Jazz musician enlisted to fight hate in the workplace…
Has it gotten that bad?
The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission thinks discrimination in the workplace is so bad they had to enlist to help of jazz musician Wynton Marsalis.
From the EEOC:
The announcements should help heighten awareness of race and color discrimination as the EEOC advances its national initiative to bring a fresh, 21st century approach to combating racism, which remains the most frequent claim filed with the agency. E-RACE (Eradicating Racism And Colorism from Employment) is an outreach, education, and enforcement campaign to advance the statutory right to a workplace free of race and color discrimination.
“The EEOC is proud to partner with Wynton Marsalis to convey this information,” EEOC Chair Naomi C. Earp said. “His participation enhances our message and ensures that a broad audience will be apprised of the importance of equal employment opportunity.”
Discrimination and harassment have reached ridiculous levels in offices and plants across the country. I wrote about this issue for MSNBC a while back.
Do you think Marsalis will make a difference?
Would it have been smarter to also use some famous white guy in the PSA telling people not to spew hate?
March 4th, 2008 at 8:20 pm
I have seen racial discrimination first had. I quit an employeer for that reason. The discrimination was not against me, but I felt compelled to show my support for a better work place. I have also seen the other side of the race coin. The one where a person of color uses the race card to get over on others because they lacked what was needed for the job. What I do want to say is that organizations like the EEOC, US Dept of Labor and the ACLU really only support those that are of color or women. They may say a lot about cases they have handeled for others but just as they said there are few complaints. The reason there are few complaints is because most white males know these groups will not do much to help them. They don’t apply the same standard to determind if they have a valid case. So if your a white male you have to go it alone, if you can afford it!! Most company’s will are affraid of minorities and will do what ever they can not to make them mad but if your a whit male they will spit all over you. In many of these stories the workers are the ones being taken advantage of and company’s go on with impunity. All it would take is for the government or the court’s to have the guts to make them really pay so that it hurts them good, even if it puts them out of business and not allow them to file bankruptcy. things would truly change. But like I said they have to have the guts to do the job.
March 7th, 2008 at 4:38 am
The more we speak about race, the higher the fences become….