B&H settles EEOC bias lawsuit for $4.3 million.

[colker]

Originally Posted by Chriscrawfordphoto

It was almost entirely moral, mostly driven by religious leaders. The anti-slavery movement was founded by a British minister (a methodist if I remember correctly), and it was the efforts of his group that led to the British government banning the international slave trade. The British didn't just prohibit their citizens from engaging in slave trading, the Royal Navy actively patrolled the coasts of Africa and and stopped slave ships from other countries as well. Sierra Leone was founded by the British as a place for slaves the Royal Navy liberated in this way.

In the USA, religious leaders and former slaves (Frederick Douglass, for example) led a moral crusade against slavery. Those who made money from slavery fought tooth and nail against it (see the US Civil War) and only gave up slavery after being defeated militarily. Capitalism had nothing to do with ending slavery. Indeed, slavery expanded capitalism by allowing more efficient production of crops like cotton, sugar and tobacco.

WAKE UP! conditions of the working class in Britain 18th and 17th century was FAR worse than slavery!
a working class was actually CHEAPER than maintaining slaves.
a working class means no responsability over your workers. no housing. pay a salary and let them sort it out.
next you have a crusade turning a a capitalist/ economic math into a moral issue.
read Karl Marx, the german idiology, and you will get the picture.
american puritanism clouds your vision.
check Lewis Hines pictures for working class conditions and tell us about a moral crusade.

[colker]

Originally Posted by Ahmed Poltroon

I personally think that a private company should be able to hire and fire anyone they want, without interference by the government.

Government employment, and companies that are now nationalized, such as the banks, should not be able to do so.

B&H may well have decided to pay just to make the lawsuit go away. Defending it, even if the charges were phony, might have cost several times the settlement fee. The Government has far too much power to prosecute, and they can ruin you in short order once they set you in their sights.

Since the FED is now buying Treasuries with freshly printed fake money, since we're conducting several expensive wars, and since Government employees have a voracious need of your money for several generations to come, they have to steal money from productive enterprises any way they can.

This B&H nonsense is a laughable drop in the bucket compared to the systemic looting of the public going on right now to prop up failed banks and businesses and pay off the hordes of incompetents.

Do not believe in the legitimacy of ANYTHING the gubmint does. They are acting in the interest of sustaining their hydra headed behemoth. NOTHING is being done in YOUR interest.

You ain't seen nothing yet. Sit tight a year or two.

* A lot of the hostility posted here about B&H is sheer, veiled anti-semitism.

good post!!

[colker]

Originally Posted by climbing_vine

Spare me the glib conceits. Whatever the motivation and politics surrounding emancipation (which is quite a diverse story itself), people "voting with their dollars" did not make the difference. That is the point.

freedom is not a vote. freedom is in the barrel of a gun... mao tse tung.

spare me naive puritan rhetoric.

[climbing_vine]

Originally Posted by colker

WAKE UP! conditions of the working class in Britain 18th and 17th century was FAR worse than slavery!
a working class was actually CHEAPER than maintaining slaves.
a working class means no responsability over your workers. no housing. pay a salary and let them sort it out.
next you have a crusade turning a a capitalist/ economic math into a moral issue.
read Karl Marx, the german idiology, and you will get the picture.
american puritanism clouds your vision.
check Lewis Hines pictures for working class conditions and tell us about a moral crusade.

So, because unchecked "capitalists" (really fascists) can get away with conditions that, in some cases are even worse than slavery (although they weren't theoretically allowed to steal their workers' children and rape them, so the comparison is somewhat facile and sophomoric).... but because of this, the lesson is that capitalism cured slavery and morals are an illusion?

Indeed.

[climbing_vine]

Originally Posted by colker

freedom is not a vote. freedom is in the barrel of a gun... mao tse tung.

spare me naive puritan rhetoric.

I'm a far-left atheist and I relish ****ing. Keep your puritan self-loathing to yourself.

[Gumby]

Shalom, amigos. This has been an interesting thread but it looks like it is headed straight to the wastebin.

[dcsang]

Originally Posted by endustry

I think this whole thread would be perfect for that "Politics" forum that a few members had requested a few months ago. You know, the one that would not appear in the lefthand column or in search results.

Clearly those that want it on the left haven't got a clue what they're talking about.. it should be on the right hand side or no side at all

Dave

[climbing_vine]

Only right-handed Puritans are comfortable with it on the left, dontchaknow.

[colker]

Originally Posted by climbing_vine

I'm a far-left atheist and I relish ****ing. Keep your puritan self-loathing to yourself.

you are a liberal who believes voting for the right thing will change the world.
a far leftist wants to end representative democracy. he knows it's a front for capitalist expansion and voting is nothing but illusion for the working classes.

[colker]

Originally Posted by dcsang

Clearly those that want it on the left haven't got a clue what they're talking about.. it should be on the right hand side or no side at all

Dave

exactly. the left is Kapputt. over. the Berlin wall fell down over it.

[dcsang]

Interesting.. I just noted that this settlement actually was reached some 1.5 years ago in October of 2007.

Why did the troll.....errrrr.. I mean the original poster......bring it up now? (and by "now" I mean three days ago )

Curious as always,
Dave

[climbing_vine]

Originally Posted by colker

you are a liberal who believes voting for the right thing will change the world.
a far leftist wants to end representative democracy. he knows it's a front for capitalist expansion and voting is nothing but illusion for the working classes.

I never said anything about voting.

You brought up voting with the wallet, which is the only thing less effective than a ballot vote when the fascists are expanding.

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

Originally Posted by climbing_vine

I'm a far-left atheist and I relish ****ing. Keep your puritan self-loathing to yourself.

Exactly. I don't believe in God or any other superstition either, yet I too was called a Puritan. Our accuser needs a history lesson. Slavery was abolished in the 19th century, not the 17th or 18th, and if slavery was so inefficient, then why was it so widely used for agricultural labor in the American south and in Hispanic America. Why not just hire free men and pay them low wages?

[colker]

Originally Posted by Chriscrawfordphoto

Exactly. I don't believe in God or any other superstition either, yet I too was called a Puritan. Our accuser needs a history lesson. Slavery was abolished in the 19th century, not the 17th or 18th, and if slavery was so inefficient, then why was it so widely used for agricultural labor in the American south and in Hispanic America. Why not just hire free men and pay them low wages?

what one believes or not is private matter. none of anyone's business.
otoh the best poetry and literature learned from the bible. (Dylan? Leonard Cohen? Dostoyevsky? the Bible rules)
Dismissing the Bible as superstition is just... nevermind. anyway...
no one is accusing. no need to. it just IS puritanism which is far deeper than religious practices. it's a way of thinking far ingrained in th american psyche. no need to be ashamed.

[colker]

Originally Posted by endustry

"Why not just hire free men and pay them low wages?"

They did. They were called the Irish. If one, say, needed a snake-infested swamp filled in it made more sense to hire some Irish. If one died, you simply hired another. Slaves on the other hand were valuable possessions not so easily replaceable.

bingo. slavery was less lucrative than modern capitalism.

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

Originally Posted by colker

what one believes or not is private matter. none of anyone's business.
otoh the best poetry and literature learned from the bible. (Dylan? Leonard Cohen? Dostoyevsky? the Bible rules)
Dismissing the Bible as superstition is just... nevermind. anyway...
no one is accusing. no need to. it just IS puritanism which is far deeper than religious practices. it's a way of thinking far ingrained in th american psyche. no need to be ashamed.

Colker,

I'm Hispanic. My family came to the USA from Spain in the early 20th century. Puritanism is NOT part of the culture in which I was raised. I have nothing to be ashamed of. You're just digging yourself into a deeper hole. Stop already.

[Vic]

Originally Posted by climbing_vine

I've never been to NY and have only bought batteries, online, from B&H. I have no opinion about the case at hand. But the above is laughable.

1. Goldman Sachs was started by a Jew. Their most well-known employees of the past fifty years have been Jewish. There's plenty of others there to, but your assertion that they wouldn't "even consider interviewing" Jews is hilariously ignorant.

2. "The world has changed since then" only because of vigilant people fighting injustice. Do we really need to quote millenia of history demonstrating what happens when people think it can't happen anymore? Are you for real? Sorry, but the market doesn't solve every problem. Maybe we should have let people vote with their wallet on the slave trade. Just don't buy those cotton breeches, suh!

I stand corrected, I should have parsed my sentences more carefully. Of course Goldman, Salomon, Lehman, etc. were founded by Jews, and until the 1990's they hired only Jews, WASPS, and other white Christians, but no other ethnicities, and Goldman's first non-white partner was in 1991 or so, just for tokenism.

The other hiring rule applied to all the other white shoe firms, such as Dillon Read, First Boston, Morgan Stanley, etc., where Jews need not apply was the rule (forget about other ethnicities, brothers, hispanics, etc. applying, they'd laugh you out the door). In fact a Jewish classmate of mine told me that the fellow who interviewed him (the interviewer had a III after his name) asked him why he even bothered applying to the firm.

I won't even discuss the hiring of women in these testosterone-fillled places.

This is all ancient history to the young folks here, and most of the can't believe that the world was like that only a few decades ago.

As for your second statement, yes, the slave trade in the US was ended by the civil war, but blacks didn't get the vote until 1964. A lot of countries gained their independence by peaceful means, and war should only be a last resort.

The difference between the Civil War, Vietnam, and Iraq, is that in the Civil War, in two sentences (of the Gettysburg Address), Lincoln was able to state clearly why there was a need for the war, and what was the goal; whereas with Vietnam and Iraq, the public never got a straight answer, hence they were/are lost.

[majid]

I find this very disturbing, as well as the attitude of posters who seem to be in denial or cognitive dissonance, and minimizing the seriousness of the matter.

The posters who claim discrimination lawsuits are frivolous underestimate the difficulty of proving that in court. This lawsuit was filed by the EEOC, a federal government department, in any case, not just disgruntled employees. Given how many cases pass their desk, I doubt they assign any priority to the less than egregious ones. Those posters dismissing the EEOC as careerists and singing paeans to freedom of discrimination are contemptible. Do you really think an underpaid and under-appreciated civil service job is the most lucrative or political profile-boosting choice available to a lawyer?

This is also not an out-of-court settlement but one approved by a judge, which explains the delay between 2007 when the case was filed and the final settlement. There is also a consent decree for 5 years, and cannot be dismissed as simply B&H paying protection money to rid themselves of a nuisance.

I don't think Jewish businesses should be held to a higher standard than others. It is debatable whether a minority-owned business can be faulted for positive discrimination in favor of that same minority, but once you hire someone, you can't morally discriminate against him or her due to any factor other than job performance. Shame on you, B&H for behaving like Abercrombie & Filth!

The original poster is clearly not a troll and I thank him for bringing this to my attention. Calls to withhold judgment also fall flat for the reasons above. I am far from anti-B&H, having spent over $22K there in the last 10 years. I doubt I will continue shopping there, however, as discrimination of any kind is abhorrent, specially since I haven't seen any statement of contrition or any response on B&H's part. It's understandable that they may not want to publicize the settlement, but they should really consider entering full damage-control mode. I guess I will shift my business to Amazon, Calumet, Adorama and J&R.

[colker]

Originally Posted by Chriscrawfordphoto

Colker,

I'm Hispanic. My family came to the USA from Spain in the early 20th century. Puritanism is NOT part of the culture in which I was raised. I have nothing to be ashamed of. You're just digging yourself into a deeper hole. Stop already.

i like my hole, thank you very much. I am brazilian, i am an observer of how nationalities influence ways of thinking.
since you are living in the US, you are immersed in it's culture.
puritanism has wonderfull qualities and it's responsible for a lot of what's good about the US... as much as a lot of bad.

[colker]

Originally Posted by majid

I find this very disturbing, as well as the attitude of posters who seem to be in denial or cognitive dissonance, and minimizing the seriousness of the matter.

The posters who claim discrimination lawsuits are frivolous underestimate the difficulty of proving that in court. This lawsuit was filed by the EEOC, a federal government department, in any case, not just disgruntled employees. Given how many cases pass their desk, I doubt they assign any priority to the less than egregious ones. Those posters dismissing the EEOC as careerists and singing paeans to freedom of discrimination are contemptible. Do you really think an underpaid and under-appreciated civil service job is the most lucrative or political profile-boosting choice available to a lawyer?

This is also not an out-of-court settlement but one approved by a judge, which explains the delay between 2007 when the case was filed and the final settlement. There is also a consent decree for 5 years, and cannot be dismissed as simply B&H paying protection money to rid themselves of a nuisance.

I don't think Jewish businesses should be held to a higher standard than others. It is debatable whether a minority-owned business can be faulted for positive discrimination in favor of that same minority, but once you hire someone, you can't morally discriminate against him or her due to any factor other than job performance. Shame on you, B&H for behaving like Abercrombie & Filth!

The original poster is clearly not a troll and I thank him for bringing this to my attention. Calls to withhold judgment also fall flat for the reasons above. I am far from anti-B&H, having spent over $22K there in the last 10 years. I doubt I will continue shopping there, however, as discrimination of any kind is abhorrent, specially since I haven't seen any statement of contrition or any response on B&H's part. It's understandable that they may not want to publicize the settlement, but they should really consider entering full damage-control mode. I guess I will shift my business to Amazon, Calumet, Adorama and J&R.

this thread is a witch hunt. Salem would be proud.
if you pay 2x more and get 2x less somewhere else then we will see the strength of those principles.

[FallisPhoto]

Originally Posted by colker

actually they did.. slavery became an impediment to capitalism. that's how it ended.
what some call conscience is illusion for others.

False premise. Slavery never ended.