Comments on: Hotelier's Practices Draw Racism Charges

By: flimmigrant

flimmigrant — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 22:52:21 +0000

This guy puts the “white” in “Whitten” and needs to meet more people outside of his bubble. It’s never OK to force someone to call him/herself by another name in the workplace. Punto.

By: Victor M.

Victor M. — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 22:20:24 +0000

Why should we care if this is his personal business?

Because this likely violates state or federal anti-discrimination policies in the workplace.

To be polite and not speak a different language in front of non-native speakers of that language is one thing. Simple, cultural differences that can be discussed and even ironed out.

However, to codify and to officially implement as policies contractual obligations as conditional for employment is another issue all together. I think civil rights organizations as well as state and federal agencies would and should have issues with these policies.

By: LLOnline Blogera

LLOnline Blogera — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 20:22:35 +0000

El colmo de los colmos!!!!!!!

By: Carla Reyes

Carla Reyes — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 20:07:42 +0000

Ok- Is Whitten pronounced with a long I or short I? As I do not want to offend anybody.

His requests for name changing is ridiculous. I doubt his workers are going to correct anybody for pronouncing their God given name incorrectly. Not speaking spanish to him or around him or non-spanish speaking people is understandable, for obvious reasons.

He is resurrecting struggling hotels while stripping hispanic workers of they’re natural names. Yes, Marcos and Mark are two different names- and how hard is it to pronounce “mAr-Kos” in english, anyway? Next thing he will be requiring them to lose their accents. Let’s do something about this!

By: Susana V.

Susana V. — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 19:52:02 +0000

Olga – I agree that speaking Spanish in front of others that don’t understand can be rude, but forcing your employees to Anglicize their names because some people may not know how to pronounce “Marcos” is simply unacceptable. And ridiculous.

By: CrazyGringo

CrazyGringo — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 19:43:32 +0000

What do you mean “plain Martin”?? Now that’s racist!

By: Alex

Alex — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 19:38:10 +0000

Us hispanics, whenever possible, should have the courtesy of not speaking Spanish among ourselves when a non-spanish speaker is present. That’s just good manners. That a boss would expect his employees to speak a mutually comprehensible language is simply common sense. It is also not uncommon for a foreigner to accept a colloquial pronunciation of their name when they’re in a new country, at least in certain circumstances. If “Laura” moves to France, she might have to get used to being called “Lau-ha” (you know what I mean). Of all the problems that confront Hispanic Americans, the way in which people pronounce our names shouldn’t have high priority. Perhaps, however, Mr. Whitten should have sponsored some ESOL classes for his employees, especially if they were genuinely struggling with English.

By: Enrique

Enrique — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 19:37:07 +0000

What a RACIST. This is America, we are a nation of immigrants.

By: Olga

Olga — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 19:28:09 +0000

I think there are bigger problems than this. As a Venezuelan-American I see his point. It’s often rude to speak Spanish in front of those who do not know the language. How is this different than us calling up an outsourced company in India? Their names are all American.

Interesting post.