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Nappy haired monkey!
Apr. 23rd, 2011 04:03 pmI keep feeling so close, so close, to racism - but I never get any. This week I was looking at a new case for an employee we fired, partially for conflict of interest situations, partially for cussing out coworkers, and largely because this was her third series of offenses. The case is in Georgia, and...I got so excited when I read her defense. Her defense to the charge that she said "Bitch I'll beat your ass. Nobody fucks with me!" was that no, what she said was
"With that nappy hair you should shut your mouth because you look like a monkey."
Tee hee! Oh my, after all this time, finally some out front flagrant racism! I hadn't been so happy since the sexual harassment farting guy! Of course it came from Georgia, of course! And of course, with just a little more digging, came the horrible truth:
both of them were black females.
Damn. Damn damn damn.
Now technically I can still use it because the terminology is so inappropriate, and sure it is a hugely racist thing to say - but it's a world of difference when a white Georgia man shouts something racist at a af-amer woman compared to when a af-amer woman uses the same terminology on someone in her same demographic.
Sigh.
When I first worked for the government, it was for the Dept. of Labor OFCCP, who audits government contractors to ensure they practice EEO (technically they call this affirmative action, but without any hiring quotas it's really just EEO by most definitions). I spent about 7-8 years looking in HR records for discrimination - and while I won some cases here and there, I didn't find anything that looked like discrimination. I believed it was out there, always have, but over and over what I found were that education and experience led to hires, promotions, and salaries. I'm either blind, they're masters of deception, or simply there just isn't the discrimination to be found.
I think racism and discrimination may be like jesus and god - if you believe in them, you'll see them whether they are there are not.
"With that nappy hair you should shut your mouth because you look like a monkey."
Tee hee! Oh my, after all this time, finally some out front flagrant racism! I hadn't been so happy since the sexual harassment farting guy! Of course it came from Georgia, of course! And of course, with just a little more digging, came the horrible truth:
both of them were black females.
Damn. Damn damn damn.
Now technically I can still use it because the terminology is so inappropriate, and sure it is a hugely racist thing to say - but it's a world of difference when a white Georgia man shouts something racist at a af-amer woman compared to when a af-amer woman uses the same terminology on someone in her same demographic.
Sigh.
When I first worked for the government, it was for the Dept. of Labor OFCCP, who audits government contractors to ensure they practice EEO (technically they call this affirmative action, but without any hiring quotas it's really just EEO by most definitions). I spent about 7-8 years looking in HR records for discrimination - and while I won some cases here and there, I didn't find anything that looked like discrimination. I believed it was out there, always have, but over and over what I found were that education and experience led to hires, promotions, and salaries. I'm either blind, they're masters of deception, or simply there just isn't the discrimination to be found.
I think racism and discrimination may be like jesus and god - if you believe in them, you'll see them whether they are there are not.
