by contributing writer, Francois Arouet
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In 2016, the Obama/Biden-appointed Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) ruled that an employee wearing a baseball hat displaying the Gadsden Flag (“Don’t Tread On Me”) created a “racist work environment” for a black complainant.
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The commission ruled that the man’s co-workers’ wearing of the cap emblazoned with a Gadsden Flag on it, “subjected the man to discrimination on the basis of his race.”
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The man was awarded hundreds of thousands of dollars in damages apparently – although there is no way for us to know for sure as this part of the record remains sealed.
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It is though safe to assume he was awarded court and legal costs that woud have easily run to six figures.
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Unsurprisingly, the unnamed complainant (his identity of course was also protected) never alleged that the co-worker wore the hat intentionally to offend him, just that “he found the hat to be offensive because it was designed by Christopher Gadsden”. Apparently, the high IQ black researcher knew Gadsden had been a “slave trader & owner of slaves.”
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That the man’s lawyer might have dug that tripe up AFTER the complainant had lost his lawsuit on TWO separate previous occasions, never crossed the commission’s minds.
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Continuing his complaint, the employee’s attorney wrote that the Gadsden Flag was known to be:
“a historical reference to white resentment against blacks stemming largely from the Tea Party.” The complainant also notes that the President of the Association of Black Firefighters cites that the Gadsden Flag is the equivalent of the Confederate Rebel Flag which was successfully removed from a New Haven, Connecticut fire department flagpole as a precedent”.
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The employer initially rejected the complaint, finding it insufficient to prove malice. The employer also said he had known the employee for a decade and never knew him to harbor racist sentiment. That the man was a veteran of the Vietnam War and wore the hat as a source of patriotic pride in his country, but against an overreaching government, was also noted in the employer’s decision.
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This was in fact the reason a lower court and employment tribunal BOTH found in favor of the defendant on two separate previous occasions.
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But that of course didn’t matter to the Obama-Biden appointed commission.
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The Fed overseers ruled that “whatever the historic origins and meaning of the symbol, or the intent of the man, because it has since been sometimes interpreted to convey racially tinged messages in some contexts, mean it could cause injury.”
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Yeah, “sometimes”, “interpreted” in “some contexts”.
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I wonder if the Blacks Loot and Murder (BLM) crowd know that the single raised fist they use while calling for the deaths of white people ALWAYS represents the commie regimes that killed millions!
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Of course they do.
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But this is where we are as a society and why it is SO important we re-elect President Donald Trump.
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It is fair to say that between 2008 and 2016 there was a vile movement by the Obama-Biden regime to put people into two baskets: those who support the State — and those that oppose it.
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This movement will be be reborn under Harris/Biden.
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The State in the eyes of the Left knows it has to squeeze patriotic white men from society in order to replace them with easily controlled blacks and other ethnic minorities.
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Although blacks are of course by nature harder to control physically, they do not organise without non-black leaders.
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The Left know that if you give them “free $hit”, they do as they are told and won’t look beyond the State for support. Whites aren’t as easy to hold down – especially with that pesky little Second Amendment in place. Think Kyle Rittenhouse.
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An important consideration of Shelton D. [pseudonym to protect the bastard] v. Brennan was that the Obama appointed EEOC did not specifically state that symbols and the hats they’re on can only be banned on alleged racism grounds. They intentionally left the door wide open for a variety of complaints.
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Imagine an amateur ornithologist has a screensaver on his office computer that depicts two birds sitting on the branch of a cherry blossom tree – one bird being obviously male, and a second female. Could that be construed as anti-gay hate speech? The intent of the employee, his love of birds and trees, his age etc wouldn’t matter.
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So, yes, under the ruling it very well could be.
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Remarkably, I found an article in the Washington Post of all places, gently criticising the Obama Administration’s decision in Shelton D v. Brennan.
The WashPo wrote,
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“Imagine you are a reasonable employer. You don’t want to restrict employee speech any more than is necessary, but you also don’t want to face the risk of legal liability for allowing speech that the government might label “harassing.”
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An employee comes to you, complaining that a coworker’s wearing a “Don’t Tread on Me” cap — or having an “All Lives Matter” bumper sticker on a car parked in the employee lot, or “Stop Illegal Immigration” sign on the coworker’s cubicle wall — constitutes legally actionable “hostile environment harassment,” in violation of federal employment law. The employee claims that in “the specific context” (perhaps based on what has been in the news, or based on what other employees have been saying in lunchroom conversations), this speech is “racially tinged” or “racially insensitive.”
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Would you feel pressured, by the risk of a lawsuit and of liability, into suppressing speech that expresses such viewpoints? Or would you say, “Nope, I’m not worried about the possibility of liability, I’ll let my employees keep talking”? (Again, the question isn’t what you may do as a matter of your own judgment about how you would control a private workplace; the question is whether the government is pressuring you to suppress speech that conveys certain viewpoints.”
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Can you imagine what an EEOC appointed by Kamala Harris would be like?
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I shudder.
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Your freedom to express yourself – what little there is left of it – will be eradicated forever.
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And unlike in 2015, I doubt for a solitary second the WashPo will say a word about it.
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You’re on your own folks
I always feel I have learned something worthwhile when I read the articles on this site. The writing is excellent and the information so apt. They have a depth and insight you cannot find elsewhere. I really hope that your president overcomes the odds and is allowed to serve in peace. Thank you.