5 ms·
Anyone here know the law well? Would Tesla be open to lawsuits if they fired African-American colleagues who used racial slurs (including the n- word) in a "fr
by 1cvmask 5y ago
Anyone here know the law well?
Would Tesla be open to lawsuits if they fired African-American colleagues who used racial slurs (including the n- word) in a "friendly" manner?
From the article:
“In addition to Mr. Diaz, three other witnesses (all non-Tesla contract employees) testified at trial that they regularly heard racial slurs (including the n-word) on the Fremont factory floor. While they all agreed that the use of the n-word was not appropriate in the workplace, they also agreed that most of the time they thought the language was used in a ‘friendly’ manner and usually by African-American colleagues.”
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- arp242 5y agoContext is always important. "Haha, you're such a fucking asshole" is not the same as "YOU FUCKING ASSHOLE!" either. It's hard to really judge the context from here; none of us were there, and I didn't read the full court report either (as most of us haven't). In another article Diaz said "some days I would just sit on my stairs and cry" so I'm gonna guess the context wasn't particularly friendly. It's still possible that there was a mismatch in how it was intended: the offenders intended it in a friendly way, but that's not how it was taken. It can happen to the best of us sometimes. One mistake is one mistake and can happen, but to be honest you need to be pretty darn tone-deaf to not notice that someone is uncomfortable from someone's response in both verbal and non-verbal clues, or a bit of an asshole to choose to ignore this. All in all, based on the reporting I find the "it was intended in a friendly manner" rather unconvincing, even when we give people the benefit of the doubt. Was it truly "racist"? I don't know; I'll withhold that judgement. But at the very least it strikes me as insensitive and unkind.