7
dooter
3y

Today, my branch manager (vice president in the overall institution) sent an offensive and racist political meme to all employees at our site.

I was shocked and disgusted, as were many of my front-line colleagues. My immediate supervisors, however, shrugged it off. They agree that it is distasteful, but not enough to confront the prickly branch manager about it.

I believe that this sort of communication (which has nothing to do with the purpose of our nonprofit) would be seriously frowned upon by the overall organization’s CEO, were he aware. If this email was leaked to the press, it would reflect very poorly on our organization.

I feel compelled to speak up about this – but how? Confronting my branch manager directly – by myself – is pretty much guaranteed to go poorly for me. And organizing colleagues to action will no doubt be seen as troublemaking.

We have no HR to speak of. I’ve thought about forwarding the e-mail directly to our CEO, but that feels like tattling.

Comments
  • 8
    Send the screenshots to media. Do it via disposable email.
  • 2
    I agree 100% with @Floydimus
  • 1
    Or just ignore it. Being racist has nothing to do with his performance as a manager
  • 6
    @Hazarth What a ridiculous thing to say. You should call it out wherever it rears it’s ugly head. Of course it has a bearing on his management decisions.
  • 2
    First of all, make sure you cover your ass.

    Collect all copies of emails and store them in two places: cloud storage, removable media.

    Once you're sure you have enough information to protect yourself from being fired illegally leak the contents online through a VPN like express VPN and then create emails or social media accounts to send to the press.

    Also, know your rights and protections afforded to you. I only know about this site for in the US: https://rcfp.org/open-government-gu...

    One last thing, DON'T SHARE YOUR OPINIONS OR THOUGHTS WITH ANYONE THAT YOU KNOW. If you already have eluded that you may take action it's already too late. Don't give your employer any reason to suspect you. Have your story straight, "you were upset about the email but wouldn't dream of jeopardizing your role etc..."
  • 3
    @Hazarth Being racist has EVERYTHING to do with their performance as a manager. It shows that they have no respect for people from a certain background. What if there are people from said background on the team? Or of not now, in the future? Maybe those people cant even get hired because of this manager’s prejudice.
    This should not ever be ignored. If I was in OP’s position, I would go to the CEO. This is too important to blow off for fear of being seen as a tattle.
  • 1
    IANAL

    If they continue to ask more probing questions, tell them you feel uncomfortable and would like to seek out legal representation because you feel they are threatening your job and coercing you to admit to something you did not do.

    If it progresses any further than that, get up, and leave.

    The next 24 hours are very important to collect all communication with leadership.

    Lawyer up too, chances are they might be taking legal action.

    If you get a good lawyer, you might not need to work again. If you get a bad lawyer, you might not get to work again.
  • 0
    @helloworld

    what you're saying is essentially:

    >we should cancel everyone that has an opinion different than mine

    why? You can call him out when he actually discriminates against someone which hurts the company's performance or is illegal... until then you have nothing else than a guy finding a meme funny or whatever
  • 2
    @LLAMS

    wrong, you're making an assumption he is actually racist. Honestly we're missing more context to judge that, but everyone is jumping on the "I'm offended wagon" already?

    from the rant I don't know more than "he posted a political meme"

    was it a joke? If yes, does that make him racist?

    I laugh at "policeman are stupid" jokes all the time... does that mean I have a prejudice against policemen? I have policemen friends.. I haven't met a single one that's actually stupid... So all evidence would point at me not being anti-police just because I laugh and share policemen jokes...

    It logically follows that laughing at a meme doesn't make you what that meme shows...

    so... unless OP specifies the managers actual opinion or some other evidence (why didn't they already describe some of this if they had some?) that shows beyond reasonable doubt, that the boss isn't just a boomer laughing at boomer things... I stand my case
  • 2
    @sariel

    See, there's your mistake

    you assume I'm standing behind an ideology here...

    I'm not, I'm working of what OP said.... and what OP said is logically not enough to imply the Manager is actually racist..

    If you're being objective, you can clearly see how posting a meme != being a meme.

    Catch the Manager doing something that's actually illegal, like actually discriminating against *anyone* and then I will agree that he should be reported... until then we would just be asking for an attack on someone with possibly bad taste in jokes *shrug*
  • 1
    @Hazarth if that's the case, then she should share the content publicly and let the public decide.

    If it's racist or offensive then he will be punished for it, otherwise nobody will react and everyone will go home.
  • 1
    @sariel

    I agree, @dooter would need to be careful to not share anything personal so she doesn't get into trouble. This is, after all, intra-company communication, we have no real reach. If any of us acted upon that information it might get OP into trouble.

    but just reposting the meme alone is perfectly fine since the pic is probably in the public domain anyway. I doubt it's the guys original creation xD

    However we'd be missing the context still... a very strongly offensive meme might be a pretty clear indication of the managers stance... but a mildly offensive meme would need more context to be properly judged *thinking*

    but yes, the most obvious action at this point would be re-posting or linking the meme

    hmm... though question could be raised about legitimacy of the source now that I think about it, but considering OPs long rant and outrage, I myself would be willing to believe that they provided the actual image.
  • 0
    I'd probably ignore it, but if he keeps it up and makes it obvious that he is just being racist, I'd leak it while covering my ass. If it's just politics in general unrelated to discrimination, I wouldn't care.
    I wouldn't want to work with an actively and publicly racist guy. For all I know, my profile is part of his target group.
  • 1
    @ostream

    Why are you bringing shooting into this? Why escalate a discussion about a meme to threats of violence?
  • 0
    @Hazarth Racism is not an opinion the same way preferring React over Vue or Christianity over Hinduism is. Racism is invalidating people rather than concepts, objects or behaviors.
  • 0
    @Hazarth Did you really just compare opinions on agile methods to opinions on actual living human beings?
    Do yourself a favour and stop digging deeper into this hole youve made for yourself.
    Being hostile towards an entire race because of your own experience with them is still racist and nothing makes it ok. Stop trying to find reasons for racism to be ok.
  • 0
    @LLAMS

    I'm not digging a hole for myself. You're implying that I have said something on accident that I will regret but no, I said exactly what I intended to say and I mean it

    Yes, I compared it, because it's relevant analogy for the point I'm trying to make. The point being very simple: opinion are formed by experiences.

    All a human is, is a collection of experiences. We don't have omniscience, we live one day after another and your whole personality is built not by you, but by others and their actions. This is in my opinion a fact, and if you disagree I'd like to hear how
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