Court: Non-Jewish man can sue over anti-Semitic slurs

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As the thread title says. This is just... odd. The guy isn't Jewish, the people insulting him knew he wasn't Jewish, and the guy being insulted would make derogatory comments to the guys insulting them regarding the Italian ancestry. Everyone involved believed this was all done as a joke. But the guy can sue. WTF is the world coming to?

I'm Italian, and I wouldn't be offended if someone made a joke about my ancestry, and I certainly wouldn't be offended if someone made a joke about me being Jewish, not just because I'm not easily offended, but mainly because I'm not Jewish. This is just really odd.

Story.

 

I'm curious, can you get sued if you call a Jew guy/gal something that alludes to the stereotype, like "money-grabbing scum?" if they did do something that you qualify as greedy, immoral and plainly dickish?

Maybe I missed the right to be offended by any crazy s..t when I read the US constitution. It HAS to be in there somewhere to explain weird cases like this.

 

Sounds to me like things just went a little too far in that workplace. It's not a healthy workplace when people are passing your desk and saying "hey, faggot, I've never seen a Jew so stingy with his money."

Even if he's not a Jew or a homosexual, I would argue that the environment created by such a workplace is not conducive to individual happiness. Work is for work, not for being ignorant.

 

Not good LKD! You used the new f-word! Faggot. It's no longer allowed in conversation in the US. I think it has been legally outlawed, and mere use of it can get you a felony conviction of a hate crime.

It is a word that has had its time pass - or at least society has deemed it to be so. I don't get it at all. Granted, it's not a nice thing to say to someone, but I have called people and have been called a faggot innumerable times during my adolescent years, and without exception, there was never an implication that the person doing the insulting or being insulted was actually gay. Having one's sexuality questioned was a standard rite of passage in growing up. It was a knee-jerk reaction that if one of your friends ticked you off, you'd call them a fag. It's not that you thought they were gay, in fact most of the time you knew they weren't. So I really just don't get why it became such a big deal in recent years.

 

It's because people are SO over-sensitive these days! I've had people make jokes about me being blonde and having a big chest...so what? I find it more annoying that people who have no business sticking their oar in feel that they have to defend me. If I was that bothered then I'd dye my hair and get a reduction. Same as when people stand up for my right to kiss women. If comments bothered me then I wouldn't do it publicly.
Unfortunately there's a HUGE group of people out their who seem to think they have a right to be offended on everyone else's behalf without bothering to find out if their interfering, whining, do-gooder attitude is needed or wanted!

 

But we are not talking about adolescent stupidity here. We are talking about work, right? And in a workplace, repeated, consistent insults, be they racial, sexual, or religious, should not be acceptable behavior. It's not civilized, appropriate, or excusable. A one time blow-out or slip of the tongue is one thing, but if it's an everyday occurrence it needs to be addressed. I'll share a story when I have access to a real keyboard.

 

With the amount of people too afraid of being ostracized, beaten up, harassed, etc, I think it is a good thing that people who are not directly affected by something offensive/-ist will speak up. Because being a jerkass is never cool.

 

In that case, anti-Semitism should have nothing to do with it. Being an ******* to your co-workers should be the problem discussed here, not whether you are using ethnic slurs, social class slurs, sexual orientation slurs or whatever.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faggot_(food)

No officer, I wasn't being homophobic, I was taking about a kind of meat ball...

Probably told this one before, but my father once (at least 15 years ago) asked for a packet of Fags in the US, didn't exactly get the response he was expecting.

 

Story time! I got a job at Chapters (the Canadian equivalent of Barnes and Noble) and in the staff room, people were asking me all of the "get to know you" questions that get asked at a new job. I said I'd spent 2 years in Japan. Didn't mention my religion, because as all liberals will tell you, to even MENTION it means you are "pussing it down people's throats". So this one fellow asks me a couple of days later in the staff room, "are you LDS?" Well, I answered. Turns out he's what we call an "inactive member", meaning he no longer digs the faith. Fine.

He proceeds to go on a tear, just RIPPING into the church and being a real <airhead> about it. I smiled and nodded, knowing that if I dared to defend myself, I'd be accused of "bringing religion into the workplace, where it has no place".

The reason he left the church is that he is a homosexual. Fine. My point is, HE has the right to "express his opinion" no matter how ignorant, offensive, hostile, confrontational and derogatory it may be. But if a RELIGIOUS person "expresses his opinion" calmly, rationally, and politely, he's a bigot.

Workplace political correctness at its finest.

 

It was the two year stint in Japan that made him think it was a mission. It was, but of course, I never dared to mention it.

Plus, I fit the stereotypical profile. Short hair, conservative clothes, etc.