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Re: Racial remark
Peter <email>
03/13/97 10:56 AM
My own thought is that you ought to seek out the manager of the gym and report
the incident to him. It will probably matter to the gym whether the remark was
made by an employee or by a member/patron. When speaking with the manager,
specifically ask whether or not the gym has a policy regarding treatment of
members that address a situation such as this. If it does, ask to see the
policy and ask what action the gym intends to take. If it has no policy in
place already regarding employee/member conduct, ask that one be adopted ASAP.
Follow up your meeting with the manager with a letter in which you once again
report the incident; briefly describe the key points of your conversation with
the manager, and list any key points upon which you did or did not reach
agreement or a satisfactory resolution.
It's unlikely that you live in an area where calling an Asian American a "gook"
is any kind of crime. Employers and universities and other private
establishments can bar all manner of hate speech, but there are severe limits to
what kinds of speech civil authorities can ban. Constitutional guarantees.
However, you may also live in an area where racial/ethnic intimidation or hate
crimes are on the rise, in which case there is a good chance that some public or
private agency is actually monitoring incidents and collecting information on
where, how, and among whom the incidents occur. If no other agency comes to
mind for you, then just call your local chapter of the American Civil Liberties
Union. A staff person there will know about and be able to refer you to the
appropriate organization, if any.
What you may want to do is just reconcile yourself to two realities: no one is
going to stick up for you if you don't stick up for yourself, so if anything is
to be done about this incident it has to be started by and pursued by you;
second, this kind of incident is likely to repeat itself in your life again and
again, sometimes less threatening, sometimes much more threatening - sometimes
much more subtle and much more damaging. It will happen. Don't accept it, but
do expect it.
FYI, don't get your hopes up about anyone responding swiftly or effectively to
the incident. Few years back I and my house were subjected to some pretty
rough treatment by some white "corner boys". A very intelligent, sympathetic,
and "knowing" Puerto Rican police detective told me finally that the only
solution he could offer was to tell me to move. Summer '96 saw my car
vandalized and set on fire with a racial slur written on the side, and all the
police could do was take and file a report. Just last week my foster brother
was given some really ugly and threatening treatment at the hands of some police
who detained him without cause and subjected him to a very involuntary and very
unreasonable search of he and his car... all because some woman in the
Stop'N'Gas lost her wallet... Too long a story to go into, but I'm too smart to
buy any excuses for it - those white suburban cops do not treat white suburban
gas station customers the way they treated him - does not happen. The ACLU
thanked us for the information about the incident, said all he could really do
was go back to that suburban wilderness, and file a complaint with the police
department. I'm leaving it up to him to decide whether or not to do that, but I
told him if he doesn't there'll be no consequences of any kind for the officers,
and no disincentive towards future mistreatment of Asians.
(What's really eerie about this is he's taking an introductory criminal justice
class, and the week before I'd been helping him understand police procedures and
civil rights, including detaining, arrests, and searches and seizures... So
much for theory!)
Good luck. -Pete
Hello netters,
Someone at the gym used racial remark "gook" directed at me earlier
tonight. I was just wondering is there some organizations out there
that I can report this incident to. I am very fearful to go back to
the gym for fear of being harassed.
Thank you for your help.
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