Apparently the song in question has no fewer than 22 uses of specifically profane words and numerous uses of misogynistic phrases and the N word in its refrain. Blame pandora once but beyond that its the employees responsibility.
Again it’s not the end of the world but don’t blame the Dean who is responsible for ensuring Duke isn’t passively supporting a hostile environment by ignoring what he is hearing. If he had done nothing he would, could and should have been labeled a misogynist, racist, classist yet ironically by trying to lessen the public imposition of vile lyrics and holding others to professional standards he is labeled in the same manner.
It’s not like he should do nothing, though. He brought it up, she turned it off. A teaching moment, not a firing moment…why can’t people just talk through these things?
^Agreed no need to fire and entirely wrong outcome. When he brought it to her attention she turned it off, offered to buy his meal and indicated there was no policy in place to prevent this type of music from being played again.
So he contacted the Duke liaison with outside vendors. Who in turn contacted the coffee shops managers. The owners of the coffee shop made the decision to fire the employees.
Duke and their employees did nothing wrong but maintain there commitment to a campus environment that isn’t offensive to their students, faculty or the public.
The coffee shop should have had a policy in effect and not overreacted by firing the employees and the employees should have been kore self aware.
@Nocreativity1 have you never worked in a service industry?
I have. I can tell you that people can be polite and even friendly to you as you are working, while still looking down on you. So no, I won’t brush off the idea that there was classism involved just because he had been nice previously.
The employees who were working had 4 ears and the Dean had two. Cute. Except that leaves out the part where the employees were busy working. Not a sit down at a desk kind of job, but one involving machines running and talking to customers. Wasn’t the Dean alone, in the front of the house (ie without machinery masking the music) and with fewer distractions? I hardly think it a surprise that he would notice the lyrics first. Unless one of the baristas was being paid to sit and listen to the music in the front of the house, where the customers are, then it makes sense they wouldn’t have even noticed.
The Duke Dean hasn’t had a problem defending controversial speech in other aspects of Duke.
If Duke would like to insist that only jazz or no lyric music be played in public on its campuses, that’s something they should do rather than target one place. If a company would like to create a new policy stating that their employees only play music that has no lyrics, then they should inform their employees of that. Realistically, most public places play popular music with lyrics. Unless another policy exists, employees would assume it a good idea to play popular music.
While Duke may be correct that they legally couldn’t fire someone at the coffee shop, those with power and clout often wield it to pressure those with less to do what they want anyway. Let’s not be naive of that. Had the Dean gone on record that he didn’t think the employees should have been fired?
I have worked in several service businesses and now manage one, but thankfully the story isn’t about either of us. Your tone suggested a bit of attempted reverse classism. Beyond your wishful thinking how did the Dean express classism? He didn’t demean anyone he raised the issue of offense music.
At no time does the employee indicate she couldn’t hear it. If that were the situation she would have said so rather stating that no policy against it exists.
Duke does believe in responsible free speech. No vandalism of statues but instead their proper removal through legislative process. You can listen to songs with the N and B word just not impose it on others in public places.
Duke has repeatedly said they don’t interfere with their vendors…full stop. Meaning they don’t tell them to fire or hire. Read the Presidents letter in which he states that he support Joe Van Goh once they publicly agreed to attempt to rehire the employees.
It feels like people want to see monsters in the clouds. Two employees made a mistake. The decision to fire was overzealous. But narratives persist of racism, sexism, classism and service workers versus the elites. Nope just a business that didn’t have a music policy, a dean who addressed the issue with a call and an over aggressive response by the owners of the business. Misplayed absolutely but not symbolic of anything, not even close.
So when he took a measured response as highlighted around these prior incidents he was vilified yet in the case of Joe Van Goh he took immediate response and has been criticized. Clearly Duke wants to provide a campus environment that welcomes all of their students.
The cases you highlight plus the most recent point out the often conflicting demands being made towards what is a universal goal. Perhaps direct discussion, a presumption of good intent and a deliberate effort to work to bother could lead to meaningful change?
I’m just trying to provide what seems (at least to me) potentially interesting context to the incident. It’s a college campus. There is a whole lot going on around this incident and Duke students may see it through a different lens than we do. imho. It is a student coffee shop.
@Nocreativity1 I gave my opinion. You gave yours. You may be right, I disagree with what has been presented publicly. You’ve accused me personally of classism more than once, so I am disengaging. Have a nice day.
Mom2twogirls- I specifically said this wasn’t about either of us. Also it was in response to you personalizing the discussion by questioning whether or not I had personally ever worked in a service business that I suggested not holding people across classes to similar standards is classism.
No need to disengage unless sharing ideas offends you which was not my intent.
Let me say nobody should have been fired over this. I’m not sure of who ordered the firing.
But. I figured I’d check out what the Duke Dean was talking about before I judged. Wow. Just read the lyrics. I’m only addressing the Young Dolph version. The emphatic version is quite tame in comparison.
I’m all for Freedom of Speech, but this at bare minimum is blatantly offensive. Who in a decent society would not be offended by these words??
if a caucasian had spoken/sang any of these lyrics, I gotta believe they'd be excoriated, deemed racist, expelled,
etc.
didn't Bill Cosby just get convicted for what is advocated in this song?
where the heck are Me, Too and a whole lot of other groups, and frankly, women in general? Why isn't this song
being decried for the awful actions encouraged here?
This song should also be on Spotify's banned list--can't imagine R Kelly's are any worse.
“artistic expression of black men”??? Pardon me, but those lyrics are just vile. nasty. ewwww. just ewww.
I really cannot imagine a business owner knowingly allowing such music to be playing in their store. If the employee selected this music without management’s consent, she deserved to be fired.
@TatinG my understanding (if I’m wrong, someone can correct it) is that she may have chosen a genre or type of song from spotify. The app would then play songs that fit in that category. And that there is more than one version of this song, ie one is a more radio friendly version.
If the first song that played was appropriate, she likely stopped paying attention to the rest of the songs as she was working, filling orders and chatting with customers. She wasn’t selecting each song that played personally. She didn’t seem to have said anywhere that she thought the song was appropriate to play on the shop either. In fact, her actions toward the Dean when he brought it up indicate that she agreed with him that it shouldn’t be playing. Which was why she apologized, turned it off and offered to comp his purchases.
The other employee who was fired wasn’t part of the song choices at all. I didn’t see an indication he even heard what songs were playing at the time.
Honestly, it makes me appreciate that when I was working in similar type jobs, I could put on the radio and not worry about more extreme versions being played. Although, in high school I did once get into trouble for playing an AC/DC song (“You Shook Me All Night Long”) on the school radio. The lyrics went completely over my head until a teacher came to the office to complain.
I find those sorts of lyrics offensive as well. However, the appropriate remedy was not to fire the student workers but to change the music policy to something innocuous, since this seems to be a coffee shop that serves faculty and families as well as students. “G-rated” music perhaps, as least during the day time hours. Or no music at all.
At my previous job, we had music problems. For a long time, we used Muzak. All the songs were radio-clean, but sometimes we would get customer complaints about the genre.
Then the company switched and started to use Pandora, where the songs were NOT always radio-clean.
Now they have a set corporate office approved playlist that cannot be altered, save for turning the volume up or down.
I’m suspicious of the firing, probably because I’ve seen employees thrown under the bus rather than managers or owners taking responsibility or admitting they had no rules or loosely enforced rules.
Why hasn’t the #Me Too movement hit the music industry? Why women would even listen to and not protest music so demeaning is very disheartening. To protest whatever -ism is the flavor of the day and then not protest such blatant misogyny that comes over public airwaves daily just seems so hypocritical that I can’t fathom it.
At least the Dean noticed that it wasn’t suitable music–where was everyone else?