISPs?
Websites would probably create 2 versions of websites, one for blacks and one for whites, based on your ISP. Would be strange, but interesting to think about. Would there still be separate but equal connections or would blacks get stuck with dialup while whites get fast fibers? neat
o/`He's got jungle fiber. o/`
black internet and white internet
which has better porn
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Magus`The fun has been DOUBLED!Registered Userregular
But do we REALLY know point 1? Like I said, what if the hotel did NOTHING but smile and nod?
P. Ninja - More like they didn't want to and luckily didn't have to due to the pre-made server list! I think it's pretty silly to ever imply that they 'wanted' to discriminate.
When you officially instruct your employees to comply with a racist customer request, it doesn't matter if the cards fell just right and all of the British visitors' servers just happened to be white. You seem to be asking about this vague and improbable "what-if" scenario where it's possible that the hotel did not rearrange their staff in a racist way...but by bringing compliance with the racist request into the equation, the what-if scenario is moot.
The black server is not saying, "Hey, that British family was only served by white waiters! It must be discrimination! To the courts!" They have the request on file. The racist intentions are already in play.
I can only see this going down in the following ways:
Way 1:
Family makes request to not be served by non-whites. Hotel notes this and instructs all of it's employees of this desire. If they were at any time going to be served by a non-white, this is changed. Any/all non-white employees who might have come in contact with them are moved to another area of the hotel for the duration of their stay.
Way 2:
Family makes request to not be served by non-whites. Hotel notes this and instructs it's employees as to avoid any potential 'situations', but does not require any server to do anything special. It's merely just a "Oh, BTW these guys are douches" type memo. Luckily (?) their server list is already 'white-only' and thus the hotel and it's employees can just laugh off their racism.
Way 3:
Same as Way 2, but it turns out that at least one (if not several) of their servers were non-whites. Hotel changes 'direct' servers but does nothing about people such as maids/tech staff/etc.
Way 1 and Way 3 are illegal, obviously. Way 2 does not SEEM illegal to be, even if it's just due to the 'luck of the draw'. I think more than anything that it shows a sort of flaw in this argument in that I could discriminate due to race as long as I don't admit that's the reason. Of course, that would open up a lot of "Well, I don't think he hired me because I'm black cause of the way he looked at me!" type lawsuits, so.. slippery slope?
Once again I think they should be punished. I just don't think this guy SOLELY should be the person who gets money. They should give it to all their non-white employees.
Then they should have joined in the lawsuit.
Wonder why they didn't!
They still can.
Plus this waiter is likely going to face retaliation in the workplace over this (assuming he stays), even though that retaliation may also violate labor laws. Most people who sue their boss, it isn't just forgotten as if you struck out in the company softball game over the weekend. Other workers may not be willing to risk retaliation.
I'm amazed that laws against discrimination don't have a "unless it's for the black guy's own good" exception...
It's actually illegal for battery manufacturers to prevent pregnant women from doing tasks that involve handling of/exposure to lead. What an enlightened world we live in.
Allowing a woman to work on batteries is fine, forcing her too or forcing her not too isn't. We don't ban pregnant women from drinking alcohol, nor do we force alcohol upon them. Choices: women are capable of making them.
I can only see this going down in the following ways:
Way 1:
Family makes request to not be served by non-whites. Hotel notes this and instructs all of it's employees of this desire. If they were at any time going to be served by a non-white, this is changed. Any/all non-white employees who might have come in contact with them are moved to another area of the hotel for the duration of their stay.
Way 2:
Family makes request to not be served by non-whites. Hotel notes this and instructs it's employees as to avoid any potential 'situations', but does not require any server to do anything special. It's merely just a "Oh, BTW these guys are douches" type memo. Luckily (?) their server list is already 'white-only' and thus the hotel and it's employees can just laugh off their racism.
Way 3:
Same as Way 2, but it turns out that at least one (if not several) of their servers were non-whites. Hotel changes 'direct' servers but does nothing about people such as maids/tech staff/etc.
Way 1 and Way 3 are illegal, obviously. Way 2 does not SEEM illegal to be, even if it's just due to the 'luck of the draw'. I think more than anything that it shows a sort of flaw in this argument in that I could discriminate due to race as long as I don't admit that's the reason. Of course, that would open up a lot of "Well, I don't think he hired me because I'm black cause of the way he looked at me!" type lawsuits, so.. slippery slope?
I believe it was, in fact, Way 3 or possibly Way 1, and find it very unlikely that it was Way 2. Regardless, Way 2 is also illegal, because the hotel is acknowledging the request and asking the employees to comply with it.
> it shows a sort of flaw in this argument in that I could discriminate due to race as long as I don't admit that's the reason.
Of course you can, because people aren't psychic. I could ask a restaurant manager to give me a different waiter and tell them that the reason was the waiter's rudeness or that I just don't like the waiter's personality or something; the real reason could be that I don't like the waiter's race, but nobody could prove that. The restaurant could fire a black waiter because he's black, but to avoid a lawsuit the restaurant could say that he was a bad worker or had a shitty attitude or something. That's why anti-discrimination legislation doesn't remove all discrimination from the workplace.
"Hotel notes this and instructs its employees as to avoid any potential 'situations'"
What does that even mean? I mean, of course the vagueness is necessary because none of us really have the details, but that almost sounds like a press release from Ritz-Carlton with its bland assurance that they're avoiding situations with "instructions" while avoiding the question of what the instructions or situations are.
Discrimination is discrimination. "Oh hey guys we're discriminating but only because these total dickheads want us to" is still discrimination.
Since you seem to be kind of hung up on the idea of "wanting," think of it like this: Whether the company wanted to discriminate or not does not matter at all. Either they did or didn't. Why? Doesn't matter. Did they like it? Doesn't matter.
Sooo... OP is white, yeah? Because somehow I don't see a non-white person so casually dismissing how demeaning it is to be told that you're not allowed to do your usual work tasks for a while because someone is watching who hates your appearance and wishes you didn't exist.
I'd have sued for more, personally.
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Magus`The fun has been DOUBLED!Registered Userregular
"Hotel notes this and instructs its employees as to avoid any potential 'situations'"
What does that even mean? I mean, of course the vagueness is necessary because none of us really have the details, but that almost sounds like a press release from Ritz-Carlton with its bland assurance that they're avoiding situations with "instructions" while avoiding the question of what the instructions or situations are.
As in, these guys are racist, you might wanna avoid them. You don't have to. You can do what you want. But we wanted you to know. There will be no punishment for interacting with them.
So basically something to INFORM employees so they can CHOOSE to avoid awkward situations, not that they 'have to'.
"Hotel notes this and instructs its employees as to avoid any potential 'situations'"
What does that even mean? I mean, of course the vagueness is necessary because none of us really have the details, but that almost sounds like a press release from Ritz-Carlton with its bland assurance that they're avoiding situations with "instructions" while avoiding the question of what the instructions or situations are.
As in, these guys are racist, you might wanna avoid them. You don't have to. You can do what you want. But we wanted you to know. There will be no punishment for interacting with them.
So basically something to INFORM employees so they can CHOOSE to avoid awkward situations, not that they 'have to'.
You say potato, I say potato. It's a very blurry line between "I'm informing you so you can choose to do X" to "I'm telling you not to do X," especially when companies:
1. Know they're doing the wrong thing
and
2. knowingly try to circumvent the law by using ambiguous language
Sort of, except if for a while the host put a moratorium on accepting calls from black people in order to appease this one guy.
In this case the host is like "I'm gonna sit here and pretend that just didn't happen and address the only point that wasn't a shitstorm of crazy: if you're calling in to a political show, don't misrepresent your political alignment." Not saying Host wasn't racist, but instead of complying with the racism - like the hotel - he's just ignoring it.
Scalfin, sometimes I think you are a huge silly goose, but most of the time you are one of my favorite posters here...
What I'm surprised about is that this was from a british family. I mean I'm sure racism does exist in Great Britain, but these people sound like they were pulled from Mobile, Alabama ca. 1955
Edited for goosery...
No, the surprising thing is that a British couple in the US had the tenacity to say that they didn't want waitstaff who had an accent.
Scalfin, sometimes I think you are a huge silly goose, but most of the time you are one of my favorite posters here...
What I'm surprised about is that this was from a british family. I mean I'm sure racism does exist in Great Britain, but these people sound like they were pulled from Mobile, Alabama ca. 1955
Edited for goosery...
No, the surprising thing is that a British couple in the US had the tenacity to say that they didn't want waitstaff who had an accent.
Well, a person ignorant enough to want that could also think that racism works that way in the American South.
Has anyone discussed the idea of disincentives yet? I skipped a few pages.
I think a lot of folks jump all over the idea that these sort of lawsuits are "money-grabs," but often they're more motivated out of anger than greed -- people trying to punish someone who wronged them. Often the only way to legally do that is with a civil lawsuit. And, by suing the hotel, this guy is providing a disincentive to future hotel management staff to comply with the wishes of bigoted guests. Which is a good thing.
Yeah, the customers were the real shit-heels in this arrangement, but even if you leave aside messy moralizing ideas about blame or responsibility, at the end of the day this lawsuit can help ensure that future workers don't have to be subjected to humiliation and discrimination at their jobs.
Isn't that enough to endorse this employee's suit? It does something good, and it doesn't hurt anyone unreasonably. It's easy to miss the consequences if you get caught up in debates about fault and blame and all that crap.
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Lord Palingtonhe.him.hisHistory-loving pal!Registered Userregular
edited April 2010
For the people asking if the server was personally involved in any of this, I found something in the OP that might be helpful.
Tranchant's claim states that staff in the restaurant were advised "through its computer notification system and word of mouth" of the family's "stated prejudice", and that as Tranchant began to serve them "he was prevented by his supervisors from doing so because they did not want to be waited on by a black person".
This is not some spurious lawsuit looking for a pay day. The man was taken aside by his supervisors and told that he, because of his skin color and/or accent, was not good enough to serve the nice white foreign couple. This seems pretty cut and dry to me.
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AtomikaLive fast and get fucked or whateverRegistered Userregular
This is not some spurious lawsuit looking for a pay day. The man was taken aside by his supervisors and told that he, because of his skin color and/or accent, was not good enough to serve the nice white foreign couple. This seems pretty cut and dry to me.
$75K is looking for a payday. Not that the guy isn't in the right, but it's absurd.
I've had plenty of patients request other staff because of gender/ethnic bias, and they're usually placated. The advent of a racist incident isn't the end of the world. I've had racist slurs thrown at me all day long and not blink an eye.
This is not some spurious lawsuit looking for a pay day. The man was taken aside by his supervisors and told that he, because of his skin color and/or accent, was not good enough to serve the nice white foreign couple. This seems pretty cut and dry to me.
$75K is looking for a payday. Not that the guy isn't in the right, but it's absurd.
I've had plenty of patients request other staff because of gender/ethnic bias, and they're usually placated. The advent of a racist incident isn't the end of the world. I've had racist slurs thrown at me all day long and not blink an eye.
For the people asking if the server was personally involved in any of this, I found something in the OP that might be helpful.
Tranchant's claim states that staff in the restaurant were advised "through its computer notification system and word of mouth" of the family's "stated prejudice", and that as Tranchant began to serve them "he was prevented by his supervisors from doing so because they did not want to be waited on by a black person".
This is not some spurious lawsuit looking for a pay day. The man was taken aside by his supervisors and told that he, because of his skin color and/or accent, was not good enough to serve the nice white foreign couple. This seems pretty cut and dry to me.
Actually, from what I have seen, the man was taken aside by his supervisors and told that he, because of his skin color and/or accent, would cause this customer to throw a shit-fit because they are racist. A fine line, to be sure, but I'm not sure you can hold the supervisors at as much fault as some people here are doing. They aren't saying he isn't good enough, they're saying that the customers will cause problems.
If a customer who pays money demands to be served only by handsome men, would that cause as much a commotion? Could a woman who was pulled aside and told that this customer wanted only men have a right to sue the company based on sex discrimination?
The obvious solution is to not serve the customers at all, i.e. deny them a place at the hotel upon hearing such a ridiculous request. The hotel should not have let it get to the point where they were complicit in racism in order to avoid "problems".
They only banned the family from staying there after the employee filed a lawsuit and they took publicity heat from the ordeal. They were going to comply, which is abhorrent and they should be sued for it.
This is not some spurious lawsuit looking for a pay day. The man was taken aside by his supervisors and told that he, because of his skin color and/or accent, was not good enough to serve the nice white foreign couple. This seems pretty cut and dry to me.
$75K is looking for a payday. Not that the guy isn't in the right, but it's absurd.
I've had plenty of patients request other staff because of gender/ethnic bias, and they're usually placated. The advent of a racist incident isn't the end of the world. I've had racist slurs thrown at me all day long and not blink an eye.
$75K is a drop in the fucking bucket for Ritz Carlton. It's not "absurd," what's absurd is that the hotel actually actively honored these racists' request rather than saying "you should probably find someplace else to stay if that's what you want."
The point of this lawsuit is to tell the company that if they pull this shit on their workers again they will get screwed.
Really, the point of the lawsuit is to make it so these kinds of things cost the company so much money that they change their practices. The guy getting the money is just a bonus for him. But if they don't get sued for enough than they'll just let people sue them and continue operating in the same fashion.
This is not some spurious lawsuit looking for a pay day. The man was taken aside by his supervisors and told that he, because of his skin color and/or accent, was not good enough to serve the nice white foreign couple. This seems pretty cut and dry to me.
$75K is looking for a payday. Not that the guy isn't in the right, but it's absurd.
I've had plenty of patients request other staff because of gender/ethnic bias, and they're usually placated. The advent of a racist incident isn't the end of the world. I've had racist slurs thrown at me all day long and not blink an eye.
Let me guess, they were "cracker" and "honky"
So you're saying racism is worse when its against minorities? I'm pretty sure in the law it doesn't say minorities cannot be segregated by race but everyone.
This is not some spurious lawsuit looking for a pay day. The man was taken aside by his supervisors and told that he, because of his skin color and/or accent, was not good enough to serve the nice white foreign couple. This seems pretty cut and dry to me.
$75K is looking for a payday. Not that the guy isn't in the right, but it's absurd.
I've had plenty of patients request other staff because of gender/ethnic bias, and they're usually placated. The advent of a racist incident isn't the end of the world. I've had racist slurs thrown at me all day long and not blink an eye.
Let me guess, they were "cracker" and "honky"
So you're saying racism is worse when its against minorities? I'm pretty sure in the law it doesn't say minorities cannot be segregated by race but everyone.
This is not some spurious lawsuit looking for a pay day. The man was taken aside by his supervisors and told that he, because of his skin color and/or accent, was not good enough to serve the nice white foreign couple. This seems pretty cut and dry to me.
$75K is looking for a payday. Not that the guy isn't in the right, but it's absurd.
I've had plenty of patients request other staff because of gender/ethnic bias, and they're usually placated. The advent of a racist incident isn't the end of the world. I've had racist slurs thrown at me all day long and not blink an eye.
Let me guess, they were "cracker" and "honky"
So you're saying racism is worse when its against minorities? I'm pretty sure in the law it doesn't say minorities cannot be segregated by race but everyone.
Of course it is. One of the aggravating factors of racism against minorities is that it promotes creation of a caste system.
This is not some spurious lawsuit looking for a pay day. The man was taken aside by his supervisors and told that he, because of his skin color and/or accent, was not good enough to serve the nice white foreign couple. This seems pretty cut and dry to me.
$75K is looking for a payday. Not that the guy isn't in the right, but it's absurd.
I've had plenty of patients request other staff because of gender/ethnic bias, and they're usually placated. The advent of a racist incident isn't the end of the world. I've had racist slurs thrown at me all day long and not blink an eye.
Let me guess, they were "cracker" and "honky"
So you're saying racism is worse when its against minorities? I'm pretty sure in the law it doesn't say minorities cannot be segregated by race but everyone.
No, I'm saying that the tendency to blithely dismiss complaints of racism is strongly correlated with whiteness in America. This allowed me to make a wild guess based on Ross' post.
But it wouldn't really be that out of line to say that "racism is worse when it's against minorities," though I think that statement might be overly broad. To be a bit more specific, I think there are good reasons still in living memory why I can say cracker and honky in this post but I can't say n*****.
Really, the point of the lawsuit is to make it so these kinds of things cost the company so much money that they change their practices. The guy getting the money is just a bonus for him. But if they don't get sued for enough than they'll just let people sue them and continue operating in the same fashion.
The publicity is also the point. Here we are, all talking about how the Ritz-Carlton suck at respecting their employees. They've also since pulled out the lifetime banstick on the family in question, which is quite the result, and half the planet want to find the Morgans and slap them.
By contrast, this lawsuitless example shows that you can actually assault their employees and still only receive a temporary, court-mandated ban from parts of their hotels.
"Hotel notes this and instructs its employees as to avoid any potential 'situations'"
What does that even mean? I mean, of course the vagueness is necessary because none of us really have the details, but that almost sounds like a press release from Ritz-Carlton with its bland assurance that they're avoiding situations with "instructions" while avoiding the question of what the instructions or situations are.
High-end hotels are usually pretty good at discretely dealing with difficult, yet rich, patrons. If these Brits were really worth the effort to meet their demands (which I doubt, frankly, unless they are in charge of booking conventions for some large corporation or whatever) the management here could have arranged things so that they got what they wanted (a white server) without any of the non-white employees being disadvantaged or even knowing what had happened. Everyone ends up happy, life moves on.
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This is not some spurious lawsuit looking for a pay day. The man was taken aside by his supervisors and told that he, because of his skin color and/or accent, was not good enough to serve the nice white foreign couple. This seems pretty cut and dry to me.
$75K is looking for a payday. Not that the guy isn't in the right, but it's absurd.
I've had plenty of patients request other staff because of gender/ethnic bias, and they're usually placated. The advent of a racist incident isn't the end of the world. I've had racist slurs thrown at me all day long and not blink an eye.
You've gotta love someone who argues that he doesn't think people should get in trouble for something because he does it all the time. It's refreshingly honest. Imagine if Bernie Maddoff had tried arguing that Ponzi schemes shouldn't be illegal because he might go to jail.
This is not some spurious lawsuit looking for a pay day. The man was taken aside by his supervisors and told that he, because of his skin color and/or accent, was not good enough to serve the nice white foreign couple. This seems pretty cut and dry to me.
$75K is looking for a payday. Not that the guy isn't in the right, but it's absurd.
I've had plenty of patients request other staff because of gender/ethnic bias, and they're usually placated. The advent of a racist incident isn't the end of the world. I've had racist slurs thrown at me all day long and not blink an eye.
Good for you. However, it seems like the waiter in question didn't share your experience, so how is it relevant?
For the people asking if the server was personally involved in any of this, I found something in the OP that might be helpful.
Tranchant's claim states that staff in the restaurant were advised "through its computer notification system and word of mouth" of the family's "stated prejudice", and that as Tranchant began to serve them "he was prevented by his supervisors from doing so because they did not want to be waited on by a black person".
This is not some spurious lawsuit looking for a pay day. The man was taken aside by his supervisors and told that he, because of his skin color and/or accent, was not good enough to serve the nice white foreign couple. This seems pretty cut and dry to me.
Actually, from what I have seen, the man was taken aside by his supervisors and told that he, because of his skin color and/or accent, would cause this customer to throw a shit-fit because they are racist. A fine line, to be sure, but I'm not sure you can hold the supervisors at as much fault as some people here are doing. They aren't saying he isn't good enough, they're saying that the customers will cause problems.
If a customer who pays money demands to be served only by handsome men, would that cause as much a commotion? Could a woman who was pulled aside and told that this customer wanted only men have a right to sue the company based on sex discrimination?
Yes!
Businesses do not get the right to discriminate against their employees just because a customer asks!
This is not some spurious lawsuit looking for a pay day. The man was taken aside by his supervisors and told that he, because of his skin color and/or accent, was not good enough to serve the nice white foreign couple. This seems pretty cut and dry to me.
$75K is looking for a payday. Not that the guy isn't in the right, but it's absurd.
I've had plenty of patients request other staff because of gender/ethnic bias, and they're usually placated. The advent of a racist incident isn't the end of the world. I've had racist slurs thrown at me all day long and not blink an eye.
Let me guess, they were "cracker" and "honky"
So you're saying racism is worse when its against minorities? I'm pretty sure in the law it doesn't say minorities cannot be segregated by race but everyone.
I think the idea is that racism, while not being worse when against a minority, is felt more acutely by a minority, and telling them to "just get over it, I encounter it all the time" is insensitive and unrealistic.
This is not some spurious lawsuit looking for a pay day. The man was taken aside by his supervisors and told that he, because of his skin color and/or accent, was not good enough to serve the nice white foreign couple. This seems pretty cut and dry to me.
$75K is looking for a payday. Not that the guy isn't in the right, but it's absurd.
I've had plenty of patients request other staff because of gender/ethnic bias, and they're usually placated. The advent of a racist incident isn't the end of the world. I've had racist slurs thrown at me all day long and not blink an eye.
Let me guess, they were "cracker" and "honky"
So you're saying racism is worse when its against minorities? I'm pretty sure in the law it doesn't say minorities cannot be segregated by race but everyone.
I think the idea is that racism, while not being worse when against a minority, is felt more acutely by a minority, and telling them to "just get over it, I encounter it all the time" is insensitive and unrealistic.
Well, it's the difference between being called a racist name (like "honky"), and living your whole life on the wrong end of institutional racism.
It can certainly be unsettling to be angrily called a cracker or honky to your face, as those words are racist, but they don't have any real teeth when you live your life benefiting from race/class privilege every day.
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Being white, I'm trying to think up a scenario where I'd be offended if I were in the waiter's position. Best I can think of is the patron asked only to be served by women, excluding males. Or nudists. The hotel would put me at the dish washing station out of sight if I refused to go 'round naked.
"Hotel notes this and instructs its employees as to avoid any potential 'situations'"
What does that even mean? I mean, of course the vagueness is necessary because none of us really have the details, but that almost sounds like a press release from Ritz-Carlton with its bland assurance that they're avoiding situations with "instructions" while avoiding the question of what the instructions or situations are.
High-end hotels are usually pretty good at discretely dealing with difficult, yet rich, patrons. If these Brits were really worth the effort to meet their demands (which I doubt, frankly, unless they are in charge of booking conventions for some large corporation or whatever) the management here could have arranged things so that they got what they wanted (a white server) without any of the non-white employees being disadvantaged or even knowing what had happened. Everyone ends up happy, life moves on.
That's only a happy ending as long as no one ever finds out about it.
Thing is big lawsuits are all some corporations understand. So it's not so much about what the waiter deserves as how much will force the hotel to take notice and change their policies.
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AtomikaLive fast and get fucked or whateverRegistered Userregular
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black internet and white internet
which has better porn
I can only see this going down in the following ways:
Way 1:
Family makes request to not be served by non-whites. Hotel notes this and instructs all of it's employees of this desire. If they were at any time going to be served by a non-white, this is changed. Any/all non-white employees who might have come in contact with them are moved to another area of the hotel for the duration of their stay.
Way 2:
Family makes request to not be served by non-whites. Hotel notes this and instructs it's employees as to avoid any potential 'situations', but does not require any server to do anything special. It's merely just a "Oh, BTW these guys are douches" type memo. Luckily (?) their server list is already 'white-only' and thus the hotel and it's employees can just laugh off their racism.
Way 3:
Same as Way 2, but it turns out that at least one (if not several) of their servers were non-whites. Hotel changes 'direct' servers but does nothing about people such as maids/tech staff/etc.
Way 1 and Way 3 are illegal, obviously. Way 2 does not SEEM illegal to be, even if it's just due to the 'luck of the draw'. I think more than anything that it shows a sort of flaw in this argument in that I could discriminate due to race as long as I don't admit that's the reason. Of course, that would open up a lot of "Well, I don't think he hired me because I'm black cause of the way he looked at me!" type lawsuits, so.. slippery slope?
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They still can.
Plus this waiter is likely going to face retaliation in the workplace over this (assuming he stays), even though that retaliation may also violate labor laws. Most people who sue their boss, it isn't just forgotten as if you struck out in the company softball game over the weekend. Other workers may not be willing to risk retaliation.
Allowing a woman to work on batteries is fine, forcing her too or forcing her not too isn't. We don't ban pregnant women from drinking alcohol, nor do we force alcohol upon them. Choices: women are capable of making them.
I believe it was, in fact, Way 3 or possibly Way 1, and find it very unlikely that it was Way 2. Regardless, Way 2 is also illegal, because the hotel is acknowledging the request and asking the employees to comply with it.
> it shows a sort of flaw in this argument in that I could discriminate due to race as long as I don't admit that's the reason.
Of course you can, because people aren't psychic. I could ask a restaurant manager to give me a different waiter and tell them that the reason was the waiter's rudeness or that I just don't like the waiter's personality or something; the real reason could be that I don't like the waiter's race, but nobody could prove that. The restaurant could fire a black waiter because he's black, but to avoid a lawsuit the restaurant could say that he was a bad worker or had a shitty attitude or something. That's why anti-discrimination legislation doesn't remove all discrimination from the workplace.
What does that even mean? I mean, of course the vagueness is necessary because none of us really have the details, but that almost sounds like a press release from Ritz-Carlton with its bland assurance that they're avoiding situations with "instructions" while avoiding the question of what the instructions or situations are.
Since you seem to be kind of hung up on the idea of "wanting," think of it like this: Whether the company wanted to discriminate or not does not matter at all. Either they did or didn't. Why? Doesn't matter. Did they like it? Doesn't matter.
I'd have sued for more, personally.
As in, these guys are racist, you might wanna avoid them. You don't have to. You can do what you want. But we wanted you to know. There will be no punishment for interacting with them.
So basically something to INFORM employees so they can CHOOSE to avoid awkward situations, not that they 'have to'.
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You say potato, I say potato. It's a very blurry line between "I'm informing you so you can choose to do X" to "I'm telling you not to do X," especially when companies:
1. Know they're doing the wrong thing
and
2. knowingly try to circumvent the law by using ambiguous language
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_YRQlUsdA3U
The hotel is all "we understand your frustrations"
In this case the host is like "I'm gonna sit here and pretend that just didn't happen and address the only point that wasn't a shitstorm of crazy: if you're calling in to a political show, don't misrepresent your political alignment." Not saying Host wasn't racist, but instead of complying with the racism - like the hotel - he's just ignoring it.
No, the surprising thing is that a British couple in the US had the tenacity to say that they didn't want waitstaff who had an accent.
Well, a person ignorant enough to want that could also think that racism works that way in the American South.
Also:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_National_Party
Origin Handle - OminousBulge
XBox Live GT - TheOminousBulge
I think a lot of folks jump all over the idea that these sort of lawsuits are "money-grabs," but often they're more motivated out of anger than greed -- people trying to punish someone who wronged them. Often the only way to legally do that is with a civil lawsuit. And, by suing the hotel, this guy is providing a disincentive to future hotel management staff to comply with the wishes of bigoted guests. Which is a good thing.
Yeah, the customers were the real shit-heels in this arrangement, but even if you leave aside messy moralizing ideas about blame or responsibility, at the end of the day this lawsuit can help ensure that future workers don't have to be subjected to humiliation and discrimination at their jobs.
Isn't that enough to endorse this employee's suit? It does something good, and it doesn't hurt anyone unreasonably. It's easy to miss the consequences if you get caught up in debates about fault and blame and all that crap.
This is not some spurious lawsuit looking for a pay day. The man was taken aside by his supervisors and told that he, because of his skin color and/or accent, was not good enough to serve the nice white foreign couple. This seems pretty cut and dry to me.
$75K is looking for a payday. Not that the guy isn't in the right, but it's absurd.
I've had plenty of patients request other staff because of gender/ethnic bias, and they're usually placated. The advent of a racist incident isn't the end of the world. I've had racist slurs thrown at me all day long and not blink an eye.
Let me guess, they were "cracker" and "honky"
If a customer who pays money demands to be served only by handsome men, would that cause as much a commotion? Could a woman who was pulled aside and told that this customer wanted only men have a right to sue the company based on sex discrimination?
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$75K is a drop in the fucking bucket for Ritz Carlton. It's not "absurd," what's absurd is that the hotel actually actively honored these racists' request rather than saying "you should probably find someplace else to stay if that's what you want."
The point of this lawsuit is to tell the company that if they pull this shit on their workers again they will get screwed.
So you're saying racism is worse when its against minorities? I'm pretty sure in the law it doesn't say minorities cannot be segregated by race but everyone.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TG4f9zR5yzY
relevant bit is at around 2:00
Of course it is. One of the aggravating factors of racism against minorities is that it promotes creation of a caste system.
No, I'm saying that the tendency to blithely dismiss complaints of racism is strongly correlated with whiteness in America. This allowed me to make a wild guess based on Ross' post.
But it wouldn't really be that out of line to say that "racism is worse when it's against minorities," though I think that statement might be overly broad. To be a bit more specific, I think there are good reasons still in living memory why I can say cracker and honky in this post but I can't say n*****.
The publicity is also the point. Here we are, all talking about how the Ritz-Carlton suck at respecting their employees. They've also since pulled out the lifetime banstick on the family in question, which is quite the result, and half the planet want to find the Morgans and slap them.
By contrast, this lawsuitless example shows that you can actually assault their employees and still only receive a temporary, court-mandated ban from parts of their hotels.
Lawsuits are useful.
Rigorous Scholarship
You've gotta love someone who argues that he doesn't think people should get in trouble for something because he does it all the time. It's refreshingly honest. Imagine if Bernie Maddoff had tried arguing that Ponzi schemes shouldn't be illegal because he might go to jail.
Yes!
Businesses do not get the right to discriminate against their employees just because a customer asks!
I think the idea is that racism, while not being worse when against a minority, is felt more acutely by a minority, and telling them to "just get over it, I encounter it all the time" is insensitive and unrealistic.
Well, it's the difference between being called a racist name (like "honky"), and living your whole life on the wrong end of institutional racism.
It can certainly be unsettling to be angrily called a cracker or honky to your face, as those words are racist, but they don't have any real teeth when you live your life benefiting from race/class privilege every day.
That's only a happy ending as long as no one ever finds out about it.
White devil, blonde devil, white piece of shit, redneck, blanquito . . . .
Still. Don't care.
Words are different than actions. News at 11.