Racism at work

[NCforobviousreasonsok]

I'm interested to know peoples take on this.
A colleague used an offensive word (go it letter beginning with a p) to describe a type of place. They seem somewhat remorseful but it's still wrong.

It's being dealt with formally, but I want to know how you would expect this to be dealt with at your workplace? It's upset a few people and rightly so - I'm just debating if it's a sackable offence or warning and if so, how severe?

The content of character and morals of a person are far more important than skin pigmentation.

Except that character and morals are often assumed to be aligned with skin pigmentation, which is why stereotyping is so harmful.

I think young Asians have reclaimed the P word the way Black people have reclaimed the N word . It does sound foul coming from white peoples mouths .

Yes . If it's happens again through the door .

You are so ridiculously ignorant it is almost laughable.

You do realise the majority of Asians are not Pakistani, as someone who is Pakistani we very much haven’t.

Oh dear, how sad, nevermind. There's so much more to life than race and getting wound up by words.

You’re white, aren’t you?

Words matter. The intent behind the words matter. The history of words matter.

People’s lives experiences matter.

It’s scary.

You sound like you would have loved China’s cultural revolution. Ready to out your peers and put dunce’s hats on them? Gotta beat ‘em into submission, eh?

If it helps either of you at all, with your concerns based on a book you have probably never read - people can still say what they like.

However freedom of speech is not synonymous with freedom from consequences, never has been.

Feel free to say what you wish. I mean, what are you really being stopped from saying? What is it you’re feeling so oppressed from speaking aloud? Be a racist with your whole chest, that is your right. The consequences are not within your control, however.

I’d pop a dunce hat on you, no problem.

Destroying someone's career over a single word is way out of proportion.

I hate the argument that it was 'acceptable' years ago
My mum is in her 80s, my dad would be in his 90s if he was still alive, as parents they were always very forgiving if we messed up. BUT I cannot even think what would have happened if I had used a racist term in the 70s or 80s... I wouldn't have been kicked out, I am confident of that, but i probably wouldn't have wanted to hang around to face the consequences.
It was a fucking disgustingly offensive term then, just like it is now and I really think it's time people stopped trying to pretend otherwise.

Not a single word. It would be the repeated use of a word that he was told was offensive. If he'd said "Sorry, I didn't realise" then yes, it would have been out if proportion. But that's not what happened.

Surely anyone of working age would be very clear about how offensive that word is. I was a child in the 1980s and certainly knew it was very offensive even when I was at primary school, so I don't really buy that anyone young enough to be in work wouldn't know. Plus even if they didn't see it as "that bad" at one stage, where the fuck have they been for the last 50 years to not have realised how very offensive it now is.

If the word was used to describe a shop rather than being directed at a person, I would take a guess at a final written warning plus mandatory diversity training.

Yep, my mum and dad are both in their 80s. Dad is heading towards 90. No fucking way would we have got away with using racist terms like that when we were growing up in the 1970s and 1980s.

I also really hate the suggestion that it's OK for old people to be racist. It was wrong when they were young and it's wrong now that they are old.

Are you deliberately trying to shit stir or are you really a stupid as this post makes you sound?

They've destroyed their own career. Like you say, it's a single word, easy enough to not use it.

It's possible for things to be said without the meaning being meant.

It doesn't matter whether the meaning was "meant" because others were offended regardless.

Casual racism isn't OK just because someone claims they didn't mean anything by it.

If racial slurs are "accidentally" slipping out at work, you're either a massive racist, or a massive racist idiot. It only means one thing.

There is nothing out of proportion in the reaction - other staff clearly shouldn't be expected to tolerate racist shit in the workplace.

But yes, what a brainless fuckwit that person must be to use a notorious racist slur in a professional environment. Imagine throwing away everything that you have worked for just so that you can say one offensive word.

This is like when a woman is blamed for “breaking up the family” when she walks out after a “single” punch.

It really isnt. Physical violence in the workplace would be a dismissal. Saying a word almost certainly wouldnt be.

🤦‍♀️

Are you a man?