If this is true, it’s pretty nasty.
Rodney Morgan, and his family (visitors from the U.K.), recently stayed at the Ritz-Carlton in Naples, Floriduh. According to the Naples News, “they made it clear they didn’t want to be served by a black waiter or one with a foreign accent.” (source)
Okay, there’s WTF #1.
I’ve asked for strange things at hotels. Late checkout, change my sheets at 3 AM because I puked on them in my sleep, two bottles of tequila, and I don’t care how far you need to drive to get them, nor what it costs, because God Damn It, it’s an emergency.
I can not, however, ever recall checking in to a hotel and even thinking about who might be serving my food.
So ready for WTF #2?
The Ritz-Carlton supposedly entered the request into the hotel’s computers and honored it by informing Wadner Tranchant, a Haitian immigrant and waiter at the hotel, that he could not serve the Morgans.
WTF?
Tranchant is suing the Ritz in Federal Court. His lawyers claim that they have a copy of the computer entry, witnesses who will support his story, and that will testify that this is not the first time that the Ritz honored a request of this type. (source)
The Ritz issued an apology to Mr. Tranchant:
“We at the Ritz-Carlton deeply regret the manner in which the recent incident was handled while the guests were on property and the effect on Mr. Tranchant, a valued and long-term employee,” said the apology published Wednesday in USA Today. “…The Ritz-Carlton does not tolerate racially offensive comments or discriminatory treatment of our employees, and our data systems are not to be used to allow discriminatory requests by guests.” (source)
Apparently, the Ritz-Carlton has now also banned Rodney Morgan from ever staying at another Ritz-Carlton. (source)
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I’m honestly surprised at the straightforward nature of the response from Ritz-Carlton. I am curious whether the guys at the top were legitimately surprised and pissed about this having happened, or if they just realized their balls were in a vice and that blaming it on “one bad manager” was the best play. I would like to think the former, since this is a pretty fucked up request.
oh god that makes me so proud to be British. (grimaces)
If there’s an iota of truth in it, it would make me ashamed to be British. Mr Morgan needs to be dealt with personally by our Prime Minister, and denounced on prime-time television as a bigot: he sounds a lot worse than Mrs Duffy. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/election_2010/8649853.stm, in case this extraordinary story has passed you by over there.
I think that my British friends need not be ashamed of their country for the acts of one man. You do realize that this story happened in Floriduh, right? In my experience, most Brits would smack someone across the face who made such a request.
I’m not ashamed of my country: ashamed of some of the other people who were born here … of course, I could invoke some ancient tribalism, and rely on the fact that Mr Morgan is probably Welsh – but that doesn’t alter the fact that there are far too many bigots in England for comfort. They’d probably smack the waiter across the face because he was the wrong colour. The worst Brits don’t get to Floriduh to start with – and never will, unless football (by which I mean soccer) becomes a lot bigger there!
This seems like somewhat of a wierd situation and I sort of feel bad for the Ritz here. Certainly the Morgans are assholes. However if I like all my waiters, I know the Morgans be pricks and not give Mr Trenchant a tip if he ends up being their waiter. I’d probably assign a different waiter to them because Waiters make most of their money on tips.
Of course if the stereotypes are true, the fact that they are British usually has the waitstaff trying to avoid them anyway.
Now If I had my choice I would certainly have kicked the Morgans out of the hotel as soon as they made the request, However I suspect there might be legal issues trying to evict a guest, but I don’t really know about that. If the Ritz had that option they certainly should have used it.
Mike,
The Morgans asked the hotel to break the law and the hotel complied. THAT is why the hotel is on the hook for damages.
The request would probably be seen as reason enough to ask them to leave.
The best would of been “Sir, we do not discriminate in this country” and let them leave or even “Sir, lose the British accent, no matter how much you use it, you will never be like the famous 007 bond”
What does the fact that this happened in Florida have to do with anything? I am just surprised people like that are still living on this Earth. . no matter where they are from or where this incident happened. Hopefully, they did not breed, or if they did, their offspring were raised by mainstream society, not them.
[...] yes, a hotel guest requests “white waiters only”. A would be waiter is not [...]
obviously, if we should be so unfortunate as to have these a**h**** visit us again … and I thought “undesirables” were refused entry visas … they shoul be directed to arizona ! They would feel much more comfortable there … hmmmm, but then why should we want these ignorant bastards to feel comfortable ? … ‘Tis a puzzlement … a conundrum !
In poor taste? Yes. Offensive? Sure. Civil liability? Come on. If this gets a money judgment, that would be WTF #3. Would there be the same sort of outrage if a guest asked for only non-cracker wait staff?
Jason,
Whether we like it or not (and I do not) “hostile work environment” claims are recognized under the law, and give rise to liability.
The problem for the Ritz is not that the Morgans asked for a white waiter. The problem is that a) they complied (cha ching) and b) that there was a pattern of complying with such requests (cha ching cha ching).
Does Mr. Tranchant deserve to win the “racism lottery?” No, he doesn’t deserve to be wealthy any more than any other waiter. But, this is how we have privatized our collective desire to rid workplaces of racism — we incentivize plaintiffs and their lawyers to bring these kinds of claims.
You’re a very good writer, I found this post very educational, I have added your site to my favorites and will be sure to come back to read more. Thank you.
I’ve been performing research for an essay on affirmative action and this essay reminds me of a video I watched (citation below.) In the video, a business manager proclaims that, regardless of the application of affirmative action policies, his company would actively hire and promote minority workers. Why? Because in business he has three objectives: happy customers, happy employees, and happy stock-holders. So he diversifies who he hires, on ethnic and gender lines, to fulfill these objectives. His main idea was customers like seeing a ethnically and sexually diverse group of workers, his employees want to work in a diverse environment (and work under an ethnically and sexually diverse group of people), and his stock-holders want to make money (and happy employees lead to happy customers, which leads to more money).
Another of the participants asked, “What if a customer wants to be served by someone who looks like them?” Throughout the discourse people made claims that community populations that are mostly minorities would prefer a police force, teachers, and community figures that looked like them (these people spoke in preference of affirmative action). [My note: The same could be said of community populations that aren't ethnic minorities.]
Beyond Black and White: Affirmative Action in America—A Fred Friendly Seminar. Films Media Group, 1999. Films On Demand. Web.
Also, we DO discriminate in this country. I believe in Europe it is called “positive discrimination” – discriminating on the basis of race and gender to make up for the effects of past and present racism and sexism. Just FYI.