6 ms·

Fired Googler says she was told heavy Baltimore accent a “disability”

25 points by elsewhen 6y ago

wccrawford 6y ago
>Google said it has a "large team of recruiters who work incredibly hard to increase the hiring of Black+ and other underrepresented talent" at the firm. Maybe they should "work incredibly hard" at reducing the discrimination and firing after they're hired, too, then. I always assume there's more to the story when I only hear from one side, but there's no excuse for anyone at Google telling someone their accent is a disability that should be disclosed to other employees. That's so incredibly ignorant that it's impossible for me not to be mad about it. And with that statement, I have no doubt that she's correct about why she was shouted down in meetings and repeatedly denied promotions and opportunities, and eventually fired.
- ajuc 6y ago
  If you fire a white guy nobody cares. If you fire a person you hired to fill a minority quota - there's a big risk of bad PR or a court case. How do you think this influences people hiring minorities? It becomes "necessary evil". BTW I'm Polish, my English pronunciation is very bad, never had problems because of that and I don't consider myself "minority" nor want preferential treatment. I highly doubt it would be different if I worked at Google (especially looking at accents of some people from Google I worked with).
julianlam 6y ago
The headline is a bit of clickbait. I read the whole rant on Twitter, and the story with the Baltimore accent was a comment told to her by a colleague, used as an example of the discriminatory behaviour she faced, but it was NOT a reason for her firing.
_exnk 6y ago
If there were corroboration of her story in the article and not just hearsay from Twitter I would feel more sympathetic. This is the same company that also allegedly squashes conservative voices internally. I guess it seems like google is trying hard to be woke and this allegation is definitely not woke so my initial reaction is skepticism. Edit: after re-reading the story I think the thing that bothers me the most, not just about this but about employment in general, is employers encouraging self—identification of disabilities so they can meet their 7% quota. I think that’s a regulation that just wasn’t well thought out.
- norswap 6y ago
  Google employs 100k people. It's entirely possible some of them are assholes on completely different parts of the political spectrum. (But yeah, it's clickbait.)
  - _exnk 6y ago
    Well this event, if true, doesn’t even have anything to do with politics. I guess my point was more that this seems like a major screwup by a company that tries to project itself as a champion of diversity and inclusiveness, so much so that it’s hard for me to believe this lady’s story in its entirety.
- gameswithgo 6y ago
  google has fired a number of insufferably political people on both sides of the aisle. a left leaning one quite recently was news here in fact. but because one insufferable dude was a right leaning autist instead of a left leaning one we gotta hear about bias fooooreverrrrrr
  - IntelMiner 6y ago
    Please don't use "autist" as a slur. It's extremely offensive to people on the spectrum
- jeromegv 6y ago
  Google didn't hire from any HBCU until 2014... while they kept claiming (falsely pretending) they wanted more diversity in the company. That is easily verifiable.
hshshs2 6y ago
the irony being that if it were a disability they couldn't fire her for it
tasubotadas 6y ago
Is that another victim-bait story? Yes, it is. No one really bothered to investigate the real reason for firing. Quite likely, it is the usual case of toxic-attitude and the management just had enough of that. Nobody fires employees just because they speak funny or some other stupid background. Especialy after going through the extra "affirmative" effort and having in mind what kind of reaction the company will face after firing a black employee.
- jeromegv 6y ago
  "Quite likely"... yep, you made it all up. We have the testimony of someone, which you blame as one-sided, but then you come up with your alternate story that is also totally one-sided. You do realize you are as biaised right? Except here, you're siding with one of the biggest corporation in the world to assume that they treated their employee fairly. Excuse me if i'm more likely to believe an employee that share the story publicly under her name, might alleniate future employer, etc. More likely to believe that story of someone who worked at Google for that many years, than an anonymous commenter on HN that just came out with their alternate theory to defend the corporation. If you had read the twitter thread you would know the language is not the reason of the firing, so it seems you also didn't go very far in your "investigation".
  - tasubotadas 6y ago
    > assume that they treated their employee fairly. Biggest corporations in the world have rules and processes and to believe that the manager or corp was out there to "get her" instead of her just being toxic (or use whatever other word for "poor culture fit") would be a violation of Occams Razor.
    - jakelazaroff 6y ago
      No, it would not. “Her manager was racist” is just as simple an explanation as “she was considered a bad fit despite high performance.”
- holstvoogd 6y ago
umvi 6y ago
A black woman from Baltimore was hired to be a affirmative action recruiter and her white manager didn't like her "Baltimore accent"? Well I live in Maryland and I'm not sure what a "Baltimore accent" is, so I'm just assuming she is referring to AAVE? I mean, sure, there are a few words people from Baltimore pronounce slightly differently (like "water") but... hardly enough to call it it's own accent or a disability. This is yet another he-said she-said story that is impossible to judge for ourselves and stokes racial outrage...
- hinkley 6y ago
  I thought this rang a bell. Do a video search for “Aaron earned an iron urn.” PS: fuck Aaron.
- jakelazaroff 6y ago
  > This is yet another he-said she-said story that is impossible to judge for ourselves and stokes racial outrage... I’d just like to mention that this is part of the point. How many Black people need to come forward with these “he-said she-said” stories for us to realize that casual racism in the workplace is actually extremely plausible?
  - defertoreptar 6y ago
    Whether something is plausible doesn't make it actionable. "He said, she said" shouldn't be actionable because it lacks verifiable evidence, outside of two people's subjective experiences. Those two people are the most vulnerable to bias because they have the most incentive to disregard the whole truth. I think it was Charlie Munger who said, "never expect someone to understand that which their job depends on them not understanding."
    - rufio 6y ago
      nit: It was Upton Sinclair, in fact. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upton_Sinclair https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upton_Sinclair
    - imbnwa 6y ago
throwaway29303 6y ago
There may be legit concerns regarding how Google handle themselves, but I can't help but notice the patterns of various, disparate and relatively sudden reports of Google's alleged discrimination. It almost feels like a concerted attack. Weird.
cafard 6y ago
I think of stressing the third syllable of "ambulance" as a strong Maryland marker. Pronouncing "island" as "ollin" is said to be Baltimorean, but you can hear that in western Pennsylvania, too.
drosan 6y ago
Another whining post of someone toxic blaming everyone around. Nope, I don't believe much of this story. Thankfully meritocracy is still a thing and if that person was "bullied" and fired they totally deserve that.
hanklazard 6y ago
If all that she says is true, then she should obviously file suit and force google to compensate her for this alleged injustice. I guarantee you that Google has a very large file on her with very detailed evidence of why she was fired and if they tweeted all of it, we might have a different view of this story.

25 points by elsewhen 6y ago

>Google said it has a "large team of recruiters who work incredibly hard to increase the hiring of Black+ and other underrepresented talent" at the firm. Maybe they should "work incredibly hard" at reducing the discrimination and firing after they're hired, too, then. I always assume there's more to the story when I only hear from one side, but there's no excuse for anyone at Google telling someone their accent is a disability that should be disclosed to other employees. That's so incredibly ignorant that it's impossible for me not to be mad about it. And with that statement, I have no doubt that she's correct about why she was shouted down in meetings and repeatedly denied promotions and opportunities, and eventually fired.

ajuc 6y ago
If you fire a white guy nobody cares. If you fire a person you hired to fill a minority quota - there's a big risk of bad PR or a court case. How do you think this influences people hiring minorities? It becomes "necessary evil". BTW I'm Polish, my English pronunciation is very bad, never had problems because of that and I don't consider myself "minority" nor want preferential treatment. I highly doubt it would be different if I worked at Google (especially looking at accents of some people from Google I worked with).

julianlam 6y ago

The headline is a bit of clickbait. I read the whole rant on Twitter, and the story with the Baltimore accent was a comment told to her by a colleague, used as an example of the discriminatory behaviour she faced, but it was NOT a reason for her firing.

_exnk 6y ago

If there were corroboration of her story in the article and not just hearsay from Twitter I would feel more sympathetic. This is the same company that also allegedly squashes conservative voices internally. I guess it seems like google is trying hard to be woke and this allegation is definitely not woke so my initial reaction is skepticism. Edit: after re-reading the story I think the thing that bothers me the most, not just about this but about employment in general, is employers encouraging self—identification of disabilities so they can meet their 7% quota. I think that’s a regulation that just wasn’t well thought out.

norswap 6y ago
Google employs 100k people. It's entirely possible some of them are assholes on completely different parts of the political spectrum. (But yeah, it's clickbait.)
- _exnk 6y ago
  Well this event, if true, doesn’t even have anything to do with politics. I guess my point was more that this seems like a major screwup by a company that tries to project itself as a champion of diversity and inclusiveness, so much so that it’s hard for me to believe this lady’s story in its entirety.
gameswithgo 6y ago
google has fired a number of insufferably political people on both sides of the aisle. a left leaning one quite recently was news here in fact. but because one insufferable dude was a right leaning autist instead of a left leaning one we gotta hear about bias fooooreverrrrrr
- IntelMiner 6y ago
  Please don't use "autist" as a slur. It's extremely offensive to people on the spectrum
jeromegv 6y ago
Google didn't hire from any HBCU until 2014... while they kept claiming (falsely pretending) they wanted more diversity in the company. That is easily verifiable.

hshshs2 6y ago

the irony being that if it were a disability they couldn't fire her for it

tasubotadas 6y ago

Is that another victim-bait story? Yes, it is. No one really bothered to investigate the real reason for firing. Quite likely, it is the usual case of toxic-attitude and the management just had enough of that. Nobody fires employees just because they speak funny or some other stupid background. Especialy after going through the extra "affirmative" effort and having in mind what kind of reaction the company will face after firing a black employee.

jeromegv 6y ago
"Quite likely"... yep, you made it all up. We have the testimony of someone, which you blame as one-sided, but then you come up with your alternate story that is also totally one-sided. You do realize you are as biaised right? Except here, you're siding with one of the biggest corporation in the world to assume that they treated their employee fairly. Excuse me if i'm more likely to believe an employee that share the story publicly under her name, might alleniate future employer, etc. More likely to believe that story of someone who worked at Google for that many years, than an anonymous commenter on HN that just came out with their alternate theory to defend the corporation. If you had read the twitter thread you would know the language is not the reason of the firing, so it seems you also didn't go very far in your "investigation".
- tasubotadas 6y ago
  > assume that they treated their employee fairly. Biggest corporations in the world have rules and processes and to believe that the manager or corp was out there to "get her" instead of her just being toxic (or use whatever other word for "poor culture fit") would be a violation of Occams Razor.
  - jakelazaroff 6y ago
    No, it would not. “Her manager was racist” is just as simple an explanation as “she was considered a bad fit despite high performance.”
holstvoogd 6y ago

umvi 6y ago

A black woman from Baltimore was hired to be a affirmative action recruiter and her white manager didn't like her "Baltimore accent"? Well I live in Maryland and I'm not sure what a "Baltimore accent" is, so I'm just assuming she is referring to AAVE? I mean, sure, there are a few words people from Baltimore pronounce slightly differently (like "water") but... hardly enough to call it it's own accent or a disability. This is yet another he-said she-said story that is impossible to judge for ourselves and stokes racial outrage...

hinkley 6y ago
I thought this rang a bell. Do a video search for “Aaron earned an iron urn.” PS: fuck Aaron.
jakelazaroff 6y ago
> This is yet another he-said she-said story that is impossible to judge for ourselves and stokes racial outrage... I’d just like to mention that this is part of the point. How many Black people need to come forward with these “he-said she-said” stories for us to realize that casual racism in the workplace is actually extremely plausible?
- defertoreptar 6y ago
  Whether something is plausible doesn't make it actionable. "He said, she said" shouldn't be actionable because it lacks verifiable evidence, outside of two people's subjective experiences. Those two people are the most vulnerable to bias because they have the most incentive to disregard the whole truth. I think it was Charlie Munger who said, "never expect someone to understand that which their job depends on them not understanding."
  - rufio 6y ago
    nit: It was Upton Sinclair, in fact. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upton_Sinclair https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upton_Sinclair
  - imbnwa 6y ago

throwaway29303 6y ago

There may be legit concerns regarding how Google handle themselves, but I can't help but notice the patterns of various, disparate and relatively sudden reports of Google's alleged discrimination. It almost feels like a concerted attack. Weird.

cafard 6y ago

I think of stressing the third syllable of "ambulance" as a strong Maryland marker. Pronouncing "island" as "ollin" is said to be Baltimorean, but you can hear that in western Pennsylvania, too.

drosan 6y ago

Another whining post of someone toxic blaming everyone around. Nope, I don't believe much of this story. Thankfully meritocracy is still a thing and if that person was "bullied" and fired they totally deserve that.

hanklazard 6y ago

If all that she says is true, then she should obviously file suit and force google to compensate her for this alleged injustice. I guarantee you that Google has a very large file on her with very detailed evidence of why she was fired and if they tweeted all of it, we might have a different view of this story.