Oh, silly me. Every day is racism day. A hiring manager wrote this? On a facebook page about a NY Times article?
And 720 people liked it. Oh. 720 people liked the original article. Only 2 liked the comment. That’s better.
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
You know, “Tamisha” isn’t any harder to pronounce than “Jennifer” or “Christopher”, and it’s shorter than both.
What the hell does “African sounding names” even mean?
Wow
A hundred years ago, “Moskowitz” would have been as foreign-sounding in the Waspy offices of the time as “Tamisha” is today to Mr. Moskowitz.
Sounds like someone wants to get sued by every black candidate that applied to that company.
It looks like the ‘720 people like this’ is referring to something else above this asshat’s comment, which appears to have garnered 2 more ‘likes’ than it should have.
The man does seem to be asking for a visit from the EEOC. From their website:
I was gonna fantasize about abducting Mr. Moskowitz into my time machine and taking him to the year 1910 but jamesheartney beat me to it.
I read about this the other day. Seems to me, Mr. Moskowitz, that you should perhaps not have your current job, given that your name is something other than John Smith.
You know, if he was being truthful then I, Wojtek Krzyzosiak, would be utterly screwed. And I’m a white male. This statement makes no sense even given that he is a racist ass.
Also, is Mr. Moskowitz unaware of Jack Benny, George Burns, and the zillions of other Jewish performers who had to Anglicize their names in order to get work in non-Jewish theaters?
The original tumblr post included these details:
So it was the NYT article linked on their FB page that had garnered the 720 likes at the time of Mr Moskowitz’s comment. My google-fu tells me that this is the article referenced: Will a ‘Black’ Name Brand My Son With Mug Shots Before He’s Even Born?
WTF is a “tribal” name? And how would an African “tribal name” be any more or less tribal in origin than Moskowitz, a name derived originally from Moses?
No doubt some folks will be along shortly to explain that this isn’t really racism, because he’s only refusing to hire some black people, and he probably wouldn’t hire a white person named Tamisha either, and some of his best friends are black, and it’s only racism if you swear an affidavit in blood that you hate all people of a particular race, except of course for “reverse racism” which is conclusively proven any time a white person feels sad.
And of course, Moskowitz has now deleted the comment from the FB thread, edited his FB profile to remove information about where he lives to make it more difficult for his place of employment to be tracked down, and is no doubt whining to all and sundry about how unfair it is that he’s being called out for freely expressing his racist views.
Holy shit. If this passes the bar for what Mr. Moskowitz is willing to say out loud (on twitter even), who knows what thoughts he harbors which he thinks are too insensitive to share.
Well fuck you too, Fievel!
I guess that’s one positive thing about Facebook’s real name policy.
When someone simply cannot resist posting something incredibly stupid as a reply, it gets tied to their real identity for all the world to see.
…But then, given how much people on the internet just love playing vigilante, the inevitable collateral damage during the hunt is all too predictable.
I can imagine this guy getting 720 likes from all the Black candidates who were passed over.
“Thanks, white dude! Now I don’t have to stress about what in my resume might be deficient and can just sue your ass, and your company’s ass, for enough money to fund my own start up and not have to deal with racist hiring managers!”
Given that his discrimination against Black folk has already occurred, that would be an outcome to his commenting that I could truly get behind.
@dongiovanni
Just piping up to say, I’ve always thought Wojtek was a most lovely name. That is all.
Because “Moskowitz” is totally easy to pronounce and isn’t an ethnic name at all.
I’d love to see the list of names of the 720 likes. I’m sure it would be hypocritalicious.
720 likes? Am I reading it wrongly? (Not a Facebook user.)
There’s two likes at the bottom, by the little thumbs-up sign. I assumed the 720 was for whatever’s above it.
Mr. Moskowitz? The company lawyer would like to have a word with you at your earliest convenience.
Going by the latest news in the attempted doxing saga, it looks like Mr Moskowitz was engaging in some bignoting of himself by claiming to be a hiring manager. Latest news indicates he runs a small business from home.
If he ever was a hiring manager anywhere, looks like those days are long gone.
I hesitate, that I may end up putting my foot in my mouth, but here goes; he is saying he will “automatically disregard African sounding names” [semi-paraphrase] He is not saying he will disregard Africans, just if they have “African sounding” names. It is certainly racists to assume a strangely spelled name is African, but is that just as racist as disregarding all Africans based on skin color? … oh, sorry, never-mind, my foot tastes nasty. His attitude is thoroughly racist, no question. To reject a candidate based solely on the spelling of their name is an indefensible motive. Sorry, I did not want to compose an apologia for him.
Oh yeah, and Moskowitz is soooo easy to pronounce and not pointing to any tribal affiliation, that’s right.
The fact that “african sounding” even was a factor tells me everything I need to know.
I’ve hired people sporting major “baby bumps”. They were qualified. That’s the law (in Canada). ‘Nuff said.
Oh, hey. This reminds me of a study done 10 years ago …
I worked with a young woman named Tamesha recently. Although she typically went by ‘Tam’, I do not recall anyone-fellow employees or guests-having a difficult time saying her name.
And if anyone ever does have a problem pronouncing a name, perhaps politely asking for help in getting it right is better than not hiring individuals based on their names.
@ Shawn Wilkinson, #29:
Reminds me of some different studies:
I wonder if he’d refuse to hire me with my weird, hard to pronounce just by looking at it. European last name.
@yubal:
Of course not. White names are “neutral” and “default”, don’t ya know
You mean Gwenhwyfar?
Whenever I hear about someone being xenophobe, racist or bigot and discriminating people based on how their name sounds it reminds me of this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmgbmysiJH0
(Clarification: I am NOT making association of those people with Nazis, just laughing at how I would imagine their reaction to trying to pronounce names.)
@timgueguen:
I wonder if he’d find me more thrustworthy than actual Americans, as I share names with American presidents and English royalty.
I fully sympathize about the spelling issue, Mr. Mousequofitz … Moskowitts … Moscovitzs …
^Win!
It’s saddening how easy it is to just replace a vast number of online comments with:
HURR DURR I’M A <insert bigotry here>!!!
But then the same is true of everyday conversation anyway =/. On a side note, I think what the racist pig was trying to say, is that people named Tamisha with African “tribal” surnames have names so complicated that he didn’t even try to give an example. “Tamisha” would be the fine part for him, but having other employees pronounce and spell her incomprehensible surname is just too much for them – or at least for Mr. Howrowitch (right on first try, don’t think I need to check?)
One funny thing is in my country (CZ) there are people who have surnames that translate as “the dead man/woman” or “scrotum” or “fucker”. They keep the names and tend to be quite proud of them.
African sounding names? What, like Nelson?
“as a hiring manager, I like to make sure that I share my illegal behavior in public, and in text form for ease of use in future lawsuits against my employer.”
This douche should be sentenced to working in Utah. A lot of white people have a ‘weird’ name here (or a creatively spelled name pronounced normally). Armyn, Odonna, kaisely, Brynn, Brynna, Breklynn, etc. Theres a whole website for Utah names because its so common out here.
I think he has a point. I regularly avoid people with names that imply stupidity, Moskowitz comes to mind.
Skeptifem wrote:
“as a hiring manager, I like to make sure that I share my illegal behavior in public, and in text form for ease of use in future lawsuits against my employer.”
And from the tweet: “The attitude that comes with that person…”
I recall a lecture (to a group of us neophyte managers) by our HR director. You should never use the word “attitude” ever. The courts take a very dim view of assertions not based on evidence and you can not observe, measure or record what goes on in someone else’s head (attitude). You can only observe behavior (e.g.: writing ill-informed racist tweets that admit to discriminatory hiring practices). Some lawyer somewhere is doing the Snoopy happy-dance because s/he knows they’re going to win big against this guy’s company. How can somebody work as a hiring manager and not know this simple fact?!
As an amused reader of comments on Yahoo, I have concluded that many writers are pretending to to be either the owners of significant businesses or officers/managers in the same, while spending their middle age on the web in mommy’s basement while she is out working. Many were firing a percentage of employees equal to the percentage increase in the minimum wage, others are firing enough people to avoid having to comply with ACA. Another had already reduced his hundreds of employees’ weekly hours to 39 to avoid ACA (29 would be the magic number).
My points are that I find it difficult to believe that an actual “hiring manager” would be stupid enough to post his bullshit even if he believed it. That despite the apparent African-American man in his icon, he is a presumably a white male. That he has likely never held a full-time job. That despite using the ethnic moniker, he is likely protestant and that he is cranky because mommy only left food in the frig that has to be cooked and he is not allowed to play with the stove and does not understand how to use the microwave.
I could, of course, be incorrect in my conclusions.
Obviously, he only wants employees with easy-to-pronounce English names like Cholmondeley.
And “Featherstonehaugh” and “Cirencester” and “Dalziel”. All totally obvious and intuitive, yes? Yes.
@ledasmom, 39
Hannibal?
@ledasmom, 39; @What a Maroon, 47
African sounding names? What, like Nelson?
Hannibal?
Dido? Cleopatra? Ptolemy?
Hypatia.
Reminds me of my first boss. He proudly threw away job applications if the name was something like “Demetrius” or “Sheniqua.” And now, 20-odd years later, he’s still a small-business owner.
There has been a bit of a scrum to try to identify this fellow and his company. Unfortunately two companies with no link to him have been caught in the crossfire.
Obviously I agree that a complaint should be made to the relevant civil rights authorities, but if anyone wants to play sleuth, please take care to ensure you get your facts right.
I dunno if it would do any good even if they “found him”. Anti-discrimination laws are so porous in practice that businesses literally do not fear getting caught discriminating or being obvious as fuck. I’ve learned that the hard way this last year. It’s shocking not only the things people get fired for (even though its against the law), but the number of businesses are willing to admit that illegal thing to the people’s faces as they fire them.
Even without a federal case, his company is exposed.
Any suitably qualified person not listed for interview after applying for work at this chap’s company, whether in the past or in the future, could point at the hiring manager and credibly allege unfair hiring practices.
I’m white as they get. I know how to pronounce Tamisha just by looking at it. I’m not sure how to pronounce Moskowitz to his preference. I have a pretty good idea, but I’ve got about a 50% chance of getting it wrong. And that depends heavily on how Americanized his family is with the pronunciation.