How would you discipline this racist joke from someone you manage

[davidbrent]

This is identifying but I don't care.

So a work colleague was complaining that her computer was running really slow to which another colleague piped up:

'paint it black it will run faster'. Then everyone burst into fits of laughter and it was forgotten. This colleague does like to have a joke at work but it good at the job.

Locality manager didn't seem to have any issues and didn't mention anything. I'm sure it's forgotten within the office. Everyone working here is White British. Luckily a Nigerian colleague was on a visit at the time.

Would you be concerned by this joke. Would you discipline the employee? I would certainly have at least called him into the office but let locality manager take the lead as he was in the room too.

Of course it is racist, no one would ever dream of making a comment about english people queuing, german efficiency, Canadians apologizing.

Now I know some people might say the jamacian prime minster made a comment about their athletic pedigree and there has been no white participants in the 100 olympics since 1971 and no non black sprinter has ever run faster than 10 secs, but those people are racist, ignore them.

Do people really want to live in a world where context and nuance matters or do we want to live in a society where we enforce arbitrary rules nonone even seems to have found offensive. I think we all know the answer.

I am minded of the kerfuffle in america that saw someone fired over the use of the word picnic due to the racist origins of the word. Of course that was made up and the word picnic has no relation to antebellum slavery whatsoever, but the important thing is it spreads fear, who knows what might get you fired, it doesnt even need to be real! someone doesn't even need to pretend to be offended they need only claim and imaginary hypothetical person might be and boom, you describe a comedian as hysterical- sacked, body shaming womens sexuality, one dollar canadian coin is a what now? sacked- demonising mental illness.

Freedom is slavery

I've not read the whole thread but I'm a manager and if this happened I would take the locality manager over the coals. I'd actually be looking to replace them because they are not managing when they let something like that slide.

I'd give the person who said it a very stern talking to. It seems to me that the manager allows a lax environment and since this comment wasn't challenged they think it's acceptable. It isn't. Make that clear by going after the manager (who isn't doing their job) and those under the manager will fall in line with expected behavior.

Thank you Want2besupermum
Its good to hear of the other workplaces where this would be dealt with appropriately.

Are you the locality manager's senior? If so, I'd mention to them that they should have addressed it with the employee at the next opportunity. I would have an informal word with the employee if I was their manager.

And in fact I'd be making the locality managers line manager know that he failed to challenge this as well.

@Want2bSupermum - you would look to fire the locality manager for this (ignoring the fact HR would laugh in your face for suggesting it)? I would see it as an opportunity to actually manage people instead of make an example of someone hoping that others will "fall in line".

I assume that you aren't actually in a position with this sort of responsibility.

It's racist and offensive because black people are not a monolith, they're a group of incredibly diverse people. Sure, SOME of them are good runners, but some of them aren't - and saying "paint it black so it'll run faster" is playing off a stereotype that you can pretend is positive all you like, but at the end of the day, is still treating an incredibly diverse race like a monolith, a nameless faceless mass of blobs who aren't people to you, just fodder for your crappy, uninformed, ignorant jokes and comments.

It's like saying Asians are good at math. Sounds like a compliment. Until you remember that Asians are not a monolith either, and some of them are good at math, but some of them aren't, and instead of lumping them all together because they aren't people to you, just fodder for your crappy, uninformed, ignorant jokes and comments.

Just remember, this kind of stereotyping about black people is a two edged sword. Okay, this particular comment is (on the surface) positive, but it encourages that "monolith" way of thinking. It's only a hop, skip, and a jump from there to thinking that it's okay to repeat the negative stereotypes, too - and you never know who's listening, and uses this dehumanizing nonsense as justification for... not hiring them. Paying them less. Following them down the street calling them hurtful names. Coming up on them in an alley and beating the crap out of them.

But that doesn't matter, because hey, black people can run, right?

Get a clue. It's 2017, the joke in the OP was racist and offensive, action should absolutely be taken, and I'd be making a list of everyone who laughed and holding a mandatory sensitivity training seminar for everyone on that list. Unacceptable.

I think a rule of thumb is

a) 'would a (black, gay, religious, insert whatever the joke was about) say it?

b) would it have a slightly different more or less offensive meaning if they did?

And the joke in this context I think could be said by a black person, but I think it does have undertones of racism when said by a white person to other white people.

I'd probably tackle it as "it may not be intended to be racist but it can easily be interpreted this way"

Another example is a friend of mine who told me, "You're not white really, you are one of us" meaning black/Jamaican

I laughed and took it as a complement, but I don't think I would say the opposite to her because it could be interpreted in a different way.

It's like saying Asians are good at math. Sounds like a compliment. Until you remember that Asians are not a monolith either, and some of them are good at math, but some of them aren't, and instead of lumping them all together because they aren't people to you, just fodder for your crappy, uninformed, ignorant jokes and comments

LOL yes I have to frequently 'tell off' one of my class, he is good at the maths/logic stuff, he often says things like, "yea, I got it right, that's 'cos I'm Asian" and I remind him not to stereotype and make comments about race.

And the number of times I have been told that 'half caste isn't racist'

I've not read the whole thread but I'm a manager and if this happened I would take the locality manager over the coals. I'd actually be looking to replace them because they are not managing when they let something like that slide.

Well I hope your company would have money set aside for tribunal cases, because that's where you would end up.

For those who can't understand why 'just a joke' matters, try the analogy in this video...

Maybe useful to show to the team?

My daughter (black) is not a fast runner. She's very petite and flexible and a very good ballet dancer. Hopefully she never encounters the sorts of attitudes Michaela de Prince (now a professional dancer with the Dutch National Ballet) encountered:

"My parents enrolled me at ballet school in Philadelphia and drove me an hour and back to class, six times a week. I loved it, it felt like I belonged.
It wasn't until I was eight that I first noticed the racial bias in ballet when I overheard one of the directors saying, ‘we don’t put a lot of effort into the black girls, because they’ll always have big boobs and will be end up being bigger'."

www.redonline.co.uk/red-women/blogs/michaela-deprince-body-image-is-a-matter-of-opinion

She probably will at some point, because we all know that 'black people' are all X, or Y, or Z.

There have been studies that show why woman are technically better home makers and better at cooking, owing to our cave ancestors.
"Put some lipstick on it and whack it in the kitchen, it will work better".

Would you find that offensive? Thought so.

Just because a stereotype has some basis in reality doesn't make it any less offensive. It's presuming that ALL people from that background will behave in the same way, which is not true, or it might be assuming a trait is inherent in that race/sex/ whatever when it is environmental. Black people might be adept at running. Or it might be because athletics are taken very seriously in certain countries, just like football is here. It doesn't matter WHY it might be true anyway, but putting millions of people in to the same box is offensive. End of.

It was a racist joke.

The comment was not appropriate in the workplace.

And I'm understand how a monolith like 'blacks are better runners' is also not true.

And those that have linked those articles where is says that sports commentators refer to how strong a black football player is, but how well a white Person reads the game....

Well, serena Williams is very strong AND reads the game superbly. So that's that argument scuppered!!

But there are certain facts that can't be disputed: the success of mo farah, bolt, serena Williams, the fact that all finalists in 100m have been black for the last 10 times, the male relay team are all black.
Those are facts.

And I appreciate that this is NOT the same as saying 'blacks are better runners'. Because of course that generalisation is not true.

wet Yes I am a manager of a very diverse team and I would never accept a manager under me allowing this to go unchallenged. It would be a clear indicator that they are not able to manage their team hence I would look to replace them.

piglet I have worked with HR to replace people working under me before. If they are not suitable for the job there are ways to manage people out. I have people of different races including black people, someone going through a gender change and homosexuals working under me. It is imperative to me that each person on my team is valued and respected. A manager letting that comment slide is unacceptable and I would be risking the Company having a discrimination case to deal with. At a minimum I would expect to have been alerted and for the manager to have already spoke to HR to organize the necessary training for the team. That didn't happen.....

I am happy to go sit in a tribunal to explain my actions against a manager who can't manage and would prefer that any day to sitting in a conference room as we mediate a discrimination case rightfully raised by the Nigerian employee.

Honestly.....he needed to know that's not an appropriate term. If he had been talking about women and saying that he thought that "chicks" or "girlies" should be better represented in film would we be trying to excuse him that because heel was fighting for women underneath his innappropriate language soon that's all fine then?

Actually, I'd make exactly the same point had he been talking about women in film and called them "chicks" - that, yes, he should be told that the particular choice of term was poorly made, but once he had apologised for that error, people should listen to the substance of what he was trying to say and judge him based on that alone.

I've worked for a bank which applied a very strict "diverrrrrsiteeee" policy. In writing. Loads of training courses about how you mustn't comment on what colleagues wear etc. They were the most racist, sexist bunch I have ever come across....but they all knew the words you "couldn't say" in public. I worked somewhere else which was genuinely inclusive and supportive of women....but the Chairman was a bit of an old duffer and used to call me "my dear". Yes - someone should have told him, but I know which was the better and more genuinely diverse organisation. The same Chairman, for example, went out on a limb to allow a friend of mine to have an unusually flexible working pattern when she came back from maternity leave as a single mother. I think that's the danger of an obsessive focus on language. Intent really is what matters.

as we mediate a discrimination case rightfully raised by the Nigerian employee.

But the OP hasn't said any discrimination case has been raised.

My colleague made a racist joke the other day. In fact it wasn't even a joke. It was a comment.

Our manager and I were there but no one else heard. We both did that open-mouthed shocked laughing, like "I can't believe you have just said that" kind of laughing, we were not laughing at the comment itself. Could that be what happened?

My manager then reprimanded her, she just said that's not an appropriate comment to make. The girl was mortified.

For the record, an "informal warning" given without the correct process can't form part of someone's disciplinary record. In other words, it can't be used in the case to sack that person if they continue to make racist remarks, for example. It is pretty much as good as doing nothing if things go further.

OMG! I'm so sorry! I read the OP completely wrong. I thought some dick made a racist joke and a load of other dicks laughed and the OP sighed in relief that the black bloke who worked with them wasn't there.

And that that was set against background of hundreds of years of oppression and genocide and denigrating black people for being animalistic and physically dangerous to whites.

But ACTUALLY they were just having a nice chat about sports and the bloke said 'actually scientists hypothesise that physiologically some black people may be faster that whites' And everyone nodded sagely.

So that's ok then.

@Want2bSupermum - despite something not ringing true, I'll take you at your word and assume you are who you say you are. I would take this as an opportunity to manage my staff, not manage them out. You know, justify my salary.

If someone is not performing well at their job then they don't need to be managed out. They are sacked in line with company procedures ie. the requisite number of formal disciplinaries and escalation etc.

You seem to be very proud of the diversity of your team.

I'd question your management skills though.

All these people spouting on about their HR policies and how the person involved should have been hung, drawn and quartered - do your disciplinary guidelines not say that there is a correct way of doing these things? That you have verbal warnings before written warnings? And written warnings before you sack them, depending on the offence? I'm fairly sure that you'd find that for a first offence where no-one has actually been offended (I've read the OP as the Nigerian colleague who would normally have been in the office having been out of the office and therefore not around to be offended) and were there was no deliberate attempt to cause offence, that only a verbal warning would be appropriate. Some people round here seem ready to sack the guy for what was basically a pretty crap joke in poor taste with no thought process. Having a word should be enough. I very much doubt that anyone would be getting this worked up if the joke had been about fat people ...

So it's only racist and only offensive if there's a black person there?

And the oppression of fat people is like that of black people?

Do you actually believe this crap or are you just using it to justify not being much arsed about shit that happens to other people?

some redheads

I can't think of any. Oh, wasn't Mick Hucknall a wrestler?

X post. Mine was @katy. I like faithinthesound's question better...

As usual another thread has become nasty.

It's about equality. It's about saying that if you're being singled out for abuse because you're fat, or gay, or ginger, or any other reason you're as entitled to the same treatment as someone who has been singled out because they're black. It's not about how many years of oppression they've gone through (how many years were women oppressed for and still are?) or bad it was (I think the Jews in concentration camps might have something to say) it's about tackling it now. And it's about making your response proportionate to the event rather than jumping on the bandwagon in the race to be seen as politically correct. Go in like a stormtrooper and you'll be met with a similar-sized reaction. Go in like a diplomat and you might come out knowing that you're all happily on the same page and spreading the word together.

Can people stop saying 'people of colour'?

I find that just as, if not more, offensive.