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[Update. It appears the original submission was skewing the facts. From the What You Should Know about EEOC and Shelton D. v. U.S. Postal Service (Gadsden Flag case) on the EEOC (US Equal Employment Opportunity Commision) web site:
What You Should Know about EEOC and Shelton D. v. U.S. Postal Service (Gadsden Flag case)
- This decision addressed only the procedural issue of whether the Complainant's allegations of discrimination should be dismissed or investigated. This decision was not on the merits, did not determine that the Gadsden Flag was racist or discriminatory, and did not ban it.
- Given the procedural nature of this appeal and the fact that no investigative record or evidence had been developed yet, it would have been premature and inappropriate for EEOC to determine, one way or the other, the merits of the U.S. Postal Service's argument that the Gadsden Flag and its slogan do not have any racial connotations whatsoever.
- EEOC's decision simply ordered the agency - the U.S. Postal Service - to investigate the allegations. EEOC's decision made no factual or legal determination on whether discrimination actually occurred.
The original story follows. --martyb]
Submitted via IRC for TheMightyBuzzard
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has determined in a preliminary ruling that wearing clothing featuring the Gadsden Flag constitutes legally actionable racial harassment in the workplace. In short, wearing the Gadsden flag while at work can earn you the title of "racist", earn you harassment charges, and cost you your job. The ideological witch hunt started back in 2014 when a black employee at a privately owned company filed a complaint with the EEOC when he saw a co-worker wearing a hat featuring the Gadsden flag and the words "Don't tread on me." The EEOC has decided to side with the over-sensitive employee, despite already admitting that the flag originated in a non-racial context and has been adopted by multiple non-racial political groups, countless companies and more, since it was created.
The ruling is a preliminary ruling and has not yet been made "official" but the preliminary ruling says that you can be charged with "racial harassment." They have not indicated when an "official" ruling will be made and it is ongoing.
Source: American Military News
Better Source: Washington Post
Facts: EEOC
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Tuesday August 09 2016, @06:00PM
That gets tricky.
It obviously makes a statement in favor of the worthiness of black lives. Whether that is necessarily racist depends on precisely how you define "racist", and either way is defensible...and there may be more than two defensible ways that are applicable here. E.g., if you define a racist as one who discriminates or talks about some "race" in a negative way, then it isn't racist. If you define racist as one who distinguishes people on the basis of secondary characteristics, like skin color, then it is racist.
My personal opinion is that "race" is a social definition with only minor connections to genetics. This is the opinion of most biologists. But then biologists deal with species where there are actual races, though the preferred term is generally "subspecies". Humans no longer have any, unless perhaps the pygmies are a subspecies. (I haven't looked into that, and reliable sources are thin on the ground.) Neanderthals and Denisovians were clearly subspecies that were in the process of speciating. It's not clear that there are any subspecies around today. People are too mobile for the size of the planet (and uniformity of living conditions) to allow the maintenance of subspecies. I suspect even with horse powered vehicles only a few places would be isolated enough to allow the existence of a subspecies without it being reabsorbed into the main gene-pool.
However, given that you accept race as a social definition, either of the meanings of "racist" that I gave above is compatible with standard English usage.
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