Sacked for using 'N' word

[Horrace]

I don't know how to copy link sorry but has anyone been following the story of the Lloyd's bank manager who was sacked for asking a relevant question in a so called anti racism training session by his employers but in his question he used the full 'N' word.
His question I believe was how would he be expected to deal with black employees or customers speaking to each other using that word.
The trainer was so offended by the word, she had to take 5 days off work. However, he got sacked.
He has since been awarded £500,00 but no apology from Lloyd's and no job back.
As far as we know, the ridiculous incompetent trainer is still employed.

I am close to this story but afraid to say how.
But will say that I'm losing sleep and furious more and more at this bank.

I think there are some Jews and others who would disagree with your assessment of "literally the most offensive word". Many others, in fact.

If you're going down the route of banning offensive words on grounds of historical meaning, do you think it might be culturally insensitive to set up a hierarchy of offensiveness?

Agree. Anyone who has to take 5 days off work due to hearing an offensive word is totally ridiculous. Sickness record of this person is probably sky high and any excuse for a few days off is used. It’s the trainer that should be sacked. Absolute snowflake who needs to man up ( oops hope I haven’t made anyone go off work sick with use of the term “ man up”!)

I understand that he has dyslexia and this makes it difficult for him to separate out letters/ sounds.

Dyslexia has many varied presentations, and as a retired SLT I can confirm that this is one of them.

I read this article: https://thecritic.co.uk/an-800000-lesson-in-how-not-to-do-diversity-training/
I think that from the actions of the trainer (the clearly deliberate “puzzled look” given by her to his first, non-explicit, description of non-white people using racial slurs apparently acceptable in, say, rap songs), that she actually forced him to say the word, then deliberately took offence - to the extreme!
Who takes 5 days off work because they are “offended” by something said, not to them, but as a clarification of a term that they were too thick to understand when it was couched in normal polite terms?
I really hope that the trainer is named, shamed and fired herself - as well as being banned from ever training again - especially after first telling the employees that they were in a safe space and then betraying their trust in that way…

Yes happy a million quid and agreement that Lloyds were wrong!

So she's con artist

No one in their right mind would use that word in a professional setting.

Seems mighty coincidental that he happened to have to use the word because of his dyslexia, and also happens to publicly be complaining about how hard it is to be a white man.

I find it ridiculous that she took five days off for hearing a word.

I wonder if it was more due to stress at the prospect of ‘taking on’ a powerful man at a huge company. Which I could just about get my head around. Otherwise it just doesn’t make sense and makes her look too sensitive really.

Perhaps this is the point, that the N-word becomes literally unknown as it's not uttered but I have no idea what w** stands for. I don't profess to know a lot about racism and as I've said, have tended to live in monocultural areas but I think I'm a good example of the need for education. I'm sure I have failings but I'm willing to learn. My point is that we don't all automatically know the same as everyone else and there is a need for overt teaching with the chance to make mistakes (not being there, I accept the Lloyds man might have been being racist not making a mistake). I knew the N-word was hideously awful but before reading the strength of feeling on this thread, I don't think I really understood how awful just the idea of it being uttered can make people feel. Maybe things were different 20 years ago, but I know as an 18 year old I really didn't know that. I just didn't. A previous poster said teens who didn't know are idiots (or similar). I'm really not - I just needed the opportunity to be exposed to teaching and discussion of the history of racism.

the trainer in a DEI course should be prepared and well able to handle questions using actual words that will be heard.

5 days off? She should have been fired for incompetence and the complete inability to do her job. What if someone stood up and said "I am GC i believe that TWAM" (using actual words). A month off? Pathetic. Really really stupidly pathetic.

The bank employee should have probably said "n-word" but there you go.

Agreed...

I just find the whole story crazy...

Everything from the week off to retire on a chaise lounge, management deciding to fire him BECAUSE of the week off...
The crazy large £500k pay out

All just bonkers...

The person who should have been disciplined was probably the incompetent/incapable D&I trainer

I’ll admit that I haven’t done much research into this, and the OPs question seems valid, HOWEVER the one article that I did read claims that he “blamed dyslexia” for his gaff, and claimed discrimination based on his disability and the fact that “white middle aged men are bottom of the heap”, which frankly is the kind of excuse that the same middle aged white men use when they are called to account for their b.

PC gone mad. 🙁 The trainer had to have a week off to get over it?! Jesus Christ.

@2024GarlicCloves

I think there are some Jews and others who would disagree with your assessment of "literally the most offensive word". Many others, in fact

you're going down the route of banning offensive words on grounds of historical meaning, do you think it might be culturally insensitive to set up a hierarchy of offensiveness?

You really are protesting too much I feel. Of course a Jewish person will be more offended to here a racist insult against them than the n word, similarly an Asian person etc. But the n word, in the English language, was used across the UK and the US (and other parts of the English speaking world) with a frequency and ubiquity that cannot be compared with other racial insults used against other groups. Obviously words can obtain social power and connotations through usage which isnt merely attributable to the words definition/origin.

And your point about “words being ok or banned some groups but not others” is just strawman stuff. Nobody is saying the word should be banned. Simply that it shouldn’t be spoken aloud in public by a white person (except perhaps in a court of law if deemed absolutely necessary).

@Realdeal1

No one in their right mind would use that word in a professional setting

It was a Conservative councillor, so yeah.

If you have to ask the question…

she actually forced him to say the word

Bollocks. He could have just said ‘the N word’...like everyone knows is the acceptable way to describe it when necessary.

He tried not to use the word she asked for clarification got it and was so triggered she had a week off

Nobody gets awarded £500k without a very good case.

Whats the point of having diversity training if the people being trained are not allowed to ask sensitive questions.
And if a trainer needs 5 days off because someone uses the n word in a question then she’s not fit to do her job.

Even if the employee had been deliberately goady he could have been shot down and made to apologise. This case went too far and the awful thing is that it will embolden the real racists to be provocative.

I also don’t know what the w is but I suppose it’s a good point if children always grow up hearing it referred to as the n word they may have no idea what it actually is and therefore not know that they shouldn’t say it.
whilst the usage isn’t appropriate there needs to be the opportunity for people to be informed that something is inappropriate rather than straight away being punished.

If, as a trainer, you tell people that they have a safe space for the training... then you are deliberately obtuse when they are struggling to explain a situation without using a certain word and push them to explain more... then have a 5 day attack of the vapours because they finally say the word they were trying to avoid... you deserve to be sacked.
Thankfully the tribunal saw this and compensated him accordingly for the damage this has done to his income and working life.

I read the tribunal document after seeing this case in the papers.

The gist of the finding seemed to be: should he have used the word? Absolutely not. Should he have been sacked for using the word in the context he did? No, that was excessive.

It was complicated by conflicting accounts of what he had said, and the recording of the training session having been deleted.

IIRC the tribunal felt the employer was proceeding from the basis that not sacking him was tantamount to endorsing his use of the word, but this was a false equivalence when other actions were available - apology, warning, additional training etc.

It was an interesting case to read.