GiovaniMarcon
Mentor
One of my office mates got written up last week because he made a "culturally insensitive" remark at a meeting, and it made one of the higher level executives butt-hurt.
The gist of what went on was that our investment firm (I work in the public relations/advertising dept. now) was trying to think of more ways to attract minority investors in a stagnant economy (business is really down right now), and one of the ways proposed was to create more aggressive advertising material (magazine ads, billboards, etc.) showcasing Black and Latino families. Most of the ideas both verbal and ad-prototype centered around showing the Black and Latino families living like stereotypical, White suburbanites.
My coworker pointed out that people don't invest money because a company racially panders to them, but if they've got money in the first place -- and that people with money might invest it regardless of their race.
He stopped there.
The executive who wrote him up (an incompetent half black/white lady whom I suspect is an affirmative action hire) took it upon herself to say something like, "So what are you saying? We need to show single moms living in studio apartments with crack babies and gangster tattooed boyfriends?"
Suddenly many of the people at the meeting decided that it was the first guy who came up with this outrageous assumption, and he didn't say anything more throughout the meeting. He got "counseled" the next day and was written up, so he tells me.
He resigned a day later because he suddenly got this rep around the office of being a White supremacist.
He's a wealthy, older-but-still-young guy (about 50) so I think he quit fast because he doesn't even really need the job.
A lot of people in the office don't want to even try to be creative on advertising projects because they're scared of crap like this.
Question.
COULD HE HAVE SUED?
I feel like he got ran out of the office unfairly.
The gist of what went on was that our investment firm (I work in the public relations/advertising dept. now) was trying to think of more ways to attract minority investors in a stagnant economy (business is really down right now), and one of the ways proposed was to create more aggressive advertising material (magazine ads, billboards, etc.) showcasing Black and Latino families. Most of the ideas both verbal and ad-prototype centered around showing the Black and Latino families living like stereotypical, White suburbanites.
My coworker pointed out that people don't invest money because a company racially panders to them, but if they've got money in the first place -- and that people with money might invest it regardless of their race.
He stopped there.
The executive who wrote him up (an incompetent half black/white lady whom I suspect is an affirmative action hire) took it upon herself to say something like, "So what are you saying? We need to show single moms living in studio apartments with crack babies and gangster tattooed boyfriends?"
Suddenly many of the people at the meeting decided that it was the first guy who came up with this outrageous assumption, and he didn't say anything more throughout the meeting. He got "counseled" the next day and was written up, so he tells me.
He resigned a day later because he suddenly got this rep around the office of being a White supremacist.
He's a wealthy, older-but-still-young guy (about 50) so I think he quit fast because he doesn't even really need the job.
A lot of people in the office don't want to even try to be creative on advertising projects because they're scared of crap like this.
Question.
COULD HE HAVE SUED?
I feel like he got ran out of the office unfairly.
