Harry Reid Teaches Unintentional Lesson About Racial Language?

Any race discrimination or harassment complaint alleges the use of racially-charged language. A supervisor’s racist slur or racist joke. Thus, employers are counseled about keeping racial language out of the workplace.

Enter Harry Reid from Nevada, Democratic Majority Leader in the U.S. Senate. As it turns out, Reid described Barack Obama during the 2008 campaign as a “light-skinned African-American with no Negro dialect unless he wanted to have one.” Reid has apologized for his “poor choice of words.”

Democrats say Reid should be cut some slack. Republicans say he should be treated like former Senator Trent Lott, who had to give up his Republican Senate leadership position because he said that the country would be be better off if Strom Thurmond had been elected president in 1948.

Adding to this discussion about race is disgraced former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich’s quote in a new Esquire article: “I’m blacker than Barack Obama.” Supposedly, he meant that Obama hasn’t done enough during his presidency to help blacks. Following Reid’s example, Blagojevich quickly said that his comment was “stupid, stupid, stupid.”

It’s almost certain that Reid won’t be forced to give up his leadership position. It’s less certain that he’ll be reelected in November. All that’s certain about Blagojevich is that he’s stupid.

Have we reached a point when employers don’t have to worry about language with racial overtones? No. The corporate board that appoints a new CEO because he’s a light-skinned African-American and doesn’t talk like he’s black is setting the stage for a public relations disaster, if not a discrimination claim. The supervisor who promotes for the same reason is still playing with fire.

Regardless of any politician’s case of foot-in-mouth disease, executives, managers and supervisors whose language shows indifference or hostility toward the complexities of racial issues still existing in the workplace will land in hot water and will cause their companies to land in court.