Facebook user caught in 'ghetto dude' backlash

[Fred Derf Veteran]

First of all, the preface:

'Ghetto dude' email sent by mistake: province

Sender says her message to U of T student awaiting callback for job was copied to him by accident

Jul 21, 2007 04:30 AM

http://www.thestar.com/News/article/238413

Essentially, a black job applicant was accidentally carbon copied in an intra-office email where a provincial staffer referred to him as "ghetto dude". The person who sent the email was a 26 year old junior clerk called Aileen Siu. She has since either quit or she has been fired over this.

Now for the new story:

Facebook user caught in 'ghetto dude' backlash

Jul 27, 2007 04:30 AM

Nicholas Keung

STAFF REPORTER

What's in a name, especially a tarnished name?

While the Internet has miraculously reconnected lost friends and family, it can also create the kind of nightmare in which you are misidentified, branded a racist and have your photograph circulated all over the virtual world.

Ask Toronto's Aileen Siu.

Not the Ontario cabinet staffer who fell into disrepute after using the term "ghetto dude" in an email ? and mistakenly sending it to the young black job applicant to whom she was referring.

This Aileen Siu is a graduate in tourism and business at Ryerson University and works for a private company. She isn't remotely related to the other Aileen, who left her job at Queen's Park on Monday (whether by firing or resignation isn't clear).

But all this week she's been frantically trying to get bloggers and website hosts to repair her reputation and take her Facebook photo off their sites.

"I do not work in the cabinet and just because I have the same name as the person in the newspaper, that doesn't mean it's me," said Siu, 25. "I do not appreciate my name being tarnished because of some other person's mistake.

"There are many people with the exact name and it wouldn't be right to target everyone with that name."

Siu said she didn't give it much thought when she heard about the other Aileen and her email to applicant Evon Reid in last weekend's Toronto Star. "We just happened to have the same name," she mused then.

But by Monday, when friends and relatives began calling her family about it, she knew she was in trouble. Her Facebook account had garnered more than 30 nasty emails, and bloggers were posting a photo and personal profile lifted from it in chat rooms.

"My sister and the other Aileen are about the same age, both from Toronto," said her infuriated older sister, Wan-ling, one of three children born in Canada to immigrant parents from Hong Kong.

"People see that and think that she's the one, saying she's a racist, which is absolutely not true."

Online writers have labelled her with slurs of their own and compared her to a pet dog in her photo. "Who's the asian chick with aileen? sorry. couldn't resist," wrote one.

Friends have pitched in online to defend the innocent Aileen.

"If my friend was actually that person, I would not defend her at all," wrote one. "So please consider what I have said and remove the picture."

And at least one person who knows the cabinet Siu stood up for the Ryerson grad on a blog. "I happen to know the Aileen that everyone is talking about," wrote "Lana."

"And although I can't say I'd like to see her picture posted up here, I don't feel right allowing people to comment on the face of an innocent girl who happens to have the same name."

Siu's mother, Kathy, said police have told the family there's nothing they can do.

"My daughter is an angel," sighed the retired office administrator, who chose the name Aileen from a baby-name book. It's Irish-Gaelic and means "light-bearer."

"We gave her a joyful name and wanted her to shine. But now her halo is dimmed because of this (mistaken identity)."

Siu is a very giving person who travelled to the Dominican Republic last year with luggage full of clothes, stationery and books for needy kids, he mother said. "She is so innocent and is paying the price for someone else's mistake."

Siu quickly removed her Facebook account and has succeeded in getting some sites to delete her picture, hoping more will follow suit.

"The Internet does do wonderful things," said Wan-ling. "But it's also very dangerous. People have to be careful what they put on it.

"You don't know these people who are searching on the Internet and how they are using your information. This is a good example of what could happen."

http://www.thestar.com/News/Ontario/article/240425

[Rappy Veteran]

Oh Dear :|

[Fedorpheux]

Well yeah, it sucks for her (the innocent one), but sometimes this stuff happens. You can't really blame anybody. I guess she can blame the original one, but we're all only human and people make mistakes...sometimes those people happen to have the same name as you.

This is one of those problems that is solved by living in a world where there are no names and everybody just has a unique identification number. Few people think of the upsides of a world like that, but here's one.

[Denis W. Veteran]

Ouch. Same name and almost same age.

The flaming posts probably came from idiot teens who have probably said things far worse than "ghetto dude" to others.

[WooSH]

i dont get it...one Alieen said 'ghetto dude' and because of it another Aileen got criticized for it??? so how did they even connect the wrong Aileen with the incident...

someone explain im lost.

and whats wrong with saying Ghetto Dude? i mean everyone uses it...sure it may be wrong but how is that any different than saying "man our teacher gave us all another gayass assignment" (please, no offense meant)

[Doli]

and whats wrong with saying Ghetto Dude? i mean everyone uses it...sure it may be wrong ...

I think you just answered your own question, that is if you know why "it may be wrong". ;)

[Ash]

i dont get it...one Alieen said 'ghetto dude' and because of it another Aileen got criticized for it??? so how did they even connect the wrong Aileen with the incident...

A news story comes out about somebody with that name in Toronto so some angry people do a search for that name and age range (since some people don't put their real age on online communities) on facebook, then they find her and assume it is the same person cause the names match.

[spenser.d]

This is one of those problems that is solved by living in a world where there are no names and everybody just has a unique identification number. Few people think of the upsides of a world like that, but here's one.

Or people could just not be so damn uptight about what some idiot thinks about them. In fact that would solve a great deal more problems than just racism, I think. Unfortunately that's not at all like human nature.

You could hunt me down and throw every derogatory comment you can think of at me and I'll just stand here and laugh at you. It's pretty easy.

It may sound insensitive, but it's not much harder to just not get offended by stupid stuff than to point the finger (not to mention less of a pain in the a**).

-Spenser

[Diffused Mind]

So an Aileen Siu calls a black guy some "ghetto dude" and now she's a racist?

[Doli]

So an Aileen Siu calls a black guy some "ghetto dude" and now she's a racist?

Aileen Siu called a guy a "Ghetto Dude", the problem is that another person with the same name is getting the blacklash.

[Lexcyn]

So an Aileen Siu calls a black guy some "ghetto dude" and now she's a racist?

The problem is that is a racist comment, and also Aileen was an employee of the Cabinet in our provincial Government, headed by Tony Dean. Government employees have to be politically correct, and saying 'ghetto dude' certainly isn't politically correct, nor the correct way of referring to someone of a different race:|:|

[Diffused Mind]

The problem is that is a racist comment, and also Aileen was an employee of the Cabinet in our provincial Government, headed by Tony Dean. Government employees have to be politically correct, and saying 'ghetto dude' certainly isn't politically correct, nor the correct way of referring to someone of a different race. :|

What...are you actually trying to make all this PC look like a good thing? She's probably right, and he probably was some ghetto thug.

[Fred Derf Veteran]

What...are you actually trying to make all this PC look like goodi> thing? She's probably right, and he probably was some ghetto thug.

He was probably a ghetto thug because his skin is black? That's the racism that got people all angry in the first place.

Actually, he is a honours student at the University of Toronto.

His r?sum? includes:

A summer course in international management strategies at the University of Hong Kong; one credit short of an honours degree in political science at U of T; completed project on paradigm shifts in United States foreign policy; working on another to evaluate the effects of electoral reform on public policy.

Extensive job experience; Get Reel Festival organizer; founder of Canadian International Peace project (at U of T's Scarborough campus); participant in Forum for Young Canadians on Parliament Hill; etc., etc.

[Diffused Mind]

What relevance does that have to anything, Fred? The fact here is that people are getting their panties twisted for all the wrong reasons.

[Doli]

What...are you actually trying to make all this PC look like goodi> thing? She's probably right, and he probably was some ghetto thug.

Can you please clink the first link in the original post. Try to get to know someone before judging them.

But this story is about the wrong Aileen Siu getting the backlash online. They are attacking her when its another woman by the same name who made the mistake.

[Fred Derf Veteran]

What relevance does that have to anything, Fred? The fact here is that people are getting their panties twisted for all the wrong reasons.

I think racism is a valid reason to get one's panties twisted.

[4CxbqFxVnstmA Veteran]

well its also being blamed wrongly thats the point. its like if someone else came here and called himself difused mind and posted racist comments and all, how would you feel about it ?

[Fred Derf Veteran]

Update:

Whatever happened to

'Ghetto dude' slur still haunts job applicant

Evon Reid ? now a Queen's Park media analyst ? can't forget emailed insult from government office

Dec 29, 2007 04:30 AM

Linda Diebel

Staff Reporter

In the young life of Evon Reid, 2007 turned out to be the best of times and the worst of times.

The worst because, on an otherwise uneventful day in July, he opened his email to find the term "ghetto dude" in a note to him from the Queen's Park office where he'd applied for a job.

Reid, 22, interpreted the offensive term as meaning, "I'm black," as he told the Toronto Star at the time of the incident.

"It's very insulting."

But it was also the best of times because, the day after his story was published, Premier Dalton McGuinty called him at home to personally apologize.

Other government officials apologized privately, dealing quickly with a situation that broke in a provincial election year.

Now, five months later, Reid is working as a media analyst at Queen's Park in just the type of job he wanted.

A happy ending, right?

Not completely, Reid said in an interview from Jamaica, where he is celebrating Christmas week with his father.

"I still don't have it all sorted out," he explained. "I don't think I've come to a final verdict about what happened."

Of course, he's happy with his new job and says he's learning a lot.

He works on contract as a U.S. media analyst for the ministry of intergovernmental affairs, flagging issues relevant to Ontario, such as events taking place in the border states.

"The people are great and I feel really close to the action," he said, adding he chose the option of working in a different office than the cabinet office where the offensive email originated.

It's an ideal situation for him. His contract runs until the spring, shortly before he finishes his fourth and final year in honours political science at the University of Toronto.

He has a stellar resum?, with study in Hong Kong and fellowships with the federal government and on Capitol Hill, and hasn't yet decided whether he will go to graduate school.

He believes he will have choices.

The public reacted strongly to Reid's story last summer and he was flooded with job offers and letters of support.

Many people wrote or called to describe incidents of discrimination they experienced in their own lives and thanked him for having the courage to go public.

But it's the other part of the equation that gives Reid "a small amount of unease" because he still can't quite accept the rationale for the email.

He has no problem agreeing with senior cabinet officer Craig Sumi's conclusion last July the term was "totally inappropriate" and appreciates the government's prompt action.

He called McGuinty's phone call "thoughtful" and expressed his appreciation.

However, his unease lies with the suggestion made by a couple of senior officials that the unfortunate incident occurred only because a "low level" employee had been involved.

The employee involved, who left the cabinet office shortly after the story broke, told the Star she'd been "multi-tasking" when she sent Reid the email, and that the term hadn't referred to him.

But Reid argues the "low level" official was the government for him ? or at least his only contact with Queen's Park, as is often the case for the public.

And, while he would like to believe he would have gotten the job without the rush of publicity, there's that twinge of unease about the answer.

http://www.thestar.com/News/GTA/article/289428

[Green-Tea]

she probably retaliated because alot of asian women were raped, sexual assaulted by black guys in the los angeles area and i did a background check on that lady and shes from upper los angeles.

Her Facebook account had garnered more than 30 nasty emails, and bloggers were posting a photo and personal profile lifted from it in chat rooms.

Bet its all ****ing anti asian racism...

why is it that blacks make fun of asians, they dont get nothing bad punishment but when its asian, they get fired or something bad?

[Rob Veteran]

she probably retaliated because alot of asian women were raped, sexual assaulted by black guys in the los angeles area and i did a background check on that lady and shes from upper los angeles.

Hmm I disagree. I think it's someone who made an awkward social faux-pas through ignorance rather than racism and rightly paid the price with her job. Unfortunately an innocent party became embroiled in the backlash, and that's the upsetting aspect of the story.

why is it that blacks make fun of asians, they dont get nothing bad punishment but when its asian, they get fired or something bad?

Again, I disagree. If a black employee made a similar slur to an Asian job candidate, the backlash would be similar as would the offence felt by the candidate.

[Green-Tea]

Wrong and wrong. Heres example :

http://www.hiphopmusic.com/archives/000768.html

This lady who is black rapped and laughed about the asian tsunami survivors . She was never, never fired or held responsible. She even got a new job in NY hosting another radio show.

However, a asian guy named Kenneth Eng published an article entittled " why I hate blacks " which was his reason to say how blacks poke fun at asians, he gets fired.

So let me get this straight, a black person can poke fun at asians and get away with it but an asian person does it, he gets punished.

Hmm

[Fred Derf Veteran]

So let me get this straight, a black person can poke fun at asians and get away with it but an asian person does it, he gets punished.

I do not really equate making fun of tsunami survivors with an article titled "why I hate blacks". Totally different league.

[4CxbqFxVnstmA Veteran]

I don't know why anyone should poke fun at anyone on a racial grounds. It also seems racist to make some people immune to the rules of decency. It's like saying, we don't expect you to be capable of sticking to the rules. If I were black I'd be offended that the tsunami thing was allowed when the 'hate' thing was not. I'd see that as a kind of racism too, like patronising.

[Farstrider]

I don't know why anyone should poke fun at anyone on a racial grounds. It also seems racist to make some people immune to the rules of decency. It's like saying, we don't expect you to be capable of sticking to the rules. If I were black I'd be offended that the tsunami thing was allowed when the 'hate' thing was not. I'd see that as a kind of racism too, like patronising.

I agree with most of what you say! I live in South Africa and anyone who knows our history will know that racism is a huge thing in our country! We have the same problem here inasmuch that it is OK for some to use the race card but when others do the same thing they are told not to be racist!! That said we have a group of people in this country that just can not seem to let the past be the past and cling onto their Calvinist beliefs fervently and racism seems to be a part of their makeup! Racism really does suck, the world would be a better place without it!

[primexx]

why was the innocent girl's information available to the public in the first place?