posted
Comment: Recently, I heard a rumor (stated of course as a fact) that African Americans were quietly, but consistently barred from entering Disneyland in Anaheim CA, from 1955 (when it opened)until sometime in the late sixties. Is there any truth in this?
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The year the park opened, my family moved from Chicago to Los Angeles. Southern California was still beset with segregation. I remember driving through orange groves and seeing just the top of the Rocket to the Moon as we approached. Even though every visible person working at the park was white, it did not matter to this little brown boy. Disneyland was magic, and part of it will remain that way for me..
That was about all that I could find. Everything else was about the landslide that occured near there sometime. I assume that even if segregation was in place there, protests or something would have put an end to it. Not having lived in the United States, I don't know much about segregation. Late sixties? How long was segregation in place anywhere in the U.S.?
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quote:The year the park opened, my family moved from Chicago to Los Angeles. Southern California was still beset with segregation.
Southern California was "beset with segregation" in 1955? Oh, please. Only to someone who has no idea what the word "segregation" really means.
Maybe, just maybe, most of the people who worked at Disneyland back then were white because most of the people who lived in Orange County back then were white. Duh.
quote:The year the park opened, my family moved from Chicago to Los Angeles. Southern California was still beset with segregation.
Southern California was "beset with segregation" in 1955? Oh, please. Only to someone who has no idea what the word "segregation" really means.
Maybe, just maybe, most of the people who worked at Disneyland back then were white because most of the people who lived in Orange County back then were white. Duh.
- snopes
Isn't Orange County today still pretty much white? That's what the Fox TV tells me anyways.
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quote:Isn't Orange County today still pretty much white? That's what the Fox TV tells me anyways.
It depends on whom you classify as white. If "white" encompasses everyone who isn't "black," then Orange County is still overwhelmingly white (only about 1.5% of the population is black). But if groups such as Asians and Hispanics are considered to be something other than white, then Orange County is just about evenly divided between whites and non-whites.
posted
Southern California was not part of the segregated South (which was actually the southeast). That was where segregation was made into law -- separate water fountains, lunch counters, etc.
The point was an interesting one. Most amusement parks up to the time did segregate, but they were considered to be dying off. Attendance dropped precipitiously starting in the Depression and never recovered. People thought that Disney was crazy to build Disneyland -- he could not get financing for it because the banks thought it was bound to fail. Disney made a deal with ABC-TV to produce "Disneyland" for them (the show later moved to NBC and was called "Disney's Wonderful World of Color"). They both benefitted -- ABC got its first hit show, and Disney could build the park.
Disney was trying to change the image of amusement parks, so it is likely he didn't segregate by official policy. I do know that there were no notable demonstrations outside Disneyland during the civil rights era, and since that'd be an obvious target, they probably had no policy of excluding anyone.
Posts: 675 | From: Schenectady, NY | Registered: Nov 2003
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The only group of people that I had ever heard of being "segregated" at Disney were men with long hair and/or facial hair. It's been a while since I heard that, but don't know how true it was.
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posted
In the 1920's to 1930's Aninham had a large, active, and public KKK. It would not surprisse these same people and the people that supported them (or atleast saw nothing wrong with them) were still around in 1955.
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Well if you look at today's age, we are a bit racial on employment. Employee must have an understanding in the English Language to work in the Federal Government for example. Or else they can't work here.
-------------------- Joseph Z Posts: 1356 | From: Woodbridge, VA | Registered: Jul 2004
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damsa
The Red and the Green Stamps
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quote:Originally posted by Joseph Z: Well if you look at today's age, we are a bit racial on employment. Employee must have an understanding in the English Language to work in the Federal Government for example. Or else they can't work here.
That's not really racial as more to do with National Origin.
But even that doesn't mean much as Nigeria's official language is English. Which would explain why Nigeria is the home of the Nigerian scam.
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quote:Originally posted by damsa: But even that doesn't mean much as Nigeria's official language is English. Which would explain why Nigeria is the home of the Nigerian scam.
But then, wouldn't the scam letters be written in English?
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quote:Originally posted by Joseph Z: Well if you look at today's age, we are a bit racial on employment. Employee must have an understanding in the English Language to work in the Federal Government for example. Or else they can't work here.
I dont think thats very fair considering our goverment and our national language is english and actually requires that you know the language. If you cannot speak english, your probably not qualified for goverment jobs anyhow
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quote:I dont think thats very fair considering our goverment and our national language is english and actually requires that you know the language.
Really? What government regulation requires that U.S. residents know English?
quote:If you cannot speak english, your probably not qualified for goverment jobs anyhow
Yes, of course. Nobody educated in a non-English speaking country could possibly possess the rigorous intellectual qualities required for government work.
quote:Yes, of course. Nobody educated in a non-English speaking country could possibly possess the rigorous intellectual qualities required for government work.
- snopes
quote: Henry Kissinger, how I'm missing yer, You're the doctor of my dreams, With your crinkly hair, and your glassy stare, And your Machiavellian schemes....
Brad "snopes, forgive me for filtering out your irony" from Georgia
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posted
Also, just because your employees all are of the same race, sex, background, or religion doesn't mean you're necessarily discriminating. I used to work at a Doggie Daycare with five other young women. Someone confronted my boss and asked why there were no men working there, and why he only hired young women. My boss honestly answered that no men had ever applied for the job.
It was true. No men, no blacks, noone of non-white ancestry, or over age 50 had ever applied for the job. We couldn't be discriminatory against people who just weren't applying for the position in the first place.
So, if all the early Disneyland employees were white, it could have been that no black people applied for the job.
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damsa
The Red and the Green Stamps
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Actually if the company has a reputation as not hiring persons of a certain class, even though no person of that class ever applied for the job then they can still be found in violation of Title VII.
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quote:Originally posted by damsa: Actually if the company has a reputation as not hiring persons of a certain class, even though no person of that class ever applied for the job then they can still be found in violation of Title VII.
Eh....that'd be incredibly difficult, if not impossible to prove. How can a business hire someone of a class that had never applied? Further, not all businesses are covered under Title VII, and it sounds like the type of business Cervus was discussing is too small for it to apply.
For government agencies (at least at the federal level), they are required to actively seek out minorities by advertising in miniority media, as well as at Historically Black Colleges, et cetera.
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posted
Title VII only applies to places that employ 15 or more people. The most employees we ever had was five. Quite honestly, that was all we could afford to pay anyway.
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damsa
The Red and the Green Stamps
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Yeah, it's hard to prove, but it's been done before. Crab v EEOC
If Disney for example only advertised positions in a magazine called, White People Apply Only magazine then they might be violating some law.
I read that Walt Disney was anti semetic and didn't treat his Jewish employees well. Maybe that's where this urban legend comes from. Or maybe I Disney eing anti semetic is an urban legend as well.
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quote:I read that Walt Disney was anti semetic and didn't treat his Jewish employees well.
If he was so anti-Semetic, why would he have hired any Jews in the first place?
- snopes
Well, the answer is painfully obvious. He hired them so he could be mean to them.
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quote:Originally posted by damsa: But even that doesn't mean much as Nigeria's official language is English. Which would explain why Nigeria is the home of the Nigerian scam.
Considering the broken English that crap consists of, that's rather scary.
quote:Originally posted by damsa: Actually if the company has a reputation as not hiring persons of a certain class, even though no person of that class ever applied for the job then they can still be found in violation of Title VII.
This is true, unfortunately. The Powers That Be will insist that you should spend lots of extra time and $$$'s recruiting the 'minority' population.
CA's Century Freeway project is a good example of a project that was mandated by court order (for various reasons not necessarily related to the OP) to attract, hire, and train women and non-whites.
quote:Originally posted by Rehcsif Mit: This is true, unfortunately. The Powers That Be will insist that you should spend lots of extra time and $$$'s recruiting the 'minority' population.
Why is it unfortunate? Do you really see a difference between outright discrimination of turning someone down for employment because of minority status and not getting any applicants because you make it clear they won't be hired if they do apply?
pinqy
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damsa
The Red and the Green Stamps
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quote:Originally posted by snopes:
quote:I read that Walt Disney was anti semetic and didn't treat his Jewish employees well.
If he was so anti-Semetic, why would he have hired any Jews in the first place?
- snopes
I read that someplace, probably some site that said Disney is frozen dancing with Hitler. Also wasn't Nixon caught on tape saying less than flattering remarks about Henry Kissinger.
quote: The Roger Meyers Story" - Roger Meyers "loved and cared about almost all the peoples of the world" but got in trouble for his short "Nazi Supermen Are Our Superiors" - reference to rumors that Walt Disney was anti-Semitic.
Disparact Impact theory is an odd theory of discrimination and I really don't like it too much.
For example if you had the job requirements of a high school diploma to sweep the floor, because African Americans have lower rates of High School graduation. You would have to justify that the sweeping the floor related to a high school diploma.
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quote:Originally posted by damsa: For example if you had the job requirements of a high school diploma to sweep the floor, because African Americans have lower rates of High School graduation. You would have to justify that the sweeping the floor related to a high school diploma.
Any selection requirement that has a disparate effect on the basis of race, sex, religion, or national origin, must be demonstrated by the employer that the requirement is job-related, so sayeth SCOTUS in Griggs v Duke Power Company.
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quote:Originally posted by Joseph Z: Well if you look at today's age, we are a bit racial on employment. Employee must have an understanding in the English Language to work in the Federal Government for example. Or else they can't work here.
I dont think thats very fair considering our goverment and our national language is english and actually requires that you know the language. If you cannot speak english, your probably not qualified for goverment jobs anyhow
That should come as quite a suprise to some foreign born engineers and scientists I know.
Posts: 4811 | From: Austin, TX | Registered: Feb 2000
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quote:Originally posted by pinqy: Why is it unfortunate? Do you really see a difference between outright discrimination of turning someone down for employment because of minority status and not getting any applicants because you make it clear they won't be hired if they do apply?
No. But that's completely different than a situation where minority applicants have no interest in applying. The day care above was a good example. Any job in my mom's hometown (where I grew up) is another-- since there's probably no blacks in a 40 mile radius (rural Iowa...)
quote:Originally posted by pinqy: Why is it unfortunate? Do you really see a difference between outright discrimination of turning someone down for employment because of minority status and not getting any applicants because you make it clear they won't be hired if they do apply?
No. But that's completely different than a situation where minority applicants have no interest in applying. The day care above was a good example. Any job in my mom's hometown (where I grew up) is another-- since there's probably no blacks in a 40 mile radius (rural Iowa...)
-Tim
There is a difference between living in a community where no minorities live and minorities having no interest in applying for a job.
Disneyland having all white workers in the 1950s probably has to do with the first. Black men not interested in getting a job may be because of pass discriminations and futility. If men were historically not as favored as day care providers, and see less men working in the field, then they are less likely to apply for day care jobs because they see that career path as being futile.
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quote:Originally posted by damsa: If men were historically not as favored as day care providers, and see less men working in the field, then they are less likely to apply for day care jobs because they see that career path as being futile.
I think where we differ, though, is whether the day-care is then reponsible to do whatever advertising it takes to attract male candidates --possibly expending a large amount of money to attract male candidates even if there's a large pool of female applicants available with no/minimal advertising...
quote:Originally posted by damsa: If men were historically not as favored as day care providers, and see less men working in the field, then they are less likely to apply for day care jobs because they see that career path as being futile.
I think where we differ, though, is whether the day-care is then reponsible to do whatever advertising it takes to attract male candidates --possibly expending a large amount of money to attract male candidates even if there's a large pool of female applicants available with no/minimal advertising...
-Tim
Actually I don't really think we really differ. I was just pointing that out. I don't think a day care should expend large amounts of funds on advertising to attract minority candidates, but if they do attract a large number, ask themselves why only females apply. And if they can change their hiring policies to attract men at a minimal cost, why not.
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quote:Originally posted by damsa: [snip] I read that Walt Disney was anti semetic and didn't treat his Jewish employees well. Maybe that's where this urban legend comes from. Or maybe I Disney eing anti semetic is an urban legend as well.
Disney was notorious for not treating any of his employees well. Walt Kelly, the creator of Pogo, worked for Disney on Fantasia. When Kelly's contract was up, he left LA, saying that he never wanted to see or hear of Disney again, because Disney was such a bastard to his employees.
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quote:Disney was notorious for not treating any of his employees well. Walt Kelly, the creator of Pogo, worked for Disney on Fantasia. When Kelly's contract was up, he left LA, saying that he never wanted to see or hear of Disney again, because Disney was such a bastard to his employees.
Yes, a proof based on a non-random sample of one is truly compelling.
There were plenty of people who worked for Walt Disney (i.e., actually had day-to-day contact with him) and were delighted with their experiences. I've met them.
quote:Disney was notorious for not treating any of his employees well. Walt Kelly, the creator of Pogo, worked for Disney on Fantasia. When Kelly's contract was up, he left LA, saying that he never wanted to see or hear of Disney again, because Disney was such a bastard to his employees.
Yes, a proof based on a non-random sample of one is truly compelling.
There were plenty of people who worked for Walt Disney (i.e., actually had day-to-day contact with him) and were delighted with their experiences. I've met them.
- snopes
But how are the experiences of the people that you've met any more compelling? I am sure that for every single person you could find who enjoyed working for him there would be one who thought he was an absolute ogre.
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