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Colored Folk Need Not Apply to this [Racism] Thread
tinwhiskers
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/apr/23/florida-hotel-alleged-racist-demand
I'm torn on this one. Firstly its an obvious money grab by the staff member, as 75k is massive compared to whatever he would have been tipped by the Bigots, and I really doubt the claims of "humiliated, embarrassed, frightened, intimidated, subject to undeserved shame and suffered severe emotional distress".
Secondly The hotel exist to serve its customers, and while the colored aspect is clearly racist, who hasn't gotten annoyed at someone who has a horrible accent/bad English. Call a tech support number if your life is lacking that experience.
Ideally, the hotel should have just told them to GTFO, but idk if its right to force the hotel to lose customers. The plaintiff was presumably still working, so its not like he lost wages, and besides being bigoted to hell, IDK if "no coloreds" is substantially different from "can you have Cindy(the blonde) wait on us?"
A British family has been banned from staying at a chain of luxury hotels after allegedly requesting not to be served by "people of colour" at a Florida resort.
The demand, allegedly lodged by the family on arrival, has emerged in a claim by a Haitian-born waiter against the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Naples, Florida. The family, named by the hotel as the Morgans, are said to have checked in on 29 February.
According to the writ, the hotel – at the direction of its managing director, Edward Staros – recorded on its computers the "preference" that the family not be served by "people of colour" or staff with "foreign accents". The note reportedly added: "This couple is very very prejudice".
The claimant, Wadner Tranchant, 40, a naturalised US citizen who has worked at the Ritz-Carlton for 15 years, said that on 12 March the hotel "instructed the serving staff regarding the stated prejudice of the Morgan family" when they reserved a table in the restaurant. Tranchant's attorney, Michael McDonnell, told the Guardian: "As a lawyer you are required to conduct an investigation before taking a case, and we have done that. There are a number of witnesses to support his story."
Tranchant is still employed at the Ritz-Carlton despite his lawsuit against the hotel chain, McDonnell said.
The lawsuit seeks more than $75,000 (£49,000) in compensation for Tranchant, who was "humiliated, embarrassed, frightened, intimidated, subject to undeserved shame and suffered severe emotional distress". No date has been set for a hearing. The hotel has 20 days from when the lawsuit was filed on Tuesday to submit a formal response.The Ritz-Carlton's website promises "world class restaurants and impeccable service" at its Naples property, a 450-room waterfront hotel with panoramic views of the Gulf of Mexico, two heated swimming pools and two golf courses designed by the former world No 1 Greg Norman where rates start at $439.
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".
The lawsuit adds: "Other employees also encountered similar treatment on multiple occasions", with "such conduct so severe or pervasive that a reasonable person in [Tranchant's] position would find the work environment to be hostile or abusive".
The Ritz-Carlton group declined to say whether any staff had been disciplined, but confirmed the family had been contacted and "banned from staying at any Ritz-Carlton hotel". Vivian Deuschl, a company spokeswoman in Washington, said the hotel "does not tolerate or condone discrimination of any kind by its employees or visiting guests."
Bruce Seigel, the hotel's director of marketing, added: "The hotel has very strict policies in place to prohibit discrimination and harassment and we take very seriously any allegation of discrimination or harassment."
The case provoked a flurry of comments on US websites. "The hotel should be fined heavily … and the money given to a charity that helps fight racism," was one view.
"Those beastly boors from Britain should ha ve been given the boot the moment they made their bigoted request," noted another blogger.
One New Yorker posted: "I know this may sound wrong, but I have to side with the hotel on this one. They're simply doing what they're supposed to and honor the old adage about the customer always being right."
I'm torn on this one. Firstly its an obvious money grab by the staff member, as 75k is massive compared to whatever he would have been tipped by the Bigots, and I really doubt the claims of "humiliated, embarrassed, frightened, intimidated, subject to undeserved shame and suffered severe emotional distress".
Secondly The hotel exist to serve its customers, and while the colored aspect is clearly racist, who hasn't gotten annoyed at someone who has a horrible accent/bad English. Call a tech support number if your life is lacking that experience.
Ideally, the hotel should have just told them to GTFO, but idk if its right to force the hotel to lose customers. The plaintiff was presumably still working, so its not like he lost wages, and besides being bigoted to hell, IDK if "no coloreds" is substantially different from "can you have Cindy(the blonde) wait on us?"
tinwhiskers on
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So what are we discussing exactly?
You don't believe there are highly racist people in the world?
Anyways about the article... the anger is focused at the wrong people. The scum are the people who made the request, not the hotel that was just trying to do its job. Part of the job of the service industry is to bend over backwards to make people happy. I know this having been a waiter myself.
The customers were the fucks. The business could've chosen to be cool and refused their business, but I can't seem to bring up a whole lot of anger because they didn't.
I find it less amazing that the request was made than that it was recorded and, apparently, agreed to by the hotel. I mean, that's a pretty big request. Something like that would presumably have to go through at least a shift manager at the reservations desk or similar. You'd think someone would have had the brains (and, I suppose, balls) to say, "No, sir/ma'am, I'm afraid that the Ritz isn't capable of segregating its staff by accent."
The British couples are assholes and should probably have their request denied. That said, I understand why that didn't happen. I don't understand why the waiter deserves $75k for his suffering. Then again, maybe there's more to this that we aren't being told. Who knows?
I'd wager this isn't the first time they've done something like this. Maybe the guy reached a breaking point?
https://twitter.com/Hooraydiation
A British family, staying in Florida requested no foreign accents. Right?
Did.....did they only want British staff to serve them?
xbl - HowYouGetAnts
steam - WeAreAllGeth
This.
This guy doesn't actually realize how lawsuits work.
Maybe it sounds wrong because it is wrong, douchebag.
https://twitter.com/Hooraydiation
but suing the hotel for it? Nope that is just silly
I'm surprised that a legal suit was filed at all, though. Anybody who's been a server knows that it's pretty common for asshole customers to disparage you for any number of reasons. Girls I know that have served have had to endure sexual harassment, inappropriate remarks amount their weight, height or other body features, stupid remarks about their accents, and lots of other stupid bullshit. Usually they just get told to suck it up. This sort of behavior is far from rare.
I wish the hotel had just told them that their prejudicial and inappropriate requests would be denied. More employers need to stick up for their workers in service positions.
Do you?
Why is it silly to sue them?
I mean, it'd be silly if he was suing because there were bigoted customers at the hotel, but my interpretation is that he's suing because he was pressured into complying with a racist request, which in turn demeaned him. Maybe I'm missing something, but that seems as much a case of a hostile work environment as anything else.
https://twitter.com/Hooraydiation
Well, for one thing, race is a protected class, and hair color is not.
What's the preferred method for discouraging/punishing discriminatory practices and the creation of hostile work environments in your legal system?
https://twitter.com/Hooraydiation
Cindy is also a woman though.
Yeah, the hotel should've told these people to stuff it from day one. But, their actions didn't end up harming this waiter in any real way. The manager probably did him a favor by pulling him off their table.
Rigorous Scholarship
What do you mean by harm in a "real way"? What distinguishes between his experience and a more legitimate claim? Do you need financial damages to receive money?
https://twitter.com/Hooraydiation
Doesn't the onus fall on the claimant to show they were hurt?
And what was the hurt, everyone already knew the guy was coloured. Nothing untrue was said.
The Morgans should have been refused the first time they made this abhorrent request, and since they weren't, the hotel is liable for discrimination. And I don't doubt for a minute that they put their staff through hell while bending over backwards to make sure this family never caught a whiff of melanin.
"Can you beLEEVE this hotel wouldn't honor my request to not have darkies set foot in my room?! BOYCOTT!"
I wouldn't say with 100% certainty that this person didn't simply shrug off the request and go about his day, but I've experienced discrimination and do feel qualified to say that it can cause lasting damage, if not in these circumstances then at least in similar circumstances.
https://twitter.com/Hooraydiation
It sounds like they didn't make the request in advance, but rather after the plaintiff attempted to serve them.
https://twitter.com/Hooraydiation
The hotel discriminated against it's staff in an effort to accommodate these people. That's not legal.
Also, you're saying that being told "you're black, they don't want you" isn't damaging?
From what I can tell here, the waiter didn't actually suffer any actual harm from these events. He didn't lose his job and there is no indication that there were actually any effects on him from this, other than hurt feelings. Civil courts don't really exist to let people avenge what they consider wrongs- they exist to allow people to be made whole for their actual losses.
And the reason the plaintiff's lawyer picked $75K is because that's the minimum to get a State case into Federal Court, assuming certain other requirements are met (which I won't bore you with here). He's keeping his options open in case he wants to try and change courts.
In of itself, probably not. Unless you suffer specific, quantifiable losses as a result or there is a State law that grants damages for such behavior, there simply are no damages there, in a legal sense.
The guy's lawyer is suing for infliction of emotional distress and a vague claim of a hostile work environment. He's hoping for a quick settlement for nuisance money (maybe $25K- with a third going to him) since the Ritz probably just wants this whole thing out of the papers.
Rigorous Scholarship
Saying that a supervisor telling the staff "that crazy British family said they don't want anyone except white people without accents serving them, so everybody steer clear, okay?" (or whatever the actual wording was) amounts of a hostile work environment seems weird to me. I don't think it's an okay thing for the British family to do, but the hotel seems to have been aware of it being a weird, stupid request. I have to assume that the hotel staff weren't be jerks to the non-white employees about it...but maybe I'm wrong?
Not only did I not grimace at this post, I appreciate the bolded tidbit. Good show.
While in the general case of the hotel acceding to the 'no colored people' request for their whole stay I agree, I'm not entirely clear on where the line can be drawn in a service industry workplace.
If I walked into a restaurant and, after the waiter came by, went to a manager and said, "I don't like my waiter. I want a different waiter." I assume that they would go along with it to keep my business.
If I change it to "I don't like my waiter because he's black. I want a different waiter that isn't black." does it become illegal for them to give me a non-black waiter? If they only have the one black waiter working at the time, is it still illegal?
He was denied work due to his skin color. That is very much an issue.
Most likely, the manager just put him on a different table. And, he probably made better tips there than he would with the racist Brits (though, Brits are notoriously bad tippers, so it's unlikely these folks were worse than the norm).
If this was a catering event and the manager sent him home because the people paying for the event had requested no non-white waiters, he's have a better case for claiming damages.
Rigorous Scholarship
Basically, yes. As was said further up in the thread, race is a protected class. If you just don't like your waiter, you can request another one, and they can alter his assigned duties simply for a personality clash. What they can't do is alter his duties because he belongs to a certain race, and say "Okay, everybody on this side of the room is allowed to serve the Morgans, everybody on this side of the room can't even speak to them."
As for the 75,000 in damages, despite what Modern Man would have us all believe with his internet-armchair legal counsel, we only have a short news article to inform us about the situation. We have no idea what the full extent of what happened here was. Was the guy threatened with disciplinary action if he spoke to the Morgans? Was he shoved off into some shitty job he wasn't hired to do for the duration of their visits? We don't know what happened to make the $75,000 emotional damages happen, so dismissing them out of hand seems idiotic to me, and a knee-jerk reaction to other frivolous lawsuits.
You don't have to tell the manager, but generally they ask why to prevent future situations like this from happening.
And black is not something they can change for future situations.