In the summer of 2012 millions of people were outraged by comments from the CEO of the fast food restaurant chain Chick –fil-a. He condemned gay marriage but in the headlines he was labeled as intolerant and hateful. There were demonstrations outside of the restaurants nationwide. I remember reading someone’s article claiming the food tasted better before it was covered in hate. If you thought that was something … well, now there’s this, Diane Helms.

Have you heard of Diane Helms? She is a 22 year old resident of Turlock, CA. After the re-election of President Obama, November 6^th 2012, Diane took to social media; Facebook specifically, to voice her displeasure. Diane posted “And another 4 years of this n*gger.  Maybe he will get assassinated this term ..!!”  Diane’s post has since been removed and she is now the focus of an investigation by the Secret Service.

Before you chalk this up to a young person not understanding power and seriousness of social media, let me add that Diane was interviewed by local journalist where she was either defiant or oblivious, I choose believe she is defiant. She said “I didn’t think it was that big of a deal…” “…If it (the president being assassinated) was to happen, I don’t think I’d care a bit” , “…Uhm okay but what did I do wrong…what are they gonna do?” Check the video.

I try to stick to the facts and refrain from any disparate treatment feelings because thanks to that effing O.J. Trial, any time a Black person points out racism, they are labeled as playing the race card, which insinuates race is unfairly being introduced and manipulated into a situation without merit or cause. Sometimes folks it’s NOT a matter of race, but this IS a matter of race.

Diane Helms is racist. Diane Helms is intolerant. Diane Helms is the living definition and personification of a dogmatist bigot. And that’s as simple, pure, plain and NICE as I can say it. She is one sad sack of hate.  (…have I belabored it? GOOD!)

The HR Play

I’m very proud of the way ColdStone Creamery handled the situation. As soon as they were made aware of comments, they fired her. They also released a tweet, “This employer is no longer w/the company & her disgraceful and completely unacceptable comments do not reflect our views.” Kudos to ColdStone, it seems your ice cream maybe covered in a bunch of stuff, but hate isn’t one of them.

There are lessons to be learned here, Leaders (notice I said Leaders, and not bosses) Leaders, talk to your employees about social integrity. Explain to them that they are representatives of your organization within their communities and beyond. Let them know that the things that they do and say can reflect and impact your company both positively and negatively.

You cannot stop social interaction. You can only encourage and promote responsible behavior. By incorporating responsible social interaction through the company’s communication; press releases, tweets and Facebook posting, you are training your employees. Now you can’t stop everyone from behaving badly, no matter how many policies you create however you can take swift corrective action just like Cold Stone Creamery.  In order to take action, you have to be aware, which means you need a corporate social identity.

Make no mistake ladies and gentlemen; you have a Diane Helms in your organization. Your Diane Helms may be racist or maybe they don’t like gays, or whites, or Hispanics or women, or men, or HR. Whatever the case, you have small minded people in every organization which is why as corny and lame as YOU may think it is, you still need sensitivity training. Yes, sensitivity training.  They used to do that  but now it’s seems that after job training the only training employers provide is sexual harassment training which tends to be more of “How to…” than a “How NOT to..” guide.

We need to add some social media questions to the interview process and measure the responses to ensure that the interviewee is at least aware of how important it is to have some sort of decency in their social interactions. Especially in jobs which are in retail, consumer goods and services.  Maybe you should hire a social media team and there is no such thing as an expert in social media because it’s too new, still evolving and changing – so don’t put that (social media expert) on your job description, but hire some social savvy employees to help you learn how to use and engage social technologies. Positively! Responsibly!