Friday, July 12, 2013

Missing the Target

Did you see the recent news story about the lawsuit against Target for racial discrimination?  Apparently they had a training document which the employees thought was offensive:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/09/target-multicultural-tips_n_3566873.html

I don't understand why the first three items (not all Hispanic employees eat tacos, wear sombreros or dance
to salsa music) would be considered offensive. It sounds like these items are saying that Mexicans DO NOT
always follow the stereotype. (For instance, it seems obvious that if the document said "Yes, all Hispanics
do all these things" then that would clearly been  even more offensive. It seems weird to me that it is possible for
a statement to be racially offensive AND for its exact negation to also be racially offensive.)

However, the other three items, as well as some of the other descriptions of the conduct involved, do seem to be
racially offensive. But the one part that did stick out to me is the item about "some Hispanics are undocumented
workers." And the context of this document is talking about other employees.

So Target is admitting to hiring undocumented workers? Isn't that illegal? I'm surprised none of the stories
picked up on that.

No comments: