Racism: Alive and Well in the Consumer Market

Posted by SkipAnderson under Sales
From http://blog.sellingtoconsumers.com 5564 days ago

How would you have handled this situation? How do you feel about what happened? Would you have done anything differently?

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Written by ShawnHessinger
5564 days ago

Skip and Cindy,

Just to play devil's advocate here, though I know it probably seems like business suicide, do you think it's a good idea for a business to essentially enable racism. I see this from the humanitarian...and the PR perspective. Imagine a restaurant routinely catering to a desire by some diners to be seated as far away from others as possible based on race...and imagine what would happen if the story got out! Does this happen regularly at the business in question, Skip? And are employees of color suffering financially...in addition to the devaluing they are experiencing as human beings...by this behavior? Is it OK for a business to say to a customer "No, this is not acceptable? We won't tolerate this behavior." Don't Internet social networks take a similar policy stand when banning racist and sexist comments on their sites even if they do not always enforce these bans? Don't we have a responsibility as human beings to say no to behavior we find completely unacceptable even if it hurts us financially? And if we are marketing who we are, what do we communicate to customers when we tolerate racism?

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Written by CindyKing
5564 days ago

Hi Skip,

It's a fact of life. And I've witnessed many different variations of this type of behavior.

No, I don't think the front desk associate should have handled it differently. When people have baggage like this, there is nothing you can do about it. And in business, you probably should never try to pry open that baggage either - you really do not know what is in there (in addition to the murder). People with personal baggage become very difficult to maintain within any sort of profession framework once they let that baggage open. And ultimately you and your business don't really have anything to do with it.

I also see another angle. Is it legal where you live to open a business that ONLY serves women whose grandmothers were murdered by a black man? You could spin off a series of angles like this in a group discussion to uncover the root of what you think about this subject.

From practice, my advice is to not take on other people's personal issues in any business environment. And there is another skill to master in remaining polite in situations like these.

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