Man wins compensation over ‘racist’ Irish joke

oh! I have been catching up earlier WL mails and didnt pay much attension to the dates. cheers anyway

That took some digging Andrew, didn't it?
We all thought this was well and truly buried!

Its also the type of 'right on' action that gives union shop stewards a bad name James - I agree with you fully.

Exactly Graham - Thank you for that.

you all joke about the 'paddy' jokes etc but you are all missing the whole point here, except part of james's comment where a joke is always at somebodys expense.
if you are going through a period where you are being dicriminated against by one or more people, the final straw may be a joke of racial not so equality.

there are people out there that are derogative and wish to degrade others at the flip of a coin, it may be that they are being suddenly ignored by this person and talked about behind their back, left out of meetings that they used to attend, not being passed information that enables them to do their work efficiently.
no one knows the full story but i can tell you from experience, over sensitive or not, these attitudes are very demeaning and counter productive for any business.
yes there is the politically correct brigade but mark my words......................
mock them at your peril, when you are the one not wanting to go to work and face another day with that 'bully' you may well be the one asking the political correct brigade for help.

acas are there to help everyone, some things go through them that we do not all agree on but WE were not the victim and WE do not know what the circumstances were.

if that person is over sensitive, respect them for this and do not abuse it.

'they could have had a very distraught life or event that has made them like this'

a soldier back from afghan for example, settling in civilian life may not control anger as well as someone that has not faced the things they do.

finally i say this: respect everyone as individuals we are who we are and deserve to live in peace whether at work or at home.

I think we're missing a trick here. Jokes are nearly always at somebody's (or some group, race, ethnicity, religion etc, etc...) expense. If somebody finds it "upsetting" then maybe they're a little too sensitive? We all get upset occasionally at different things, but as grown-ups we learn to live with it and move on. Unless this was part of a sustained series of such comments, taking it all the way to tribunal seems to smack more of a malicious intent on the part of the "upsettee" than a genuine desire to right a wrong. The really depressing thing is that ACAS took it seriously. Oh, by the way - I'm a "porridge-wog" and proud of it.

But Ernie and Jane, If i was stating that ALL white men were privileged surely the use of the word privileged would be defunct?

Lisa, that displays a good and funny joke told within context.

And Ernie, We already have a culture of people being sued for ridiculous things, (incidentally jokes are very rarely the reason for any court case) and its the same people that would be denouncing this action.

If anyone wants to get the last word in, feel free, but I am also giving up on this thread.

The only people that benefit from this nonesense are those that make money from it. Phil you gotta be careful. If we didn't have more sense, and in the world you appear to favour, we would sue you now for implying all white men are priviledged.

I work in an office that is very multicultural, I have Austrailian, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Hungarian, Dutch, Danish, French, Norwegian, Swedish, German, Russian and Polish co workers, oh yes, and 1 Argentinian, which is interesting at the moment. It leads to some great conversations, but very few jokes..

But the best conversation I had was when we hired a new lady from Jamaica to work in the office, and we shared the same first name. She was tall, think and black. I'm short, fat and white. As we were working on the same project my Director turned to the both of us and said, I think we need some way of telling you two apart. The other Lisa, just looked at him puzzled and said, "I think it's fairly obvious!" In the end she became Lisa2, and I was Lisa1.

James - having done some reading on the case, my understanding is that the councillor was chair of the committee which oversaw disciplinary issues for the council. I suspect he was chairing the hearing. I think the union official was representing one of the parties in the hearing.

Tammy, Phil, Carl, Alex - thank you for your contributions. I gave up commenting on this when so many others came in with posts on the "this is PC gone mad" line or "I've got Irish heritage and thought this was funny so everyone else should too" lines. Thanks for sticking with it despite being considered by other posters as either mad or humourless!

"White privileged man who has no need to suffer racial discrimination". Now that comment is completely ridiculous. Every race, of every nationality and colour suffer some discrimination even if it is not obvious to some. Take the ethnic minority housing that is not available to a white "privileged" man. I firmly believe all races should be equal in this modern era but please do not paint the picture Carl that white people do not suffer it and are privileged. It is clearly not the case.

Wow.

Could someone clarify please - it was mentioned that the comments were made during a break at a race discrimination hearing.

Was the councillor (and indeed the unison shop steward) involved in the case that was taking place, or were they both there for other reasons (example because the ET shares buildings with the council offices)?

I'm also of irish descent, and love most forms of humour, whether it be father ted or goodness gracious me. Or even fawlty towers.

Exactly Carl.

If you had a robbery and the police turned up and said "Cor, u got some stuff here still worth nicking, I'll be back later with a crowbar" despite it being obviously a joke, at that point in time it would be a terrible thing to say.

I do get defensive about race, Even though I am on a comparatively low wage I still realise I am white privileged (comparatively) man who has no need to suffer racial abuse.

I do understand that sometimes a joke is a joke, but like I say, its context rather than specifics that make the difference.

This wasn't about the use of the word Paddy, and we all know that, this was a 'joke' told in the wrong place at the wrong time.

I think you can't have it both ways. If this was a black joke i suspect a few of you would be up in arms. Am I wrong? The Irish are a race, and I know a few Irish get offended by the jokes.

So a few good points have been raised, either offend everyone or noone(that diversity traing came in useful)

'God help Dubliners. If it was raining soup, they'd be out with forks'.

I wish I hadn't just taken a mouthful of coffee when I read that. Good job my computer screen seems to be resistant to hot liquids.

My first comment above was made in jest, but I suspect that it's not far from the truth. Could it be that people are now "offended" by some of these jokes because they're perceived as an opportunity to cash in? What I wouldn't give to hear a tribunal come down with the ruling "Get a Life"...

We seem to have strayed off topic, whether the joke is funny or not is immaterial. It comes down to the efficacy of the elected member acting in a quasi-judicial process concerning a racist incident cracking a joke which "could" be percieved as racist.
Is this really appropriate at such a meeting? I'd have thought at the very least an element of decorum be shown.

Even worse Diarmuid, I'm from Co. Antrim! I cant help thinking of Brendan Behan (author of Borstal Boy and other works of note, and very very Irish ) who observed, 'God help Dubliners. If it was raining soup, they'd be out with forks'. Brendan was accused of many things in his time, but racism wasnt one of them.
I really do think that people need to start looking at intent rather than the 'black letter' approach that seems to be feeding our litigation culture.

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Tammy, I think he was offended when he overheard a joke being told so I don’t think there’s any suggestion of a personal insult. Now people can be Irish and people can be thick but if he doesn’t consider himself to be both Irish and thick then the joke wasn’t even about him. Anyhow what’s so stupid about not wanting two empty glasses?
As for laughter at work, how long will it be before someone as sensitive as this comes across a bunch of people laughing and, because they didn’t hear what was said, assumes they are laughing at them and cries foul?
Just for completeness I am English but 50% of my Grandparents are Irish and I have relatives live in Scotland, Wales, Canada, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand and London. I am a real person and I do manage real people who still tell and laugh at jokes and can be even more vociferous than me about all this PC nonsense.

Ernie, what’s happened is that life has moved on. The recent televising of “Life on Mars”, “Ashes to Ashes” and “Mad Men” show very clearly how life has moved on in the workplace, in those examples, particularly for women. I remember laughing heartily at “Love Thy Neighbour” many years ago. I’m not sure I would now. Many people laugh at jokes and respond positively in a work environment for fear of offending the teller, particularly if the joke teller is senior to them. Many (not all) of the things we laugh about now are far from the things we laughed about 40 years ago – if they aren’t then we’ve moved nowhere!

It is also not about the people who aren’t offended – I hear many Jewish jokes I think are funny and yes, I’m Jewish – do I feel differently depending on whose telling then? – yes I do. I also think jokes about Jewish characterisation are very funny (ref: Maureen Lipman in the old BT adverts) but I’m not so keen on one’s that suggest I’m mean – they are just rude. This is about a person, who was offended and it was his right to be.

No-one has suggested that laughter doesn’t belong in the workplace, of course it does. All one is asked to do is consider the audience, think about other people and their sensitivities in a way we didn’t do in previous years because we’re probably working with various people that we wouldn’t have worked with many years ago such as women, people of different ethnicities and disabled people.

I can't even believe this discussion is going on. Seriously.

And by the way, I am of Irish descent and I thought the joke was very funny.

Hi Daniel. You're not from Kerry, are you? If so, don't get me started... :-D

Sorry Tammy but some people certainly will 'claim to be offended', and do you know why? Because they're downright awkward, interferring, busybodies with nothing better to do than drag down society.

Life is too short.