by Carmen Van Kerckhove

Watercooler is the section of the blog in which we share with you real-life horror stories from the frontlines of race in the workplace. This week, we have a story from Jeanette:

My company is really very diverse - it’s based in Japan, but global, and so there are a lot of people with different backgrounds at work. This isn’t really all that common in a small town in SC, but here we are. I’ve worked here almost two years, and my group, though small includes my Arabic [Muslim] boss, a black woman, black man, me: black and white, and two white guys and a white woman.

A few months ago, I learned that we have a “diversity committee” on site. How did I learn this? Every employee received a coupon to go to a local restaurant that serves … sandwiches. Basically, not very exciting American food. Along with the coupon came a paragraph explaining that this was courtesy of the “diversity committee” and that we would see more in the coming months. I don’t have that much against American food…I just couldn’t figure out how the coupons to an American restaurant were related to diversity.

After going to lunch there with some of my coworkers, I learned that the proprietor of the establishment is homosexual. And it struck me that this was an extremely tacky way to encourage diversity.. Considering several of my colleagues refused to go to the restaurant simply because of that reason.

Anyway, our diversity board’s latest offering is a multicultural cookbook [which every employee has been invited to contribute to] to be unveiled at the multi-culti food fair taking place next Friday. Why do I take issue with this? Because it just so happens to be Ramadan. My boss is fasting until sunset as is the custom - and she has done this for all six years she’s been with the company. There are people she sees [and talks to] on a regular basis [who know that she is a practicing Muslim] who are on the diversity committee. And yet, this is how things go down.

I went to my HR rep [Stacy] and told her I had an issue to discuss. I mentioned that I am not aware of how many Muslims are employed here, but I know of at least one. And that I found it incongruent to hold a “celebration of diversity food festival” during Ramadan. She told me that she knew of a few other Muslims on site, and that it certainly wasn’t appropriate to have planned the “festival” during Ramadan. She said that she would mention it to the diversity board.

Two days later, an email was sent to the entire site with a subject line reading “Cultural Food Festival Cancelled”. In the body of the email there was a reiteration of the subject line and a note that the festival would be rescheduled for a later date to be announced. That same day, signs that had been posted heralding the festival were marked with a large red ‘X’ and the word ‘Cancelled’ scribbled across them. This was exactly what I did NOT want, when I went to HR in the first place. I spoke with Stacy and she told me that the person who had marked through the posters was apparently [according to them] acting on orders. Thankfully, Stacy subsequently removed the posters from the walls.

For several days, I heard conversations discussing what the reasons might have been for canceling the festival. Some did mention the fact that it was during Ramadan. My boss actually went to Stacy and asked if it was any of us [her people] that said something, because she had told us that it was no big deal. It seemed to me that the actions taken to postpone the “festival” seemed to be borne out of some kind of resentment. How hard would it have been to entitle an email, “Festival Rescheduled”? Was it really necessary to attack the posters with what really looked like anger?

But I can’t say I’m surprised - this is where I live. Meanwhile, the festival has yet to be rescheduled.

Please email team@raceintheworkplace.com if you’d like to send in a story, put “watercooler” in the subject line, and let us know what name we should use for you. Pseudonyms and first names are totally fine. You can read more Watercooler stories here.