Slashdot Mirror
Online Forum Leads To Hostile Workplace Lawsuit
Tiger4 writes "A group of black Philadelphia police officers have filed a lawsuit against the police department and the city, alleging a hostile work environment due to a private website popular with police. Their story has received wide coverage. From CNN: 'The suit alleges white officers post on and moderate the privately operated site, Domelights.com, both on and off the job. Domelights' users "often joke about the racially offensive commentary on the site ... or will mention them in front of black police officers," thus creating "a racially hostile work environment," according to lawyers for the all-black Guardian Civic League, the lead plaintiff in the suit.' The site appears to be owned and operated by a member of the police force, but it is not funded or operated by the city. Management clearly knows it exists; it is possible police force members access it on the job, and the suit says some of them reference it on the job. Individual police force members have a right to their own opinions, but management has a responsibility to enforce the law fairly and equitably across the city and among their own workforce. What is the solution here?"
After browsing the site in question, there doesn't seem to be any rule that states that only law enforcement officials may register and participate in the discussions. Moreover, the site used to allow registration (it's been disabled due to so many users registering over the past day, however).
FTFA: "The suit alleges white officers post on and moderate the privately operated site, Domelights.com, both on and off the job."
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
There is a term in social science called "structural inequality". Basically, its implication is that the structure of society creates "haves" for whom the structure is convenient and "have nots" for whom the structure imposes barriers to success. The groups that fall into each category vary around the world breaking differently along gender, racial and class lines in different places at different times, but a common symptom appears in many cases. Essentially, its easy to convince yourself that you are a "have not" when, in fact, many basic social systems are helping you along.
It is likely human nature that we focus on the hardships in our own life. Its difficult to accept that when you have worked your way up from poverty and claimed a better home and job that this was not entirely your own personal accomplishment. It diminishes us to recognize that something nebulous, like social structure, might have lent us a hand that isn't extended to others. Rather it is much easier to say, hey, I worked hard; I succeeded against adversity; I was strong and useful; why does't everyone else just "toughen up". I succeeded why can't they?
However, its often simply not true that where one succeeds others always can. Sure a good portion of any success is personal ability. To ignore that is also problematic. But pretending that there is nothing else at work, that the decades of past social protest and long histories of racial and gender inequity have not consequence today, seems too simplistic an answer to be useful.
My girlfriend is black... Granted, she wasn't born here, she's African by birth.
White Americans treat immigrant Africans as a "model minority" group in comparison to African Americans from slavery. The la times has a decent summary of the sentiment and you can find more in American studies papers.
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-op-chude-sokei18feb18,0,7298828.story?coll=la-opinion-center
Basically just because Minority group X (where x is Asian, immigrant Africans or whatever) seem to succeed and accept racism, it does not generally justify or excuse it. The Civil Rights movement was not for just Blacks. Asians (highest economic levels in the US) and women (majority population in the US) both are protected by that bill.
And more to the point, your opinions are not protected at the WORKPLACE. That's unprofessional and stupid. You dont browse p0rn at work why the hell would you browse racist stuff at work. I say fire the dumbasses.
The laws ARE deficient. Nobody should have to endure racist and sexist jokes and commentary at work.
No, they shouldn't. And in this specific case, because their employer is the gov't itself, they should have an internal complaint procedure. It should not involve the courts, and for example if they were working at a grocery store instead of a police department then their only guaranteed resolution would be to quit. At will employment. All these laws to "protect" employees taint the marketplace. If I want to hire somebody to haul live electrical cable around while I smoke cigarettes and blow smoke in their face and an albino midget yells racially crass jokes at them, then that's the job and if they want it we can come to an agreement on pay rates.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo.
Not at all. If women can make sexist jokes that a man couldn't, it's a double standard, which is what we're trying to avoid.
Do you exercise any care at all in what you read or are you in such a hurry that you stomp on other people in your efforts to attain the moral high ground? Go and read my post again and quote where in there I said I supported making sexist jokes at work, let alone double standards.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
All these laws to "protect" employees taint the marketplace. If I want to hire somebody to haul live electrical cable around while I smoke cigarettes and blow smoke in their face and an albino midget yells racially crass jokes at them, then that's the job and if they want it we can come to an agreement on pay rates.
Fortunately, people with better business sense than you passed laws to prevent this, ostensibly because there's no business reason for you to be blowing smoke in someone's face while an albino midget yells racially crass jokes at them, and perhaps by avoiding these things the job of hauling live electrical cable around would be safer to both the employee and the public at large.
Also, surprisingly enough, business owners have discovered that treating their employees with dignity and respect tends to improve productivity to such a degree that they support anti-discrimination laws, if only because it makes the available labor pool better trained and easier to deal with. I, for one, would not want to enter a line of business where the labor poor was accustomed to having smoke blown in their face and being yelled at constantly. I rather suspect they would be poorly motivated.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie