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I haven't seen any cases of social media based racist charges against customer service workers to be true. You are really interpreting this poorly.
There's nothing to interpret. You said yourself that you, "do not believe any stories of racism from customer service workers anywhere." That's the very definition of bias. It's also a very different argument from the reasonable argument which would be "don't jump to conclusions, wait to hear the other side of the story first." That's what people should do. They shouldn't just blindly believe every post about racism on social media, but it's equally as bad to just write it off as false.
Geesh. Again, racism isn't a problem in our country. In the most simplistic way, there are always clashes between city folk and country folk, look at our voting patterns. Or it can be clashes between neighborhoods, since humans tend to want to live with those who are similar to themselves. But there is also a lot of friction between all of the very diverse cultures in our country. Every group has a different set of language/lingo, religion, morals, life attitudes, priorities and life goals. Based on my 60 years on this planet, the only time that there has been any frictions between blacks and non-blacks, is when those blacks are under-educated and speak and act like they are from the ghetto. And yes, it's also a turn off when they boast about their dating exploits, because it does offend my more conservative upbringing. Why would I be friends with and spend time with people who have a player mentality? Even one of my black female managers would boast about the three men in her life and their hot sex. And if I don't hang out with Hispanic people, it's because they have a more relaxed attitude about life, how they party and spend their free time. The Hispanic women I've known, love their makeup, dress shopping and high heels, and that's just not me.
However, I've gotten along really well with any college educated black person who is well spoken, has a smile on their face and dresses like a functioning human being. And I never saw anyone being mean or racist against them.
There's nothing to interpret. You said yourself that you, "do not believe any stories of racism from customer service workers anywhere." That's the very definition of bias. It's also a very different argument from the reasonable argument which would be "don't jump to conclusions, wait to hear the other side of the story first." That's what people should do. They shouldn't just blindly believe every post about racism on social media, but it's equally as bad to just write it off as false.
I agree with your last sentence. I think overanalyzing the phrasing of the post you're quoting is getting you hung up. I think people are entitled to speak in such a way to convey the main point in a more succinct way than "having seen many instances of social media outrage over alleged racial slurs or other forms of racial harassment at private places of business, after acrutizing each case, I have found that in the large majority of such cases, the allegations simply dont conform to the reality of what appears to have actually occurred (especially when visual or audio evidence is thereafter acquired)."
Location: RI, MA, VT, WI, IL, CA, IN (that one sucked), KY
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Quote:
Originally Posted by miu
Geesh. Again, racism isn't a problem in our country. In the most simplistic way, there are always clashes between city folk and country folk, look at our voting patterns. Or it can be clashes between neighborhoods, since humans tend to want to live with those who are similar to themselves. But there is also a lot of friction between all of the very diverse cultures in our country. Every group has a different set of language/lingo, religion, morals, life attitudes, priorities and life goals. Based on my 60 years on this planet, the only time that there has been any frictions between blacks and non-blacks, is when those blacks are under-educated and speak and act like they are from the ghetto. And yes, it's also a turn off when they boast about their dating exploits, because it does offend my more conservative upbringing. Why would I be friends with and spend time with people who have a player mentality? Even one of my black female managers would boast about the three men in her life and their hot sex. And if I don't hang out with Hispanic people, it's because they have a more relaxed attitude about life, how they party and spend their free time. The Hispanic women I've known, love their makeup, dress shopping and high heels, and that's just not me.
However, I've gotten along really well with any college educated black person who is well spoken, has a smile on their face and dresses like a functioning human being. And I never saw anyone being mean or racist against them.
The irony in this post is so deep its daaaaaaaarkkkk.
I agree with your last sentence. I think overanalyzing the phrasing of the post you're quoting is getting you hung up. I think people are entitled to speak in such a way to convey the main point in a more succinct way than "having seen many instances of social media outrage over alleged racial slurs or other forms of racial harassment at private places of business, after acrutizing each case, I have found that in the large majority of such cases, the allegations simply dont conform to the reality of what appears to have actually occurred (especially when visual or audio evidence is thereafter acquired)."
I think we all have a tendency to speak in more succinct terms sometimes so I get that. And I apologize for singling you out (the real issue is on display a few posts above yours ... "Again, racism isn't a problem in our country..."). The big problem is that people have such hard stances on the issue that if something fits their narrative, they just run with it. It's true of people who make a dishonest video go viral, and it's true of people who apply the "fake news" label to anything that doesn't fit their narrative. My personal inclination is to lean the opposite way you do. I think there are enough obvious examples of racism in the country (locally and beyond), including data on systematic and institutional racism coupled with first-hand accounts of the lasting impact of racial bias that lead me to feel like there's typically credibility behind many of these claims. But no matter what my bias is, I try to get the details before drawing conclusions.
The reality is often somewhere in the middle or just on either end of the spectrum. And that's the impression I get from this case in which after mediation, the girl appears admits fault for distributing a video with some falsehoods, but the employee was fired and remains fired even after mediation which would support the claim that the employee did, in fact, make disparaging marks about the girl in the video and black people in general as she claims.
Given the weight of dealing with racism and bias on a regular basis combined with persistent systematic racism, I tend to cut more slack to someone who reacts "poorly" to racist comments. As a white guy, I have no idea what it's like growing up as a black girl in Boston. But I do know that the system is not skewed in her favor. I know (and can see even in this forum) that people do have biases against different races of people and that these present in obvious ways to the people on the receiving end. So I still find it hard to levy much judgement on the reaction of someone who was the target of blatant racism. There's a pretty good chance that it wasn't the first time she's experienced subtle or overt racism and if the employee made comments to her, I have a hard time saying "she's at fault" because she spit or tossed a pizza. It's not easy keeping composure in circumstances like that.
The irony in this post is so deep its daaaaaaaarkkkk.
Pretty gross. Not the first time we've seen posts like that either. The fact that the irony is most likely lost on the poster is exactly the problem that many on here (and in the real world) are trying to highlight.
Pretty gross. Not the first time we've seen posts like that either. The fact that the irony is most likely lost on the poster is exactly the problem that many on here (and in the real world) are trying to highlight.
Really? Who wants to be around street trash? Would you get along with and embrace living next to white trailer trash? It doesn't matter what the color of ones skin is, it's all about how a person acts and behaves. And that is why when I lived in MA, I picked Newton to live in, not Mattapan or the Hispanic part of Jamaica Plain. As a woman, I am not going to put myself in a situation where the men on the streets have a player mentality.
And at one workplace, I was friends with a black co-worker. Even when he got suspended and was banned from campus, I defended him and got his job back for him. I distanced myself from him when he told me that while sitting on a jury, he refused to vote guilty on a DUI case. Everyone else on the jury thought that the man was guilty, but not my co-worker. He actually texted me during his lunch break "let the Chinaman go free!" and "if it's not murder, then he's not guilty." Basically, even though this Vietnamese man was guilty, my co-worker thought the crime wasn't deserving of being found guilty of his offense. And all along, even though I was married, this guy wanted to date me. I always politely turned him down and changed the subject. And he would say things like, as long as we didn't get caught, it was fine. At the end of our friendship, he said some really messed up things to me, like I needed to be f-cked by a black man. So yeah, I feel that I am right about alot of this all being about a clash between a macho culture versus one that places a higher priority on brain activity than sexuality and physical strength... and it's not about race or skin colour... not in the 21st century at least.
My frustration with the black community in Boston, the people that I work with, that they keep using the race card and blame all of their problems on being black, when instead they should move forward and embrace the present and look forward to their future. Blacks have huge opportunities offered to them. Silicon Valley and all the tech giants are actively seeking to hire blacks. But all the young black adults I know, don't care about academics or learning to code, they get too involved with whatever is happening with their favorite celebrities, they want to look like them and they also are super involved with the dramas in their social circles. They just can't seem to focus on developing and sticking to a long term goal that would garner them a desirable job skill or buy themselves real estate.
But on an individual level, I met a young black firefighter who was taught the value of real estate by his grandfather, and even though he works in the Boston area, he owns some rental properties in Springfield. I also met a black AV tech at MIT who owned a triple-decker as an income property. I wish that they were more in the majority.
Your post is the epitome of the problem and that seems to be completely lost on you. Here's what's wrong with it:
1) Saying "racism isn't a problem." If it hasn't affected you, that's great. If you think some people are too quick to apply the "racist" label, you can make a good argument for that case. But it's really impossible to look at the state of the country right now with even a semblance of objectivity and say that racism is not a problem, period. Locally, you have people yelling racial slurs at MLB ballplayers and tagging schools. Nationally you have black celebrity who was beaten up badly by people yelling racial slurs at him. These are examples of outward racism and you don't need to do a lot of digging to find more. There's solid data out there that shows that the subtle racism, inequality and bias has impacts on physical and mental health in communities of color. Just because you "never saw anyone being mean or racist against them" does not mean it does not have an adverse impact on their lives. To presume your personal observations reflect the reality for everyone is beyond ignorant.
2) Generalizations. You categorically place people of a different race or ethnicity into "buckets" you've created based on your on biases and preconceived notions. Hispanics, "love their makeup, dress shopping and high heels." This, right here, is the very definition of racial bias. You've made a few observations of a few people that fit into that bucket and have chosen not to associate with them based on it.
3) The notion there's a problem with anyone who doesn't fit into what you've decided are culturally acceptable behaviors. People have different upbringings and experiences than you do. So many things shape how someone dresses, talks, acts, etc. Nobody should be expected to do look, talk, or act exactly like you do. Some examples in there are understandable, but not at all race specific - talking about sex and sexual exploits at work isn't a race thing, it's a sexual harassment thing. Who cares if Hispanic women dress differently than you do? How does that impact you? Why is that a bad thing?
For the record, I'm not saying that you should be friends with everyone and sing kumbaya together on weekends. Socially, we all do have our own circles and do tend to hang out with people who are like us. The issue is the general write off of people because of how they look and talk. The way you write, it seems like you do that in a big way.
Imagine for a second that a hiring manager held your views. That they consciously or even subconsciously ruled out candidates because they dressed like their stereotype of a "Hispanic woman." Or that their accent and even some of the words they used sounded "ghetto" to them. It makes it hard for anyone but the people who look/act like the hiring manager to be considered for a job. It's how systematic racism works. Candidates of color are less likely to get responses on their resumes just because their name looks non-white. This applies to everything too - in the justice system, judges are disproportionately white and black men are sentenced to longer terms than white men for the same crimes. It hasn't always been so subtle - in your lifetime, lenders could (and did) legally deny home loans to anyone who wasn't white. You want to know why Boston is so segregated today? It's not because all of the black people wanted to live together (but it IS because all of the white people wanted to live together and made sure the system made that happen).
Of course that doesn't mean that every person of every race or ethnicity is great. Managers that talk openly about their sexual exploits at work are bad managers (and with #MeToo, a lot of them are being outed). Some people, regardless of their race, are not good people. But when you start letting your own biases take the wheel and steer, that's when these problems come to a head.
Here’s the biggest issue that I have with this story: who tries to get a refund on a cookie?!
In all seriousness, it’s a shame that an entire business will be penalized for one employee’s alleged actions. And I say alleged not because I don’t believe the basic bones of her story (though some facts were not accurate, as she admits) but because I wasn’t there to see either side do I don’t know what really happened.
Yes, the customer is (almost) always right and I’m sure this could have been handled better by the employee but for her to put her story online and persecute the entire establishment doesn’t seem right to me.
Go check out their Yelp page.
One more thought: with social media, everyone loses. This individual might lose his shop, leaving the residents of the area with one less dining establishment to chose from. And this young lady’s name, face, and story (including the part where she admits she lied about who threw what at who) will be forever on the internet and one quick google search away for all future employers.
Last edited by Lexbos; 02-16-2019 at 04:56 AM..
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