Diversity is a one way street

Gonz

Gonz

molṑn labé
Staff member
Heathrow check-in worker Nadia Eweida was sent home after refusing to remove the crucifix which breached BA's dress code.

...she and fellow employees had just undergone "diversity training" - including receiving advice from pressure group Stonewall on how to treat gays and lesbians in the workplace.

The airline's uniform code states that staff must not wear visible jewellery or other 'adornments' while on duty without permission from management.

It makes exceptions for Muslim and Sikh minorities by allowing them to wear hijabs and turbans.

Under rules drawn up by BA's 'diversity team' and 'uniform committee', Sikh employees can even wear the traditional iron bangle - even though this would usually be classed as jewellery - while Muslim workers are also allowed prayer breaks during work time.
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Makes an exception for Mulsims & Sikhs, huh. Yet this woman was suspended for wearing a cross. Diversity in action.

Daily Mail
 
Just read that. All I can say is the squeaky wheel gets the grease. The entitlement pendulum swings and fro. There is no such thing as equal treatment under the eyes of the law.
 
I've never heard of anybody making exceptions for christian sensibilities or discriminating against muslims. :rolleyes:
 
What? It doesn't matter to you when it goes the other way?

Discrimination against Christians = Bad
Discrimination against Muslims = Good

Bigotry.

That pretty much sum it up?
 
I've read and reread everything here several times and at NO point does either Gonzo or I intone that discrimination against Muslims is a good thing. Our argument is for generalized playing field of equality and a little common sense. You really don't get it.
 
unclehobart said:
Our argument is for generalized playing field of equality and a little common sense. You really don't get it.
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If that's the case then you really don't get it. The playing field is nowhere close to equal in the US.

Muslims are discriminated against far more than Christians and pointing out an instance where it goes one direction in no way changes the fact that it goes the other direction most of the time.

You want a playing field of equality then look at inequality for real.
 
I have no idea what one party in this three-way discussion is saying, nor will I unless it gets quoted. But I bet I can guess it close enough.

A Muslim in America can pretty much go about his or her day without significant fear of being beheaded. Can a Christian in a Muslim country say the same?

Yet Christians in America deal daily with liberals and other wastes of internal organs going ballistic if any manner of public display of our faith is allowed. Put up a cross by the side of the road where your husband was killed by a drunk driver? For shame! Be allowed an opportunity for even a silent prayer outside the walls of your home or your church? No way! Wear a cross on a lapel? Discrimination!

I got a news flash. This is a nation founded on the Christian faith. Said faith is not government ordained, as some are in some other countries, which means that you will not be forced to participate in it. However, it does not for one second diminish the fact that it was so founded. If someone chooses not to practice that faith, or any faith at all for that matter, that is fine. But that does not grant license to then prohibit me from practicing mine. See, that's where you nutjobs lose credence in your whiny-ass snot nosed ramblings. This "I don't therefore you can't" mentality you embrace so selectively doesn't hold water.

You want to stand there and advocate that because a small minority of men in this country CHOOSE to suck each other off, they have rights. True enough. Then you want to deny the majority their rights to be a majority. That's called hypocrisy. And it's wearing thin.

I can't speak for anyone else. But I can speak for myself. I don't give a Dixie damn what the cause is. If the United Brotherhood of Left Handed Albino Sanscrit-Speaking Lactose Intollerent Window Washers made it evident through word and deed that they wanted me and/or anyone like me dead, I would consider them an enemy. Maybe some of you would instead react differently and start running about advocating for them. I'm guessing at least one of us would. But I wouldn't. That's just how I'm wired. But here's the kicker. After I rid my life of the dangers embodied by these upstart militant cleaners of the pane, I would then turn my attention to those affiliated with them. See, you can't raise a garden just by pulling the big weeds out...uyou gotta take a hoe and get them little ones too, cuz they can grow and be a bigger nuisance than the initial ones.

K, I'm done. Y'all go ahead with the next 4 pages without me. Squeaky wheel, time for your grease. Whine on, as I and everyone else certainly expect. If I were interested in it, I wouldn't have to wait for you to be quoted to know what you say. Hug your camels, flaunt your turban, whatever gets you through your day. Just do one thing before you go to bed tonight. Fall on your knees and thank God you live in a country where you and your ilk are allowed to be such an intolerable nuisance...because you would already have been executed in a Muslim country.

Have at it.
 
spike said:
The playing field is nowhere close to equal in the US.
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Doesn't get it.

SouthernN'Proud said:
Said faith is not government ordained, as some are in some other countries, which means that you will not be forced to participate in it. If someone chooses not to practice that faith, or any faith at all for that matter, that is fine.
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Gets it.

Now, to be fair, this is not an American case but the point still stands. Diversity is either diverse, or its not. All parrties should get a little tolerance (hey, there's THAT word) for their faith. If you give allowances for one but not another - it's not tolerant & diversity is not being practiced.
 
SouthernN'Proud said:
I got a news flash. This is a nation founded on the Christian faith.
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again....

no
it
isn't

sure, thems pilgrims were superduper christians, and lots of dirt farmers were enthusiastically christian. but the people that mattered preferred RATIONAL approaches in the ENLIGHTENMENT tradition.
 
2minkey said:
sure, thems pilgrims were superduper christians, and lots of dirt farmers were enthusiastically christian. but the people that mattered preferred RATIONAL approaches in the ENLIGHTENMENT tradition.
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That is right.
There had been several of the framers of the constitution that were agnostic look towards religion but took a rational view...
 
Gonz said:
Now, to be fair, this is not an American case but the point still stands. Diversity is either diverse, or its not. All parrties should get a little tolerance (hey, there's THAT word) for their faith. If you give allowances for one but not another - it's not tolerant & diversity is not being practiced.
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You don't get it. FAR MORE allowances are made for Christians than Muslims in the US and England..

You want to jump on any example of discimination against Christians and act like discrimination against Muslims doesn't exist.

Since we know that's not the case and there's actually a lot more discrimination against Muslims where is your point?
 
Wow, how is all this traffic going the other way on the street just going unnoticed?


Nov. 24, 2004 – A Virginia woman has filed racial discrimination charges against Goodwill Industries after her former boss allegedly refused to allow her to wear a religious headscarf at work and then fired her.

In her court filing, as reported by the Roanoke Times, Jennifer Abdelwahed, a convert to Islam, said that her boss told her she could not wear a hijab at work because she had not been wearing one when she was hired. On a separate occasion, according to the filing, Abdelwahed asked why her coworker was allowed to wear a bandanna on his head but she could not wear a headscarf. Abdelwahed alleges that her boss told her it was because "we are not at war with him."
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http://newstandardnews.net/content/index.cfm/items/1255

Workplace Bias Against Muslims, Arabs on Rise, Advocates Say
A tally of complaints jumped in 2005. Some victims may fear reporting to authorities.
By Alana Semuels, Times Staff Writer
October 3, 2006


The restaurant manager from Morocco, the Armenian caterer from Syria and the Yemeni sailor aren't all Muslims and hail from different homelands. But all three say they suffered discrimination at work after Sept. 11, 2001, because of their national origin or perceptions that they were Muslim.

Now, they are among those who have filed lawsuits through the California offices of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission — reflecting increasing discrimination against people of Middle Eastern and South Asian descent, according to advocacy groups.

ADVERTISEMENT"I did not think this would happen when I came here," said Abdellatif Hadji, who moved from Morocco to the United States in 1989 and recently filed an EEOC suit against a Mendocino County restaurant where he was a manager. "America is the land of opportunity."

Reports of workplace discrimination against people perceived to be Muslim or Arab soared after the Sept. 11 attacks and then declined, government statistics indicate. But some advocates say they've seen a resurgence in the last year that corresponds to global political events.

"Anytime there's anything in the news … that is related to the Middle East, you see a spike in hate-motivated and employment-related incidents," said Kareem Shora, director of the legal department of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee.

After 9/11, the EEOC introduced a category of employment discrimination against people who are or are perceived to be Arab, Muslim, Middle Eastern, South Asian or Sikh. Nationwide statistics from the EEOC indicate that such complaints — so far exceeding 1,000 — have decreased each year since 2002.

However, the Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations says it processed more civil-rights and workplace discrimination complaints in 2005 than ever before. The annual total jumped to 1,972 in 2005 from 1,522 in 2004. The discrepancy may indicate that victims fear reporting discrimination to the government.

"We only see the tip of the iceberg," said Joan Ehrlich, district director of the EEOC office in San Francisco. "It's probably not even reflective of the amount of discrimination going on because people are afraid to come to the government for help."

One of Ehrlich's cases involves Hadji, the Moroccan restaurant manager. He filed suit Aug. 31 against the Albion River Inn.

Hadji said that in late 2004, he reproached a customer for harassing a Tunisian waiter. Hadji said he asked the customer to leave after the diner said, "If you don't like it, go back to your country," and "I fought two wars to get rid of people like you."

The restaurant's owners ordered Hadji to apologize to the customer or resign, Hadji said. Hadji left the restaurant and moved to San Francisco.

"All I was trying to do was protect my staff from racial harassment," he said.

Ray Erlach, an attorney for the restaurant, said the evidence didn't support the allegations. "The Albion River Inn has had a perfect record for 25 years of inclusivity of all races and religions," he said. "No one has ever complained."

Hadji's case is similar to one filed Sept. 25 by the Los Angeles EEOC office in which a caterer who worked for the Monterey Hill restaurant alleged that she was called "Mrs. Bin Laden," even though she's Christian. The suit said the woman was told she watched too much Al Jazeera, the Mideast-based news channel, and was subjected to other discrimination because of her Syrian background. The eatery, located in Monterey Park, is owned by Anaheim-based Specialty Restaurants Corp., operator of nearly 40 outlets, including Castaway in Burbank.

"They say that discrimination doesn't happen in America anymore, but I have something to say to that," said the 29-year-old Glendale resident, who asked that her name be withheld for fear of trouble at her new job.

A representative of Specialty Restaurants said the company hadn't seen the lawsuit and couldn't comment.

In 2005, the Council on American-Islamic Relations received more discrimination complaints in California than any other state — 378, or 19% of all complaints. The council's L.A. office said 68 of those complaints were workplace-related, up from 56 in 2004.

The large number of California complaints partly reflects the state's sizable Muslim population. Still, civil rights lawyers said they were taken aback by the volume.



"I have been surprised by the number of calls coming from the Bay Area because we have this perception of the Bay Area being a very accepting place," said Shirin Sinnar, an attorney with the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights who represents Hadji.

Anna Park, an attorney in the EEOC's Los Angeles office, said diverse cities still saw a great deal of discrimination as demographics shifted. "The cases that we bring now are not just between blacks and whites," she said.

Research by the nonprofit Discrimination Research Center suggests that much employment-related bias has focused on Muslims.

In a 2004 study, the center sent out 6,000 fictitious resumes to employment firms throughout California. All applicants were similarly qualified, but the resumes included 20 names "identifiable" as white, Latino, African American, Asian American, Arab American or South Asian. The name Heidi McKenzie got the highest response rate, 36.7%, and Abdul-Aziz Mansour got the lowest, 23%.

In a case filed recently by EEOC attorney Park, seven Yemeni sailors working for Norwegian Cruise Line were fired in rapid succession "because they looked Muslim," Park said.

The firings occurred after the FBI began investigating a report that a crew member had asked about the location of a cruise ship's engine room, arousing suspicions. The men were fired before the investigation was completed, the suit alleged.

Norwegian Cruise Line said in a statement that its actions were "completely proper." In another instance, Ali Golchin, a San Diego attorney who is well-known in the Iranian community, said he was approached by seven Muslims interested in filing discrimination lawsuits against their employers. Five were Iranians. Some were government and university employees whose security clearances were revoked or not renewed because of their country of origin, Golchin said, a trend that lawyers in the California EEOC also are seeing.

Golchin said it was not just Muslims who were encountering discrimination: A Latino friend was stopped by airport security in Los Angeles because he looked Middle Eastern.

Since the London bombings in July 2005, tensions have worsened, he said. "It seems like the fabric of society is falling apart."
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http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-eeoc3oct03,1,3563037.story?track=crosspromo&coll=la-headlines-business&ctrack=1&cset=true

Post-9/11 workplace discrimination continues
By Stephanie Armour, USA TODAY
Nearly four years after the terrorist attacks, Muslim, South Asian and Arab-American employees continue to report discrimination on the job.
Compared with the first two years after the Sept. 11 attacks, the number of employees saying they've been discriminated against as a form of backlash because of the attacks has declined. But charges continue to come in, indicating that Arab-American and other workers still feel discriminated against.

"People are being called 'terrorist' at work, things of that sort," says Arsalan Iftikhar, national legal director at Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). "A lot of cases continue to go on. People have been called Osama bin Laden, told they are going to mosque to learn how to build a bomb."

Nearly 280 claims of discrimination in the workplace were received by CAIR in 2004, and the workplace was the second-most-common location for an alleged incident. The first was government agencies.

At the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, about 980 charges alleging post-9/11 backlash discrimination have been filed through June 11 since the 2001 attacks. Most involved firing and alleged harassment; the EEOC specifically tracks "backlash" cases, where employees claim discrimination relating to 9/11.

Likewise, religious bias charges are higher today than before 9/11. From Sept. 11, 2001, through June 11, the EEOC received 2,168 charges of discrimination based on an employee's Muslim religion. That compares with 1,104 such charges in the same time span before the attacks.

The agency has obtained more than $4.2 million on behalf of employees alleging post-9/11 backlash. The EEOC has filed lawsuits against employers such as MBNA America Bank, the Plaza hotel in New York, Alamo Rent A Car and construction giant Bechtel.

Some recent EEOC cases:

• A lawsuit alleging the New York Plaza hotel and Fairmont Hotel Management discriminated against Muslim, Arab and South Asian employees was settled last month for $525,000. A 2001 lawsuit claimed that Plaza employees were called "terrorist," "Taliban" and "dumb Muslim." It also alleges that managers wrote "Osama" and "Taliban" instead of employees' names on key holders.

Fairmont Hotel Management managed the hotel, which has since been sold. "As a company, we are committed to providing a work environment free of discrimination or harassment," says Carolyn Clark, senior vice president of human resources at Fairmont, in Toronto.

• In March, upscale seafood restaurant Pesce agreed to pay $150,000 to settle a lawsuit alleging bias against the store's general manager. According to the lawsuit, a former co-owner openly speculated that the manager's Egyptian name and appearance were the reasons Pesce had seen earnings drop in the months after 9/11. The manager was fired. Pesce, which has since been sold to new owners, declined to comment.

• The EEOC filed a lawsuit last year against an MBNA subsidiary in Philadelphia claiming in part that offensive comments were made to Indian and black employees after 9/11, including an Indian employee who was called "Osama bin Laden." The case is pending. MBNA says there is no merit to the claim.
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http://www.usatoday.com/money/workplace/2005-07-05-anti-arab-workplace_x.htm
 
:yawn: What I don't get is the whole "two wrongs make a right" mentality. Discriminating against one side is bad so we must therefore discriminate against the other until some imaginary balance is achieved?
 
SouthernN'Proud said:
A Muslim in America can pretty much go about his or her day without significant fear of being beheaded. Can a Christian in a Muslim country say the same?
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No one mentioned being offended, put upon, looked at funny, anything else. Beheaded. Killed. Executed. I consider those things a tad more serious than being singled out at the grocery store or what have you.

Or are we still denying that Christians are executed by our enemies? Maybe I should back up and make sure we all agree on that point first...
 
Gonz said:
This is not about discrimination. It is about hypocrisy.
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Sure, it's hypocritcal to give muslims allowances christians don't get and it's hypocritical to to give christians allowance muslims don't get.

It's also hypocritical to notice the former and not the latter especially when there's far more of the latter.

Two wrongs don't make a right but you don't just ignore one of them.
 
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