Have you ever noticed that whenever white people get caught doing or saying something racist, the first thing they want to do is throw out the “That’s not really who I am” defense? Have you ever noticed that white people will do something racist to a black person and then expect the black person to be understanding and not get offended? It happens all the time, but it doesn’t get less annoying.
Take for example Lynsey Plasco-Flaxman, a white mother of two who is married to Manhattan financier Joel Plasco. The New York Post reports that in 2016, the mother set out to hire a new nanny to help with her children after the last one didn’t work out. When her new nanny showed up, Plasco-Flaxman freaked out because she was black.
Plasco-Flaxman was so freaked out that she tried to text her husband to let him know that a black had showed up to their home to care for their children. She took out her phone and fired off a text that said “NOOOOOOOOOOO ANOTHER BLACK PERSON.” Plasco-Flaxman was so flustered that she sent the text to her husband twice.
Except...the text didn’t go to her husband. It went to the new nanny herself, Giselle Maurice. Oops.
When Plasco-Flaxman realized her mistake, she immediately fired Maurice saying she felt “uncomfortable.”
Imagine that. The white woman who sent an offensively racist text not once but twice was uncomfortable because the subject of her racist missive happened to see it through no fault of her own.
Plasco-Flaxman claims that they had a bad experience with the nanny immediately preceding Maurice, and that nanny just so happened to be black, so this time, they were hoping not to get another black, but to instead get a Filipina.
For Maurice, the job was supposed to be a six-month live-in gig for which she would be paid $350 a day. That’s a lot of money to lose out on, so Maurice, 44, has filed a lawsuit for the lost wages. She told the Post that Plasco-Flaxman and her husband paid her for the one day she showed up and sent her home in an Uber.
“I [want] to show them, look, you don’t do stuff like that,” Maurice told the Post, adding, “I know it’s discrimination.”
The Plascos believe they were justified in firing Maurice. After all, how could they possibly trust her to take care of their children after Mrs. Plasco-Flaxman made such a racist and offensive comment about her?
Joel Plasco, who is co-chairman of the Dalmore Group investment bank, told the Post “[My wife] had sent her something that she didn’t mean to say. She’s not a racist. We’re not racist people. But would you put your children in the hands of someone you’ve been rude to, even if it was by mistake? Your newborn baby? Come on.”
Just in case that is not a clear enough statement, let me break it down for you.
First of all, Plasco claims his wife—whose first instinct was to make a racist comment—is not at all a racist. They aren’t racist people! COME ON. The last nanny was a bad one, and it was totally because she was black and not just because she was, you know, a bad nanny or something. If one black nanny is bad, all black nannies are bad, you idiots. That’s not stereotyping or being racist, that’s just the damn facts—in the Plascos’ minds anyway.
Next, even though Maurice had given them no indication that she harbored any ill will toward them, because they displayed racism and acted in poor taste, they immediately deflected and shifted the burden of that bad behavior onto Maurice—as if it was her fault they made the racist comment.
How can you possibly trust a black person you have been racist toward to be nice to you in the aftermath? Is that even logical?
Maurice told the Post that the racist text would not have made her treat the child any different.
“This is my reputation. Why would I do something to a baby?” she said. “I was willing to work with her and prove her wrong, but it was her conscience, and she couldn’t work with me anymore.”
Exactly.
White people cannot ever deal with the consequences of their actions. They are not used to being held accountable because white privilege and white supremacy are the most intoxicating drugs ever. To be caught out there red handed as it were was probably the worst thing to happen to either of them.
The thing is, if you know you did something offensive—which they clearly admit to in their defense of why they fired her—why would you fight back against settling up with someone to whom you had promised a job and then taken it away because of your own gaffe?
Maurice told the Post that she tried to settle the dispute with the Plascos through mediation, and when they refused, she filed her lawsuit.
Joel Plasco told the Post that he and his wife don’t owe Maurice anything because they didn’t have any type of contract. He called her lawsuit “extortion.”
“I’m not someone who has millions of dollars lying around to just pay off people that are coming after me for extortion. And now you’re playing straight into her hands,” he said.
“My wife was two months off having a baby, suffering from a very difficult situation. You’re going to go after someone like that? That’s not a very nice thing to do.”
Oh, Mr. Plasco. I don’t think you really want to get into a pissing match over what’s nice and what’s not. Do you?