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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

See all MNHQ comments on this thread

To report this person to their employer for hate speech?

573 replies

NickMyLipple · 03/07/2020 20:39

I've attached a screenshot - I am not friends with this person. She does however display her work on social media and she is in her uniform with her lanyard on display in her profile picture and in other photos which are accessible to the public.

It's NHS Values Week and I feel very strongly that if you're going to publically display your workplace you need to be responsible in not making such racist and hateful comments.

I called her out on it and the post has now been deleted.

AIBU to call the HR department and complain, or should I leave it and hope that she thinks carefully before she posts in future?

To report this person to their employer for hate speech?
OP posts:
JingsMahBucket · 04/07/2020 05:05

Smirking = shirking but racists annoyingly smirk when they think they’re being clever anyway as evidenced by several posters on this thread.

LiveintheNow · 04/07/2020 05:42

But ageism is just fine? 'Especially people of a certain age'

Wouldn't want you caring for any of my elderly relatives, someone should report you to your employer for hate speech.

KeyWorker · 04/07/2020 05:42

Inform her employer. There is no place in the NHS for racist bigots.

Purpleartichoke · 04/07/2020 05:43

We aren’t going to solve racism with cultural cleansing. It didn’t work for Stalin. It didn’t work for China during the cultural revolution. It didn’t work for McCarthy and the red scare.

Freedom of thought is important. It is so important, that I will defend the right of anyone to believe whatever horrific things they want. I would rather live in a world where people are allowed to believe and say hateful and things than a world where deviation from official dogma is not tolerated.

Unless a person is mixing their personal beliefs and their employment, I don’t think it should matter. Everyone needs to work, even horrible people.

AlternativePerspective · 04/07/2020 05:59

Clearly a lot of apologists for racism on this thread, even stooping so low as to suggest this woman could commit suicide? Seriously. Also, bringing up the OP’s font use is one of those idiotic posts which will go down on the “most OTT” responses to a thread....

Do people seriously value this woman’s life, which she has a say in bearing in mind her behaviour, over that of the people she, and others, are abusing?

This isn’t about policing someone’s thoughts. The woman posted her bile on a public platform. It could just as easily have been seen by her HR departments, some do have a culture of checking social media, or by a patient, or by someone who might, oh, I don’t know, be driven to the edge because of it and commit suicide. Would people be defending her then?

Also why do people jump to assuming the woman would lose her career over a comment like that? Because they know how unacceptable it really is perhaps? Or because they want to play the emotional card and jump to the worst possible conclusion to prevent the OP from reporting, rather than assuming she would be pulled up for the comment and be challenged by her employer as well as those on said public platform.

What’s that saying? The best way for evil to prosper is for good men to do nothing....”

differentnameforthis · 04/07/2020 06:50

@ArnoJambonsBike - I'm not sure whats the most atrocious. The views of that person or the font you have decided to have on your phone

Yeah, cos they're comparable. Hmm

Person in photo can write racist content while representing her company, yet op can't have the font she wants on her phone.

faithfulbird · 04/07/2020 07:03

I'd inform her employer. Does she think her colleagues or clients need to be sent back to their own country? What a disgrace.

DuineArBith · 04/07/2020 07:03

@donquixotedelamancha

Report it. The more examples we can make of people, the more it will serve as warnings to others that their views are unacceptable.

This. Any unacceptable views must be crushed. It's really important to give the governement and employers more power over individuals. Doing so will definitely imporve the changes of vulnerable minorities- nothing bad ever came from informing on each other.

Reporting someone to their employers isn't giving either the government or employers more power over individuals. It's simply telling employers something they need to know about employees dealing with the public, with a side benefit of avoiding the danger of this individual discriminating against people she is meant to be helping.
JRUIN · 04/07/2020 07:07

She said something out of anger and frustration, which she has reflected on and deleted and yet you want to get her fired for it. Learn some tolerance and get on with your life is my advice.

DuineArBith · 04/07/2020 07:08

Freedom of thought is important. It is so important, that I will defend the right of anyone to believe whatever horrific things they want. I would rather live in a world where people are allowed to believe and say hateful and things than a world where deviation from official dogma is not tolerated.

Do you want to live in a world where people are allowed to say hateful things directly to the objects of their hate in the course of their employment, and where the people they are speaking to may be vulnerable people they are supposed to be helping and caring for?

Unless a person is mixing their personal beliefs and their employment, I don’t think it should matter.

But isn't it up to the employers to decide whether they want to take the risk that this person's beliefs will spill over into their employment?

Everyone needs to work, even horrible people.

But not everyone needs to work in public-facing or caring professions.

LadyGAgain · 04/07/2020 07:08

It's appalling that so many people on here are willing to jump to protect racism under the "freedom of speech" guise. No wonder our society is steeped in deep embedded bigotry.

I'd report the post. Until we name and shame and call people out publicly nothing will change. Being anti-racist is needed.

Freedom of speech - no. Don't make me laugh.

DuineArBith · 04/07/2020 07:10

@JRUIN

She said something out of anger and frustration, which she has reflected on and deleted and yet you want to get her fired for it. Learn some tolerance and get on with your life is my advice.
How do you know that it was out of anger or frustration, or her motivation for deleting it? It looks much more like an ingrained belief to me.
Washyourhands48 · 04/07/2020 07:10

This reply has been deleted

Message deleted by MNHQ. Here's a link to our Talk Guidelines.

Warsawa31 · 04/07/2020 07:15

Just a point here - if her SM presence was purely personal - no connection to her place of work, would it be justified reporting this to her employer?

Free speech isn’t hate speech

JRUIN · 04/07/2020 07:17

How do you know that it was out of anger or frustration, or her motivation for deleting it? It looks much more like an ingrained belief to me.

How do you know it wasn't? She deleted her tweet. Why can't we give her the benefit of the doubt instead of being vengeful?

CluelessBaker · 04/07/2020 07:20

We aren’t going to solve racism with cultural cleansing. It didn’t work for Stalin. It didn’t work for China during the cultural revolution. It didn’t work for McCarthy and the red scare.

Cultural cleansing? Please try to think this through. Racists aren’t a culture, and the NHS deciding that maybe racists shouldn’t be in a position to provide healthcare to people of colour is not ‘cleansing’.

Freedom of thought is important. It is so important, that I will defend the right of anyone to believe whatever horrific things they want. I would rather live in a world where people are allowed to believe and say hateful and things than a world where deviation from official dogma is not tolerated.

What you’re saying here is ‘I would rather black people faced racism in healthcare than a racist was made to experience the consequences of their racism.

Because there are consequences to racism. And if that racism goes unchallenged, the people who bear those consequences are the victims of racism, not the perpetrators.

Why should the price of free speech be the safety and well being of people of colour? How do you justify that?

‘Unless a person is mixing their personal beliefs and their employment, I don’t think it should matter. Everyone needs to work, even horrible people.’

Not everyone needs to work in an environment where they provide care for others.

We already know that racism affects the provision of healthcare. We know that black women are five times more likely to die in childbirth than white women. We know that Pakistani, black Caribbean and black African families have twice the rate of infant mortality as white people. We know that black men and women have lower life expectancy than men and women from white and other ethnic groups. Young black men are six times more likely than young white men to be sectioned for compulsory treatment under the Mental Health Act, and South Asian people are 50% more likely to die prematurely from coronary heart disease than the general population.

Racists don’t say ‘I’m not taking this woman’s concerns about her birth seriously because she’s Black’. They don’t say ‘let’s not refer this man for further tests because he’s not from here and he should go back to his own country’. Racism is usually insidious and under the radar until it bursts out in posts like the example OP has provided. But there is no way a person can be racist and still be trusted to provide fair and equal healthcare to people of colour. And it isn’t people of colour who should have to put their lives on the line to deal with the consequences of that racism, so you can defend your lofty goal of making sure racists don’t have to be accountable for their actions.

blueluce85 · 04/07/2020 07:31

Not sure if this has been said... But could "kick them out of the country" simply be referring to idiots that aren't complying to the lockdown as we all want people to stop dying and be able to reopen properly as soon as possible?

She didnt say "kick them out of OUR country" which would most definitely be a racist remark

I'd want to kick any dick out of this country that can't obey simple lockdown laws and orders

WingBingo · 04/07/2020 07:36

Imagine if a senior civil servant wrote it, or a senior NHS employee

It would not be acceptable then would it?

GreytExpectations · 04/07/2020 08:14

Of course a good amount of posters on Mumsnet care about the "poor woman" possibly loosing her job more than about the racist comments BAME people have to put up with from people like her.

Destroyedpeople · 04/07/2020 08:15

'Free speech ' warszawa. ..really?
Oh Please.

GreytExpectations · 04/07/2020 08:18

FYI to those who still don't understand this:

Free speech does not mean without consequences. Its means without LEGAL consequences, yes but not social/professional ones.

Duvetdoggy · 04/07/2020 08:19

Clueless, great post and I agree.

GreytExpectations · 04/07/2020 08:19

@Washyourhands48

She may have had a bad day, had a few glasses of wine and posted something totally out of character which she later regretted and deleted. Goodness knows how many of us have done that eh? Get over yourself -Stalin- OP.
Ah yes, a good ol' racist apologist. Let me guess, you also think if a woman gets sexually harassed it's because of what she was wearing?
Duvetdoggy · 04/07/2020 08:20

Free speech is a human right but closely followed by the next human right that you have no right to take away the rights of others. And racism does takeaway the rights of others.
So citing free speech as a get out clause is redundant.

JustAnotherPoster00 · 04/07/2020 08:22

All those saying it doesn’t affect her job, if she can say something like that in public she will definitely have a bias in her work

^^This

Not being racist isnt enough anymore we as a population need to be anti-racist and to put our heads above the parapet and to call out those that think its acceptable but also tackle the system that helps to perpetuate the negative stereotypes of different races.

Bias in work can cost someone their life, take George Floyd as the perfect example, had the police officer not had a negative race bias to how he treated Mr Floyd I doubt he would have been killed, would he treat a white teenage girl like that? So the person were all discussing do we think she will apply none of her negative race bias to treating or dealing with BAME people its unlikely, so even the fact that she might treat those in a vulnerable position worse for no reason than their race means yes she needs to be reported and if the Trust she works for thinks she needs to lose her job then so be it [shrug] dont be racist then. Free speech (we dont have it here in the UK as a concept) but not free from consequences. We need to do better people we really do