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.

you forgot to add in my opinion Sesameseedless

I don't need to. The OP is asking whether she's being unreasonable, or not. I think opinions are therefore taking as read. HRTQueen.anything else?

This man worked in a bank.

He wasn't working with American rappers, grime artists or basketball players.

Black people are generally not in the office calling themselves the n-word as some black posters have shared as well as Mr Amaechi's comments in the judgement.

There really was no need for him to say it.
At his big age, I don't believe he had never heard of the expression 'the N word' before.
His reasoning, 'He wanted to increase understanding of how to manage a situation if eg an employee or someone else has walked into a branch listening to rap music and the full word been overheard' also sounds like BS.

Justice for downtrodden white middle aged men... with all that talk of race-baiting, victimhood, race card and all that!

I assumed your response was directly to my post Sesameseedless

You assumed wrong. You're not that important.

There’s an article in the Daily Mail written by the guy who won the tribunal, so we get to find out his point of view - https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12948913/I-hounded-job-Lloyds-Bank-using-racist-term-seminar-political-correctness-Ive-won-500-000-compensation-dismissal-shown-unfair.html

Having read through the Daily Mail article I linked to above, I think he undermines his case by saying the below:

• I can't be alone in thinking that the language the PC brigade deem acceptable often seems to change just as soon as one gets a grip on it. For example, saying 'coloured person' is seen as unacceptable these days, but 'person of colour' is not. Nevertheless, the last thing I've ever wanted to do is hurt anyone else's feelings.
• I thought it would be beneficial for me to brush up on the latest politically-correct language and etiquette so as to not cause any offence.
• After what felt like a didactic lecture on institutional racism, she moved on to telling us about the difference between 'intent' and 'effect' with regards to language.

I think these points make him sound as if he really didn’t want to engage with the content of the course he went on, and as if he is just going through the motions to present himself as someone who is interested in learning about how to support his colleagues from different backgrounds.

In the Mail? Well that's a surprise. Pass, thanks.

At least we get to read his point of view @newnamethanks . The original new story was only published in the Mail, Telegraph and LBC anyway.

I thought his first line was mildly amusing.

Can't really blame the man for being a bit bitter given the whole getting-fired-and-it-being-handled- terribly thing. He's hardly going to look back on that lecture fondly.

The trainer may well have been very passionate which came across as didactic.

PC brigade and then on the other hand he knows he shouldn't have said it. His solicitor found a missing gap in the investigation and ran with it. He's not racist he's ignorant.

A manager in a banks lending division, a mayor, does lots of public facing stuff, needs his trial broken down into 5 minute chunks so it doesn't overwhelm him because he's experiencing his recently uncovered dyslexia that no one that ever worked with him in the previous 30 years ever noticed he struggled with.

But people on here are like "oh yeah yeah that seems legit"

No wonder he got £500k, this thread demonstrates the gullibility/faux innocence view that prevailed

In my workplace this would be considered gross misconduct, extremely serious and tbh I'd probably expect the strongest possible consequences if I acted in this way. I wouldn't expect to keep my job. But we hold very high standards in terms of ethics and culture and not all workplaces do. I'm not sure why black employees should be forced to listen to a superior who's mentoring them and is responsible for their progression and development speak like that and get away with a slap on the wrist. "The n word" would have sufficed, there was no need for him to use any other word and I don't personally understand how being dyslexic would stop him from using "n word". That feels like an ablist red herring in the article.

That article you linked is actually deeply problematic in many different ways as well. For example explaining that Carl couldn't possibly be racist since he was mentoring black colleagues. "I can't be racist I have black friends" immediately sprung to mind.

I also think the way they've written about the trainer needing to take time off is unfair. There's an emotional labour that goes along with that type of work. Maybe this was the fifth carl she'd encountered that week and she burnt out like so many people do. She has every right to take time off if the work has impacted her. If she's read off a script, she's likely not entirely responsible for the material she's covering so attacking her as a trainer for a provided script is wholly unfair.

I would also say there's a significant difference in being "clumsy" than being racist and using degrading and openly racist language.

The fact he thought he needed to respond to a black customer using the n word at all is telling.

The dyslexia thing wasn’t made up by the article, it was tested in court using expert witnesses.

Training is not genuine if all it involves is reading of a script and free discussion is not allowed. Trainers should be robust enough to cope with people making mistakes. If the aim of the whole exercise is indoctrination they should call it that, stop the euphemisms.

An expert witness said "this is a possible outcome of dyslexia" and it is.

He never even claimed to be dyslexic and nobody had ever noticed his struggles, until his job was on the line. He'd never declared any disability or needed any adjustments in his work. His initial claim of being dyslexic to that extent was initially rejected.

Also this: Lloyds were looking at this costing them loads more money and rolled over, but I bet they wish they challenged that, or at least held out for it to be the normal protocol

He's 58 years old has he not learned? He was the mayor ffs an upstanding member of the community.

PC brigade and then on the other hand he knows he shouldn't have said it. He needs to make his mind up. I was listening to the radio after the George Floyd incident and a man phoned in and said "It's white people who need to end racism, not black people". You are trying to reclaim a word that was negatively used by white people against black people. I find it amusing how you use the word indoctrination isn't it what white people did to black people indoctrinating them and taking their identity from them. There are boundaries that you can't cross and should never be pushed in any setting.

Well, isn't it good that he's admitting he shouldn't have said it? He realised that it wasn't appropriate and he could have used the shorthand "n word"

He can also justifiably feel like the penalty was to harsh and an example of PC. Now, if he said the hard "er", and/or said it to another person, nobody (not even he) would debate that he should be fired.

What he did was a grey area due to the context, though he is still dim and maybe arrogant to think that 'safe space' meant say the n word even with the "a"

I'm pretty sure that someone who's entire apparent frame of reference of black people is basketball and rap music and whos never heard the phrase "n-word" really gets the nuance between er and* *a

Actually, it was diagnosed at school, not made a big thing of with co-workers who nonetheless knew because of spelling etc and was confirmed by court psychologists - and when he raised it during his meetings with Lloyds HR they ignored it. He (re-)states this in his personally written article today.

Is it tiring being so jaded and unpleasant? Or is the fact that he’s white or male an issue for you?

My dyslexia — which was informally diagnosed during my school years and confirmed by a doctor as part of the subsequent tribunal - means I often struggle to articulate myself.

One person, who also happens to be his mate, says they'd noticed.

The bloke didn't consider himself disabled until someone told him to run with it

And not a court psychologist, as it says above the claimant sprung it on Lloyds once this whole process was started, they entered the expert witness opinion outside of the normal legal protocols but Lloyds didn't challenge it

And yeah him being white is an issue for me, male not so much. I mean if he wasn't white then it'd be a bit like his example and it'd be a black person saying it to another black person, like on a basketball court or in a rap tune and it wouldn't be racist and would be irrelevant to the whole scenario

Most people know

And when I say most, I mean everyone.

Again, he should have known that it would come across very badly for him to say it even if it is normalised slang