Beer Kulture asks, "Selective Outrage: Does Inclusion Include Us?"

The author of the article paints a perfect picture of why racism is still with us and how slavery still echoes through our culture. I don't have a single bone to pick on that. White privilege is real. I am a white man and I'll know I'll never truly understand the privileges I had and have, but I would never deny it; it's non-debatable.

The problem I have with the article and the author's analysis is I don't think comparing the public reaction towards Founders' court case to the public reaction towards Trillium and GLGC controversies is necessarily fair. Because no laws were potentially broken by Trillium or GLBC the controversies landed squarely in the public domain for comment and/or condemnation, and the public responded swiftly. The public response to the Founders case has been comparatively tepid/reserved, which the author claims is symptomatic of racism in our culture. However, the fact that this case landed and continues in our country's legal system is, in my opinion, a big difference ignored by the author's analysis. I think it's safe to say many people in the country generally trust the US court system to sort out right from wrong. Therefore, many people would also feel the Founders issue is being addressed in the best possible way already, and would not feel as compelled to to speak out, like they did for Trillium and GLBC where there was no other "judge" than the public.

Please don't take the above statement as an indication of how I think people should react to the Founders case. I think there are valid reasons for people to be outraged at Founders, and valid reasons for people to withhold judgement. I am only pointing out a difference between the cases the author did not address that I think is important when evaluating public reactions.

 

There is another piece to what Dim said above, maybe an option C, or option B, part 2, being, there are certain people and groups who want me, as an outwardly-appearing White Male, to be held guilty and accountable for what other White Males have done recently, or what has been done in the past, sometimes distant past. While I understand that there were grievous wrongs done in the past, there is nothing that can be done to right those wrongs today, by any method.
Also, though I am, as I said, outward appearing, white, by my religion there are those who would lump me in with others to be eliminated.
Do I think there needs to be more women and people of color in high positions? Absolutely. Does this have to come at the price of overlooking other highly qualified individuals? Now there's an interesting question for business philosophy (if such a thing exists.)
I've been a craft beer geek for long enough to see, though it's still mostly a white male- dominated hobby, there has been a lot more women and POC joining in. From the fests I go to, there's a lot more than there used to me, and not only those being dragged because their partner or friends wanted to go.
I do think the scene is welcoming to women and POC (with certain individuals actions notwithstanding; I'm talking about the industry as a whole.) and there are strides being taken to encourage women and POC to start breweries, though it also has to begin with them feeling comfortable and enjoying the scene to begin with.
Do I have all the answers? Of course not. Do I have more questions? Yep.

 

In some cases, yes. And I wish we would stop thinking of the legal system as the arbiter of truth. It's not designed to necessarily determine truth from falsehood, although that is sometimes a byproduct of the legal process. It is there to provide consistent application of a specific set of rules. If this case gets thrown out due to some clause in Mr. Evans' contract, does that mean that Founders is off the hook or in the right? If the court decides in Founders' favor based on the circumstances of Mr. Evans' termination, does that negate what Founders has already admitted happened?

The companies I've worked at define inclusion roughly "providing an atmosphere where each individual employee feels valued, respected, and free to be their authentic selves." When I speak to our new hires, I make it clear that inclusion requires intent. Everyone has to actively play a part in establishing an inclusive culture. That means: making sure that people have opportunities to present their views in meetings, not downplaying someone's concerns (e.g. "I'm sure that so-and-so didn't mean to offend you...") or outright dismissing them ("don't you think you're being overly dramatic about this?"). It's being mindful about what you're saying, and empowering everyone, no matter what level you're at, to call out behavior that goes against the culture we want to establish. From the top down, we have buy-in throughout the organization about what kind of company we want to be. And a big part of our hiring philosophy is that attitude is just as important as aptitude. If you have the skills, knowledge, and will contribute to a positive culture, not only do we want you on the team, we want to make sure that you are in a position where you can do your best work.

We can start by looking at their actions and how they've responded, both in the past and currently. Nothing in their response indicates that they have any understanding of how the actions of their employees impacted Mr. Evans. Furthermore, for an employee to use the N-word once and be kept on is troubling, but I might be able to entertain an argument like "it was an isolated incident and we didn't have a formal policy in place and Mr. Evans said the guy shouldn't be fired and we thought this might be a chance to educate this particular employee..." I wouldn't agree with it, but it wouldn't be a deal-breaker if they really took action to make sure it didn't happen again...which is decidedly NOT what Founders did, as evidenced by the second time they decided to retain an employee after using the N-word.

Now they're going the "sensitivity training" route. Frankly, this whole notion of "sensitivity training" is an utter and complete load of crap. It's what sh**ty companies say they're doing when faced with a situation like this. It's a cop out because the term itself is meaningless and it allows them to evade having to take any real action to address the problem. News flash, Founders, your employees aren't using the N-word because they're insensitive or somehow don't realize that it's wrong. They're doing it because your company has decided that it's willing to tolerate that kind of behavior. Not only is it incomprehensibly vague, but it can actually have the opposite effect depending on how it's presented (link 1, link 2) and I have zero confidence in Founders to get this right.

They also hired what appears to be a well-qualified individual to be Director of Diversity & Inclusion. So...have they made any public statements about this, I mean besides 1/2 of a tweet in response to someone's question where they didn't even identify who this woman is? Any press release? Anything on Facebook or LinkedIn or their own freaking website? Have they done anything to highlight the experience or accomplishments that this person will draw on to improve the company? **crickets chirping** Oooookaaaaaayyyyyyy...I'm not getting the impression that this is something they really, truly care about. Oh, and your tweet about "reflecting and growing internally over the past several months" rings kinda hollow when your lawyers are acting like pitbulls in trying to get Mr. Evans' lawsuit dismissed.

Look, I'm not rooting against them. I HOPE they get things turned around. Not only will it be good for them and their employees, but maybe they can set an example for other breweries to follow. And if they do, I will be ecstatic and they will deserve every bit of congratulations that I can offer. That said, I'm highly skeptical. Until I see evidence of a sustainable change, I will not be drinking any of their beer, not even the 2015 Blushing Monk I was planning to take to a friend's birthday this weekend.

 

I think there are a few points about the legal system that it would be helpful to put on the table in this discussion. The caveat is that I'm not a lawyer, but I do have some limited experience with the legal system in that I've been a co-founder of a start up company, I've bought a house, I've been called for jury duty, and I've been prepped as a potential witness in a Racial Discrimination law suit.

Contrary to popular opinion this situation is one of the valuable reasons to have courts and a legal system, i.e., to help sort out the facts of the matter. The legal system isn't perfect by any means, it has it's flaws, but it's one hell of a lot better and more objective than the court of public opinion, especially in the age of social media where misimpressions, inaccuracies and outright falsehoods spread faster and further than does the truth.

It's also important to know that there are many more lawsuits settled out of court than go to court (which is when it really gets expensive) and so most of the time we never hear about a successfully negotiated settlement and resolution. However, once a lawsuit has been filed, that filing does impose constraints on both the defendant and the plaintiff as to what they can publicly say and do and violating those constraints can prevent a successfully negotiated solution that both sides can live with or improves the situation for both and thereby force the matter into the courts.

 

I don't really get why people can't just say "all these cases are gross and definitely should have been handled better, workplaces are supposed to be safe for all people. If one person, regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation or religious faith, is meant to feel excluded or persecuted because of their differences we have failed as an institution". Instead of this, people tend to perpetuate this outrage culture to attempt to compete to see who has it worse. It's honestly ridiculous. If we spent half the time educating people about the awful, bigoted history of this and other nations instead of competing like empathy is a limited commodity, and outrage is the only way to get it, we could actually reform companies and institutions to reflect our modern society. And even if we take radical steps, this problem is something that won't dissipate quickly. It takes generations to moderate behavior, and in our one click world people expect a solution immediately. You look at what's happened in the last 4 years in this country, and you really begin to wonder if this rise in hate is directly related to how we tend to blow up isolated (yet horrible) incidents. I understand the desire to be angry when things like these incidents occur, I know I am every time I read a story about this in an industry I love, but to give these random writers carte blanche to completely label an entire community as hateful based on little evidence is beyond idiotic.

I read Toni Canada's article, and while empathizing with the way the author must feel dealing with the type of oppression that is all too commonplace, I cannot look past just how putrid this kind of journalism is. Show me data, show me a hyper-specific, broad reaching report that highlights mass racial bigotry in the craft beer community and I would accept the author's premise. But any hack with a computer can cherry-pick a few incidents and just make assumptions about a whole industry. That type of mindset sounds like a problem to me.

 

And I hate to quote myself, but with all the amazing charitable work I've seen from brewers throughout the years, especially how amazing Sierra Nevada was during these recent fires, just the idea that this community doesn't care is beyond me. I guess that might be where my frustration comes from, because this article is so out of touch.

 

I'm no expert, but I think that type of mindset comes from being consistently crapped on, taken advantage of, and discriminated against with nobody doing anything about it. From what I've seen, African Americans feel this way about a lot of our society with historically good reason. I don't think she was trying to say that the craft beer community doesn't have care, just that it doesn't seem to extend to the African American community that much. The industry sure mobilized quick and did something about the fires, as well as harassment 'satire' and low wages in the industry. Who knows what's being done about this Founders incident? Sure doesn't seem like much; certainly the craft beer community isn't mobilizing or vocalizing the way they did about the other issues.

 

I completely agree, but regardless of the validity of the emotion, it still is a narrow mindset. And I don't think an individual should be able to write entirely ridiculous, borderline offensive comparisons between Founder's business practices in one specific instance(and horrible PR), and the unfortunate subjugation of African Americans during slavery. What happened at Founder's is disgusting, but I mean some perspective is necessary is it not? Words have meaning, and arguments should be well thought out. This article is a house of cards stacked up on a wonky table.

 

Because there are two sides to every story.

In the age of social media, most people have forgotten that.

I stick with "innocent until proven guilty"

 

Will find no argument here my friend, but there has been zero indication that this individual wasn't guilty, not even a denial. I just think we all can do better when it comes to handling social injustice crises, regardless on what side of the political spectrum you come from. Whenever a police shooting happens, people take sides instantaneously solely based on preconceived notions. That's the shit I cannot stand personally, the right wraps the thin blue line flag around the officer and the left automatically assumes improper policing. Can't we all relax and take things at face value anymore? Investigation is important! (rant over)