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It’s Above Me Now!

A case study on how all employees and companies should handle that—hopefully rare—very racist customer.

By David WyldPublished 5 years ago 16 min read
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Craig Brooks of Austin, Texas (@craignofriday)

We can talk for days and hours - and yes even weeks and months - about "doing the right thing" when it comes to managing diversity in various settings. But will it pay off in "doing the right thing" when it counts (and of course, when the smartphone is videoing the encounter!)?

In the corporate world, companies - to their credit - have taken proactive steps toward addressing the cultural diversity that is at the heart of America. No longer is diversity seen as a necessary "box to check" as part of the company's public relations and legal strategies. No today, research has consistently shown that diversity pays, enabling the company to better connect with a diverse workforce and a diverse customer base - and yes, be more innovative, be more responsive, and oh by the way, enhance its revenue and bottom-line performance!

Because diversity is not just the right thing to do, but it also pays dividends, the push is on globally today for more diversity in organizations. As part of ongoing diversity efforts, firms and government agencies now quite commonly have diversity task forces and committees, and in the Fortune 500 companies and the like, a growing trend has been to add a Chief Diversity Officer (CDO) to the ranks of top management. All of this takes time, attention, commitment, and yes the investment of significant dollars - often very significant dollars - on such ongoing diversity initiatives.

Now just how one goes about training employees in diversity is a whole other subject - and a more complicated one with - shall we say, often "uncertain outcomes." Who hasn't spent a morning or two - or ten - in a corporate or agency diversity training seminar conducted by a highly paid "cultural diversity expert" that the company brought in to speak? Now, I'm sure that at the last diversity training, you were not the one I saw with your head down in your iPhone the whole time he or she was speaking, checking your email, monitoring your Twitter feed, or crushing candy, now were you?

... and I'm confident you weren't this guy, now were you?

... and for sure you didn't skip out on the diversity training conducted at the 5-star golf resort to get nine holes in before happy hour and dinner, right?

And in the business higher education industrial complex - i.e. business schools - just how to educate future managers on diversity is a complex topic. In fact, truth be told, diversity in management classes all too often is that last subject to be covered in a semester calendar. And whoops! Snow day! Guest corporate speaker! Influenza scare! Team making the playoffs! When something comes up, as sad as it is to say, diversity is often the topic that gets dropped from the agenda!

With that being said, business schools go to great lengths to document - with charts and graphs where the arrows constantly go up, up and up, of course, how the students that we are cranking out today are more conscious of diversity than ever. In business schools today, we can show you in a stunning PowerPoint - one that would even make Bill Gates weep - or a 300 page report (or both) how we have cultural diversity in our classrooms and how the topic of multicultural awareness in a part of courses that span our entire curriculum. We can show every accrediting body, every prospective student and parent, and yes, every potential employer that we are "inclusivity inclusive" in everything that we do in our business school - with statistics to prove it!

In short, we in business schools today will go to great lengths to show anyone that seems to care that we are "woke" - and we are confident that our students are as well... well right, aren't we?

Well, as with so many things in business and in life, you never know just how really prepared you are for something! Despite all the training, all the education, and all the resources devoted to preparing managers and employees at every level in companies on how to manage diversity - both in organizations large and small and in business schools - no one can honestly know if their people, their students - or even themselves - will truly do the right thing when it comes to handling a diversity "moment of truth."

And that is why as a management consultant and professor with more than a few years of experience, I think that this story - one that is trending on social media this week, but one that could well end-up being - "little noted nor long remembered" - is a truly great one! It is a case study of just how companies - all the way from individual employees to the ranks of senior executives - should react in just such a diversity "moment of truth." In short, it is an example of what it means to "stay woke" and live out true value of diversity.

Yes, we have drilled into our collective conscious the mantra that "the customer is always right!" Yes, but when your employee encounters a racist customer, what if they choose to "do the right thing" and don't turn the other cheek to the offensive customer? If you are up the chain of command or even a top executive of the company, what will you do - how far will you go - and what would you be willing to risk - to back him or her?

This is why Craig Brooks' story - and of the corporate hotel management that backed-him up fully - is so fascinating and worthy of dissemination and discussion. This tale of viral video and trending hashtags (#ItsAboveMe, #ItsAboveMeNow and #BestWestern) is a great case study in just what to do in a customer service "moment of truth" that should be used in business schools and corporate diversity training for years to come!

And so the purpose of this article is to tell Craig Brooks' tale - the good, the bad, the funny, and yes, the ugly - for students and for employees to use for years to come in diversity training and education! It is a thoroughly modern diversity tale, with viral video, Twitter battles, and yes, both money to be made and a reputation to be lost in one's fifteen minutes of fame!

In the end, however, the story has a good message - as the employee involved, Craig Brooks, is being lauded for "doing the right thing." And further, everyone up and down the managerial line - from the management of the Holiday Inn Express that he works at in Austin, Texas to the executives at the corporate parent, IHG - was consistent and steadfast in their backing of their employee's handling of just such an expected, out of the blue, and unprovoked diversity moment of truth.

And so without further ado, here are the facts of what happened. Craig Brooks, Jr. (@craignofridayy) was working his shift at the front desk of just your run of the mill Holiday Inn Express in Austin last Sunday night (typically one of the deadest periods in the hotel business) when a call came in from a woman needing a reservation.

Now, as Brooks explained in an interview on the matter, most hotel guests today book online, rather than calling (that is why you may well see an ad with the omnipresent Trivago guy after you read this article - thanks Google!). It was a fairly routine call though for the most part, at least until it took an ugly, weird, and yes, racist turn at the end.

Brooks has noted that the woman "sounded aggravated" during the call itself. However, the hotel did have a room available and Brooks took the reservation for her in routine fashion. The woman closed the conversation by informing him that she would be arriving at the hotel in just ten minutes. The call "ended" for her with Brooks saying "Okay cool, see you then!" But Brooks did not immediately make the move to hang-up the phone as he completed the computer work for the room reservation. With the phone line open, he overheard the woman saying heard the woman - and I quote: "Yeah, that f*ckin n*gger..."

Brooks stated in an interview that yes, the customer's comment did rightfully upset him, explaining:

"This is the first time I can remember I've been called a racial slur. I'm in Austin, and Austin is very liberal so you don't have to deal with stuff like that... it amazes me that people still think like that and it's 2019."

Now Brooks did a couple of things in the moments before the guest was to arrive. He got in contact with his hotel management (yes, the managers actually answered their phone on a Sunday night!). After describing what had happened, the hotel management - and "managers" plural has been used in news accounts of the story, which would indicate that in a short amount of time on a weekend night, multiple managers got involved in this situation very quickly - reinforced their corporate policy to their customer service worker. Brooks was told that the company "has a zero tolerance policy of racism towards employees and, as such, (he) didn't have to accommodate the woman."

And then, being that it is 2019, Brooks did a very modern thing - he set up his phone to record the encounter with the customer. Now, I'm certain he did it to protect himself, rather than intending to create a viral video. But what he did certainly gives all of us a "teachable moment."

And yes, because he did take out his iPhone, the video does say it all....

And so when the woman did arrive at the Holiday Inn Express, Brooks hit the record button and made a record of the encounter. In the 60 second video - and it was that length so that it could be first uploaded to Snapchat and then to Twitter, Brooks calmly informed the woman that she would not be allowed to stay at the hotel because of her racial comment towards him.

The now viral exchange goes:

Woman: "I need to stay here, my mother died.."

Brooks: "I understand that, but you called me a f*ckin n*gger..."

Woman: "I'm sorry, I'm sorry..."

Brooks: "No, you weren't sorry when you said it on the phone," he says, repeatedly noting throughout the exchange: "it's above me now."

Woman: "I need a room tonight..."

Brooks: "Well, there's the Best Western next door..."

What made the exchange go viral was likely a couple of things. First, there was the fact that the video existed at all - a product of quick thinking on Brooks' part and a benefit of having such power in your pocket these days. Next, there was the situation. To be fair, the woman explained that she was stressed, as she was in Austin for her mom's funeral and the rest of her family had already checked into that particular hotel. Still, Brooks took real offense at her comments, and the hotel management backed him up fully in enforcing their "zero tolerance" policy on racist behavior and comments on the part of customers. That is taking not just a risk from a marketing and PR perspective, but legally as well in denying accommodations. Lastly, I think what really made the incident resonate with people wide and far on the Web initially - and gives it lasting power as a case study in "how to do diversity" - is both Brooks' actions and his demeanor throughout the encounter. In fact, one random Twitter user had it absolutely right, as Brooks was calm throughout, his approach was to use: "Listening. Apologizing. Solving with options..."

Now, the video inspired some very, very nice compliments for the actions of both Craig Brooks and the hotel management and inspired other to share similar stories. All of this combined to help make this one, admittedly small (not to Brooks, of course) incident part of a larger conversation - both online and likely in offices and coffeehouses across the country - on matters of diversity and specifically, how to handle the issue of racist customers (which, sad to say, is encountered far too often in our time).

Of course with social media being what it is these days, Brooks video soon went viral! The taglines that he inadvertently created in the process of that minute-long videoed exchange with the woman became trending topics for a few days on Twitter in early June 2019. Yes, #ItsAboveMe, #ItsAboveMeNow and #BestWestern (likely one of the few times that this hotel brand has been trending!) also inspired and accompanied some pretty clever memes and tweets...

...and then of course, "worlds collided" with the intersection of this very real, very serious incident with sports and pop culture. Yes, like this one featuring a picture of Drake at a Toronto Raptors game in the current NBA Finals with the Golden State Warriors:

And celebrity notice of Brooks' calm handling of the situation only helped propel the story to command even greater attention and to crossover from social media to news media. One example of this is the actress Gabrielle Union, who hashtagged #ItsAboveMeNow to applaud Brooks’ handling of the situation in the post below:

Now, according to the New York Post, Brooks himself characterized his response to the woman's use of the n-word towards him as a "classy clapback," going on to explain his thought process in those moments:

“Being that I’m black in today’s society, we have to know how to deal with racism and combative white people, so we have to look at alternative ways to handle situations instead of being aggressive, because they already see us that way. I look at it like it’s above me: You’re mad and I’m too good for that. That’s how I’m seeing it and how a lot of people are taking it.”

And in the age of social media, it did not take long for those hashtags and Brooks' story - and image - to be capitalized on for commerce! However, it also didn't take but a few days for Brooks to take advantage of his "15 minutes of fame" to sell "official" t-shirts....

... and to become the subject of many a podcast, thanks to the notoriety of the story on #BlackTwitter, including these (and this is just a sampling of those podcasts featuring the topic in the first few days after the video and tweet went viral):

and...

...and yes, turned into song lyrics!

And yes, as also happens in the age of social media, once Craig Brooks entered his 15 minutes of fame, at about minute 2, people started looking back on his social media accounts to see if there was anything "problematic" or newsworthy (which today, are really the same, aren't they?). Internet users came forward to report that Brooks has made any number of "transphobic" social media posts, dating back to at least 2017. Once found...

.... then, as happens so often, a good part of the Twitterverse seemed to make him the story, not the customer, calling Brooks out for his apparent - well, pretty readily apparent, inconsistencies between his own beliefs and actions on gender and sexuality issues and his encounter with the customer to defend his own racial identity. Below are examples of such hostile reactions - at least a few that I could reasonably show you!

Sadly, many of the responses to seeing Brooks' comments regarding transgender individuals simply showed up like this...

So this shows that likely those in the Twitterverse who responded to Brooks' ant-trans posts, well, they weren't exactly too "nice" about it!

What happened does show the pitfalls of the "sudden fame" that is commonly sought - and many times simply thrust upon - everyday people today, not just celebrities, athletes, and politicians! As one Twitter user framed it so well:

And of course, Brooks, who is himself gay, posted his apologies for his past social media posts...

Although some in the social media sphere were concerned that his past comments weren't really all in the past.

Conclusion

In the end, this thoroughly modern diversity tale does have a large number of elements in it. There's racial attitudes, personal ethics, morals, and values, managerial actions, technology, and yes, social media. In the end however, it comes down to decision making. Ask yourself - and perhaps your classmates, colleagues, and students, questions such as these:

  • How would you handle things at that diversity "moment of truth" that happened at that one hotel that one Sunday night to that one customer service worker?
  • What would you do as Craig Brooks - at 26 years old, by the way?
  • What would you do as his supervisor or as the hotel manager?
  • What would you do at the corporate office when you learn of what transpired?
  • If you were a coworker who happened to be in the lobby in earshot of what was happening when Brooks confronted the customer over her comments?
  • What if you were in the customer's family that was there at the hotel waiting for her arrival?
  • What if you were another customer there in the lobby, just trying to get Wifi or heading to the pool - with your kids - and overheard the "N-word" discussion?
  • What if the roles had been reversed?
  • What if the customer's questionable comment didn't involve race, but gender, sexual orientation, age, religion, or another "hot button" diversity issue?
  • What if this had been an extremely loyal, high-value customer - to either the hotel and/or the chain - involved in such an incident? Would that change anything or does it not matter how much the potential loss of that customer would be?

All these angles - and more - make this story truly a "teachable moment." And beyond the immediate issues of the incident, there are the things that happened in the aftermath of Brooks' encounter with the racist customer. Such questions include:

  • Is it fair for Brooks to capitalize financially from the incident going viral?
  • Should his own anti-transgender social media posts color the way he is viewed in this incident?
  • How ready is your own social media to be examined really closely?
  • What can be done by companies, managers, and indeed, individual employees, to better prepare for, prevent, and respond to incidents such as this one?

In the end, there is the adage that goes: "May you live in interesting times." From research, this saying in not necessarily a piece of ancient Chinese wisdom, and it can be seen as both a blessing - and a curse. We are living in such times. And yes, interesting times produce introducing situations - both opportunities and dilemmas - for us to personally respond to and to think about how we should respond if it were us. Such is the case here, and I truly hope that this case study can be used as a teaching and learning aid and the basis for wider discussions on the issues involved in it.

About David Wyld

David Wyld ([email protected]) is a Professor of Strategic Management at Southeastern Louisiana University in Hammond, Louisiana. He is a management consultant, researcher/writer, publisher, executive educator, and experienced expert witness. He is the founder and publisher of both The IDEA Publishing (The Best in News, Information and Content Marketing) and Modern Business Press (Creating the Readable - and Enjoyable - Academic Journal - Not an Oxymoron!).

David Wyld’s Online CV

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About the Creator

David Wyld

Professor, Consultant, Doer. Founder/Publisher of The IDEA Publishing (http://www.theideapublishing.com/) & Modern Business Press (http://www.modernbusinesspress.com)

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