It Can't Be Racism Because No Whites Are Involved

Taylor Farms plant in Salinas (Chronicle photo)

I've been buying Taylor Farms organic produce at Costco for the past year and was disappointed to see this Chronicle headline: 16 former employees sue Taylor Farms for racial discrimination.

However, there's still a chance that Taylor Farms won't be pulled from Costco shelves because the story doesn't fit the mainstream narrative of white discrimination against non-whites. In other words, there's a good chance the story will be buried: [bold added]

African American workers faced rampant racist and discriminatory behavior at the farm’s manufacturing plant in Tracy.

The 16 employees named in the lawsuit, all of whom are African American, described incidents in which co-workers called them “n—,” “monkey” or Spanish-language racial epithets like “congo” and “mayate.” The plaintiffs also claim they were denied promotions because of their skin color and were often forced to work in unfavorable conditions...

According to the lawsuit, 80 African American employees worked at the facility in 2015. By 2017, there were fewer than 20...

Many of the plaintiffs listed in the lawsuit worked for Taylor Farms between 2014 and 2017. Most of the events are described in the lawsuit as interactions between African American employees and Latino employees and supervisors.

I think we should cut the Latino name-callers some slack. In California we don't believe in brainwashing immigrant populations with Anglo values.