When I first heard this story about how this Korean guy was suing Hooters because of a racist incident, I was ready to get up in arms and pull out my Korean card and start flinging them around like Gambit or a fed Twisted Fate. But after reading and seeing all of the disclosed facts, I’m kind of somewhere in the middle of the situation.
I don’t think Hooters should get out of this incident completely scot-free, even if the perpetrator has already confessed and quit. The restaurant still holds a modicum of liability for hiring someone like that in the first place, but they’ve really done all they can do to make sure that this was an isolated incident, and not a situation where hundreds of minorities were left with discriminatory jabs that went undetected.
But at the same time, I don’t think Hooters should be tagged with a $150,000 lawsuit that this Korean guy and his Korean lawyer are pursuing. If these guys want to sue anyone, it should be the 20-year old tramp that wrote the racist remark in the first place, not Hooters. To me, this whole scenario just reeks of people trying to exploit the system and just trying to get paid.
Forget the fact that the guy is Korean and that I’m Korean, and the whole race thing in the first place. Person was wronged by someone who works at a company, person attempts to sue company instead of someone in order to cash out. It’s as clear as day as that. I think the $150,000 declaration is more a formality than anything else, and that ultimately the Koreans are trying to work out a sizeable settlement out of this in the end, while leveraging the ever-sensitive race card, so that both the “victim” and the lawyer can both make some substantial change, just because someone was called a chink.
The hyperbole in the news video clip was hilarious. I speak from experience, and Koreans are cheap motherfuckers. There is NO way Korean Elvis threw away Hooters food he paid for, no matter how much he claimed to be disgusted and “damaged” by the word “CHINX.” I’m sure he probably laughed about it and probably thought about photographing it and putting it on his Xanga or on reddit, before he realized that he could exploit the situation and try to profit off of it. And I’m sure he’s thought about adding the line about being scarred for life of going to American chain restaurants while he was on his way to the Tilted Kilt, alternatively.
If I successfully sued someone for every single incident where I felt that I was racially mistreated, then I probably wouldn’t have to work ever again for the rest of my life. My parents, my sister, Jen, nobody I knew. But I don’t, because I really don’t think scenarios like this one warrant such extreme retribution.
When I was 16, my sister ended up in a coma due to an allergic reaction to a drug incurred during wisdom teeth extraction, one that was essentially ignored and mishandled. My family and I were grateful a month later when she came out of it. I look back at the situation and believed that my parents would have had a layup of a lawsuit, if they decided to sue the orthodontist, but it never happened. They thought that too much time had passed, and frankly, a lawsuit was inconsequential compared to the health and well-being of my sister. It never happened.
But the point is, THAT was something that was worth suing someone over, not because some 20-year old bitch writes a racial slur on a receipt. Hooters may not be the squeakiest-clean company in the world, but they’re far from guilty to the tune of $150,000 because an ex-employee thought she was being clever. This guy and his lawyer are abusing the race card and trying to profit off of the situation, and as a Korean guy, I have no qualms with calling it out.
