Disco Writer used the N word in the writers room.

But the process is already over for Mosley. He was marginlized and forced out. Only thing left know is to sort out the details and see how CBS reacts and the people working on "Discovery react. I'm not a big fan of Burnham but I feel bad for SMG. Now she will be put on the spot and has work for this company. This story will over shadow season 3 and proably get the show cancelled. This is basically reverse Roseanne only this time the network is the villian. Especially if the coward writer still has a job on the show. Jason

 

He wasn't forced to do anything and this story will not be a blip on season 3's radar.

 

Let's also ponder that Mr. Mosley quit in a rather passive/aggressive manner - IE He didn't go to the show runners and say: "Hey I quit..." - he just didn't show up to work for 3 weeks. <--- Not very professional behavior on his part there either.

 

No one noticed he was gone, and they paid Walt for the three weeks that they assumed old men are always hovering above a toilet...

Monthly paycheck I'm guessing, never mind.

 

There is a difference between an office setting and a creative setting. I'm absolutely in favour of not allowing the use of the n-word in an office setting (or a Trek forum), where people from many backgrounds and political beliefs have to deliver an unpolitical work - even when used as a direct quote.

But a creative setting? You can not write about reality without acknowledging (and bluntly talking about) the more ugly, upsetting and uncomfortable parts of reality.

Imagine some record label telling Kanye or Jay-Z "You can use it in the recording booth. But you can never, ever say the full word when talking to your co-artist when writing the song!"
Utterly ludicrous! He would have left right then and there. As Mosley did.

 

Different companies have different HR practices tailored to the needs and benefits of the company.

If you object to the HR conditions in your employment contract that you are forced to sign before you start working, you may sue your employer to change your contract, which you should be able to do without recrimination, unless your employer is interested in being sued for unfair dismissal, if there are not direct protections.

 

HR wasn't designed for this.

A secretary is getting slapped on the ass by her sleazy boss?

Yup. Tell him to stop, tell his boss, and then tell HR.

There you have a goody and a baddy.

This situation with Walter is shades of gray.

 

Yes, this needs to be kept in mind. We're only discussing the information we have.

 

Also, it sounds like the poor HR folk handled this about as well as they could - they called Mosley and gave him a heads-up. He decided that it wasn't worth hanging there and putting up with the mickey mouse bullshit - quite reasonably so, IMO. It's hard to imagine that he was having the fucking time of his life in that place, else he'd have likely shrugged this little thing off - I'm sure that, unlike some of these babies, he's had a whole lot worse shit dropped on him while sticking to his pursuit of things he really wanted to do.

 

If this was engineered, to sell his book.

Jussie Smollett Part Deux.

 

The interview was no doubt scheduled as part of his book promotion.

This anecdote? Interesting but trivial in that context. He has an avid, long-standing readership and had not the entertainment press ferreted out the unnamed TV series that was the scene of the stupidity it probably wouldn't be getting even the play that it is.

 

So Mosley was not himself interested in making this about Discovery, only corporate culture?

 

I don't know that he "felt comfortable" using any of it. It was not supposed to be relaying a pleasant experience, but something that obviously profoundly bothered him for decades to come and was still vivid in his memory.

That being said, I don't see any reason why he should hesitate to relay the Irish slur the cop used even though he wasn't personally the target of that slur or representative of the target demographic. He was simply providing the facts in a racist incident he experienced in order to make what I presume was a storytelling point in the writer's room.

Plus, as a person of Irish descent living in America, "paddy" just doesn't carry the same weight and negativity anymore the way it once did when they were actually a widely oppressed underclass. Certainly it doesn't carry the power the n-word does in the pejorative context the cop used it against Mosley anymore (if ever), so I wouldn't expect him to have the same concerns about using it in a factual retelling of events.

Santa Monica and Downey have fairly significant Irish-American populations and neighborhoods (as my family can attest), and bear in mind that the incident Mosley is describing likely took place decades ago given the anachronistic language (paddy, not so much the n-word, sadly) when Irish-Americans still formed a large contingent of city police forces across the nation. You're right though, that Irish-Americans are far more prevalent in the northern part of the state (San Francisco and Sacramento, esp.) than the south, and of course in far larger numbers in the midwest and eastern seaboard.

I think putting this much emphasis on the use of the word "paddy" is an irrelevant sidebar tangent since no one complained to HR about it since it's not 1935, so we should probably move on to the more pertinent issues raised instead.

 

Stop it. There is absolutely nothing to support that kind of baseless and irresponsible innuendo.

 

Maybe. News cycles can move fast but I do think this has legs because it touches on a bigger issue than just that specific issue such as how the n-word is used in art and what it is like to be black working in mostly white spaces. Not only that cements the idea that Discovery and CBS are bad places. Not to mention Liberal racism that people don't want to talk about because people are naive or afraid it will look like support for Trump. Ironically liberal racism was explored in "Get Out" and Jordan Pelle also works now for CBS so that looks like more trouble news for CBS. Jason

 

I think Guy was just making a joke. Jason

 

Yeah, this touches on the sort of "false equality" that so often derails discussions about racism (at least American racism). To insist that in order to be treated fairly, respectful, and - yeah, equally - we must all be treated exactly the same, regardless of our backgrounds and experience, is a red herring.

There are words intended as slurs against people of my background and social status - they generally are used in the context of jokes, but however they are used they mean nothing because they represent no power to ostracize, limit, humiliate or otherwise harm me.

That is a facet of racial and social privilege in America.

 

I'd actually be curious to know a) what the relevant policies were in this environment concerning such language, b) whether Mosley had been thoroughly briefed on such policies, and c) exactly what dialogue led to Mosley receiving the call from HR.

To wit:
Let's say the TrekBBS has a policy saying you can't say "foo" and I'm aware of said policy. Let's say someone in a thread says "My grandmother once said her neighbors were a bunch of foos."
Now, technically this is a violation of the policy, even though the poster is presumably quoting a third-party and may even be opposed to the use of the word.
Perhaps the use of "foo" in this context bothers me because I feel triggered. Perhaps I don't have feelings one way or another about the word itself, but I am aware of the policy and I'm trying to be conscientious.
Perhaps I report the post, but in the context of "I don't know whether this is really an issue, and I'm not trying to make trouble, but I know there's a policy about saying "foo" on the board, and this poster said "foo"."

All of which is to say, as others have noted, there's a lot we don't know about what transpired, and one of the major missing pieces is what the motivation was.

That aside, "Please don't say "foo" when you're at the workplace." in broad strokes seems like a fairly harmless slap on the wrist to me, but I can see circumstances in which, depending on the value of "foo", I might take umbrage to being asked not to say it myself. Do I think I'd take enough umbrage to actually quit a job in response though? I'd probably feel my work environment was less harmonious than I previously suspected, but I don't know that I'd quit over it.