{"id":1114,"date":"2011-12-21T12:23:22","date_gmt":"2011-12-21T17:23:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www3.law.harvard.edu\/journals\/hlpr\/?p=1114"},"modified":"2015-10-02T15:24:51","modified_gmt":"2015-10-02T15:24:51","slug":"court-finally-says-boy-comments-are-racist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/2011\/12\/21\/court-finally-says-boy-comments-are-racist\/","title":{"rendered":"Court finally says \u2018boy\u2019 comments are racist"},"content":{"rendered":"

Billy Corriher\u00a0<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

The Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals finally\u00a0recognized<\/a>\u00a0that a supervisor\u2019s use of the word \u2018boy\u2019 to refer to black employees is sufficient evidence of racism. It was the third time the court ruled on the case since a reprimand from the Supreme Court\u00a0 for finding that \u2018boy\u2019 was not evidence of discrimination. Last week\u2019s ruling overturned a three-judge panel\u2019s 2010\u00a0decision<\/a>\u00a0rejecting the evidence as insufficient, even under the Court\u2019s guidance: \u201cAlthough . . . The disputed word will not always be evidence of racial animus, it does not follow that the word, standing alone, is always benign.\u201d The Court said the meaning may depend on \u201ccontext, inflection, tone of voice, local custom, and historical usage.\u201d<\/p>\n

Having grown up in the South, I am dumbfounded as to why it took the court so long to acknowledge that referring to a black man as \u201cboy\u201d is racist. Southerners have become accustomed to all manner of subtle racism, but there is nothing subtle about calling a black man \u201cboy.\u201d In an\u00a0amicus brief<\/a>, civil rights leaders presented historical evidence of the use of the word to subordinate and emasculate black men. The \u00a0brief stated, \u201cIf not a proxy for \u2018nigger,\u2019 it is at the very least a close cousin.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In overruling its 2010 opinion, the Eleventh Circuit noted new testimony from the plaintiff\u2019s second trial regarding the manager\u2019s use of the word. \u00a0One of the employees spoke of the word\u2019s racist meaning and made a similar comparison to the N-word. Another said the manager\u2019s tone of voice was \u201cmean and derogatory.\u201d\u00a0 Even without this evidence, the judges on the Eleventh Circuit must have been aware of the significance of \u201cboy.\u201d\u00a0 (Then again, this is the court that previously\u00a0held<\/a>\u00a0that the word was not racist unless modified by \u201cblack.\u201d)<\/p>\n

No one who has witnessed racism in the South could doubt that the testimony in\u00a0Ash v. Tyson Foods<\/em>\u00a0is evidence of racism. It\u2019s no wonder a jury twice found for the plaintiffs, only to be overturned by the appeals court (until last week\u2019s opinion). Employers these days are more aware of civil rights laws, so racist managers will likely avoid explicitly racist remarks. Courts will have to grapple with discrimination that is under the surface. It seems the Eleventh Circuit is finally learning how.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Billy Corriher\u00a0 The Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals finally\u00a0recognized\u00a0that a supervisor\u2019s use of the word \u2018boy\u2019 to refer to black […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1114","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/peZQka-hY","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1114","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1114"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1114\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1114"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1114"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1114"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}