A black housekeeper was denied work at a church due to 'racist' dog

[left-of-center2012]

The home of a Catholic priest was the last place LaShundra Allen ever would have expected to be denied work because of her skin color, she said. Allen, who is black, arrived with her white co-worker the morning of May 3 for what was supposed to be her first day cleaning the Rev. Jacek Kowal’s rectory at the Catholic Church of the Incarnation in Collierville, Tenn. The co-worker from the cleaning company who accompanied her, Emily Weaver, was quitting and came along to introduce Allen as her replacement.

But the women wouldn’t get far. The secretary stopped them, Allen told The Washington Post, and said she would have to go ask Kowal if the new arrangement was okay. The secretary soon informed them it was actually not okay — because of the priest’s “racist” dog. “I’m sorry,” Kowal’s secretary said, according to a complaint sent to the Catholic Diocese of Memphis last month. “We are not trying to be rude, but the dog doesn’t like black people.”

Allen said she “didn’t really even have words,” baffled at what she just heard. She was ultimately turned away, and the experience haunted her so much that she felt she could not stay silent. “They came at me like it was supposed to be a joke,” she said, “but it was not funny. There was nothing funny about it.” Allen and Weaver sent a racial discrimination complaint to the Diocese of Memphis on July 3, seeking a “settlement and compromise.”

But on Friday, the Diocese of Memphis said in a statement that it completed its investigation and found that what happened at the priest’s rectory “simply was not a case of racial discrimination” and that Kowal “did nothing wrong.” In the church’s version of events, the secretary’s words were, “Father Jacek’s dog is kinda racist” — although in the eyes of the diocese, the statement did not stem from any racial discrimination. “Although the parish staff member’s choice of words was highly unfortunate and imprecise — they were not motivated by racial animus” Bishop David P. Talley wrote.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2019/08/19/tennessee-catholic-racist-dog-housekeeper-complaint/

[Cicada]

1. Maid felt bad dogs knew she was only the help

I had joint custody of two standard poodles for several years, three months with me in the mountains of Northern California, three months with my ex girlfriend in her fancy house with maids in Los Angeles. In a call to arrange a pickup the Hispanic maid told me the dogs hurt her feelings because they knew she was only the help. She told me the dogs ignored the maids and other workers who came to the house, but were attentive to friends who visited. The dogs knew who counted and who didn’t.

[snowybirdie]

2. Did anyone

think of locking up the dogs for the time she was there? And did she get paid anyway? Ashamed, once again, of my former church.