CNN’s Jane Velez-Mitchell goes after discriminatory hotel owner: Would you make me change my name too?
CNN’s Jane Velez-Mitchell goes after discriminatory hotel owner: Would you make me change my name too?
New Mexico hotel owner Larry Whitten is currently facing national criticism for demanding that his Hispanic employees change their names and stop speaking Spanish in his presence. Today on CNN, HLN host Jane Velez-Mitchell sharply went after Whitten, introducing herself as “Jane Velez-Mitchell. I hope you don’t mind if I keep using the word ‘Velez’ in my name.” She then went after him for asking his “Spanish” employees to anglicize their names:
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Did you, or did you not, tell someone who’s name is Martin (Mar-TEEN) to say that his name was “Martin,” or similar changes? [...]
WHITTEN: Yes, I asked Martin (Mar-TEEN) to change it to “Martin” to better understand it over the telephone.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: You can’t understand Mar-TEEN? Do you know that the vast majority of people in the community where you have your hotel are Latino? So your customers, to a large extent, are going to be Latino. Now how do you treat the customers when they come in? Do you them also to change their names? Like if I came in, would Jane Velez-Mitchell — so you could better understand my name — would you ask me to change it?
WHITTEN: No, ma’am — [...]
VELEZ-MITCHELL: So the idea that you’re presupposing that people cannot understand Mar-TEEN, but they can understand Martin, really says a lot more about you, sir, than it does about your customers or anybody else.
Throughout the interview, as Velez-Mitchell pointed out, Whitten insisted on calling the employee by the anglicized pronunciation of “Martin.” Watch it:
Transcript:
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Can I jump in here, Larry? I’m here — My name is Jane Velez-Mitchell. I hope you don’t mind if I keep using the word “Velez” in my name. You say that you’re trying to turn around a dilapidated hotel. Did you, or did you not, tell someone who’s name is Martin (Mar-TEEN) to say that his name was “Martin,” or similar changes?
WHITTEN: Yes, ma’am, I was answering your question —
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Just answer that question though. Did you ask him to change his name and anglicize his name? Did you ask anyone to anglicize their name?
WHITTEN: Yes, I asked Martin (Mar-TEEN) to change it to “Martin” to better understand it over the telephone.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: You can’t understand Mar-TEEN? Do you know that the vast majority of people in the community where you have your hotel are Latino? So your customers, to a large extent, are going to be Latino. Now how do you treat the customers when they come in? Do you them also to change their names? Like if I came in, would Jane Velez-Mitchell — so you could better understand my name — would you ask me to change it?
WHITTEN: No, ma’am –
VELEZ-MITCHELL: It’s ludicrous, sir. It’s ludicrous. You should just apologize and say that you made a mistake.
WHITTEN: — and we didn’t ask people in maintenance, and we don’t ask in housekeeping, to change their names. I only asked people on my switchboard, as I have done for 40 years, and again, I have never intentionally changed anyone’s names to insult them, insult their heritage, insult their culture.
It’s a matter of, I wanted Martin to get the recognition — who was a fine young man, I might add. We looked forward to him being one of our managers, if you want to know the real truth. He was an excellent fellow, and we wanted him to get the recognition over the switchboard, not say that “some boy” was good to me on the phone or did me a great service; we wanted his name to be recognizable. That name was proven not to be recognizable, and I wanted him to get the credit for great service.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Well, let me just say this sir: All of these states that we’re talking about with all of these stories — Texas, New Mexico — New MEXICO — California — they were all Mexico at one point. That’s why, when you look at the cities and street names, most of them are in Spanish to begin with. [...]
So the idea that you’re presupposing that people cannot understand Mar-TEEN, but they can understand Martin, really says a lot more about you, sir, than it does about your customers or anybody else.
WHITTEN: Well, Miss Phillips, I’ve turned around 20 hotels using my same procedures. This one failed four times out of five, it was losing anywhere from $3-5,000 a day from no business supporting the payroll, lights, water, gas, insurance, and I’m here learning. I’m learning about diversity, I’m learning about tolerance, and I certainly appreciate all the differences in Taos. It’s a beautiful city, and again, it was never intended to insult anyone. I think Martin was a fine fellow. If he wants to come back tomorrow —
VELEZ-MITCHELL: You’re still calling him Martin!
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I think we should all change our names to “Citizen” followed by an number.
“Hello, I’m Citizen 27943-NY624, pleasure to meet you.”
October 26th, 2009 at 5:19 pmWHITTEN: Well, Miss Phillips, I’ve turned around 20 hotels using my same procedures.
_____________________________________________________________
Who is “Miss Phillips”? If Ms. Velez-Mitchell was working for Whitten, is this the anglicized name he would assign her?
October 26th, 2009 at 5:21 pmMaybe Larry Whitten should change his name to Larry Whitey just to be clear.
October 26th, 2009 at 5:25 pmHe should change his last name to Dobbs.
October 26th, 2009 at 5:27 pmMissmolly — Phillips is Kyra Phillips, the other anchor on the program.
October 26th, 2009 at 5:31 pmI guess I can understand him wanting his employees to speak english but their name is their name and attempting them to change it is horrible and has happened before.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0280377/
October 26th, 2009 at 5:31 pmThat should read forcing not attempting.
October 26th, 2009 at 5:32 pmIt’s funny how the MainStream Media anchors will really push on an issue only when it hits them personally.
I wish Ms. Velez-Mitchell would have had the same passion when speaking about health care….
October 26th, 2009 at 5:33 pmSo, if a customer says “I liked how your switchboard guy, his name was Mar-something, treated me”, you couldn’t figure out who it was? Why not just give him an employee number to use?
October 26th, 2009 at 5:33 pmDixie Blood,
Great suggestion!
On a side note: Maybe he should stop hiring cheap latino labor and hire some good ol’ fashioned white folks with “normal” names and pay a decent living wage?
So sick of this “love the low prices, hate the immigrants” Wal-Mart shopper mentality. If all these rednecks don’t want them darn Mexican immigrants polluting their communities maybe they shouldn’t be so cheap. Personally, I’ll take the Latinos and a living wage so that we can rebuild a decent middle class.
October 26th, 2009 at 5:38 pmHere’s a link to The Whitten (Whitey) Inns so go ahead and express yourself:
http://www.whitteninn.com/
October 26th, 2009 at 5:39 pmImagine how this story would have turned out if he had done all of this in a mostly African American area instead of in a Latino area. African Americans speak English, so he cannot blame a language barrier, but they can obviously be creative when giving names to their children.
Would he have asked an educated person named Sheloquah to change her name if she wanted to work for him in a customer-facing position?
October 26th, 2009 at 5:40 pmI imagine that if Whitten ever wants to “turn around” a hotel in New Orleans’ French Quarter, he won’t put up with any employee speaking French, and anyone with a French name will be required to change it to something “people can understand”.
Never mind that it’s exactly that culture that draws tourists to the French Quarter in the first place. “Andy Brooks” just doesn’t match the ambience the way that “Andre Boudreaux” does.
October 26th, 2009 at 5:41 pmFrom the Whitten Inn website:
“Sleep with Whitten, purr like a kitten.”
Ewwww!
October 26th, 2009 at 5:42 pmI have 3 stoogesphobia, so Larry is Scary to me, so let’s call Larry Scary, then I can’t figure out how to say Whitten so let’s make this Whitey.
So now he can go by the name, “Scary Whitey.”
Works for me.
October 26th, 2009 at 5:43 pmThank God I live in California. Here it’s illegal to tell an employee that they can’t speak another language to a co-worker.
I guess it’s OK in Texas though.
October 26th, 2009 at 5:44 pmAmanda Terkel says
October 26th, 2009 at 5:31 pm
Missmolly — Phillips is Kyra Phillips, the other anchor on the program.
____________________________________________________________
Thanks, Amanda — I can’t see the video here at work, and I might have realized that if I did.
But it WOULD have been funny if Whitten called Velez-Mitchell “Miss Phillips” just to avoid using a Hispanic surname…
October 26th, 2009 at 5:44 pmCNN’s Jane Velez-Mitchell goes after discriminatory hotel owner: Would you make me change my name too?
– - hotel owner: “Just drop that ‘Velez’ part. ‘Mitchell’ is fine.”
October 26th, 2009 at 5:45 pmVelez Mitchell????? Misegination!?!?!?!??!?! what about the children?
October 26th, 2009 at 5:49 pmAh live in Amurca. I speak English. I cain’t be bothered with learnin nothin else cuz I have enuf trubl with English. Just cuz they kin speak two languages means nuffin. Ah noes my langage good and Ahm da boss. Ah noes how to hire illegals and pay em crap so ah don’t want no sass.
October 26th, 2009 at 5:56 pm“CNN’s Jane Velez-Mitchell goes after discriminatory hotel owner: Would you make me change my name too?”
A point well taken. I remembered Ms. Mitchell. She was an anchor news reporter in California years ago. She should replace Lou Dobbs.
October 26th, 2009 at 5:56 pmJebus! These racist morons are crawling out of the woodwork – I’m sick of them.
Let’s just *give* ‘em Texas — then all these bigots and Jesus freaks and gay bashers can move there – that’d get them out of our hair once and for all, along with Gee Dubya and Rick Perry.
October 26th, 2009 at 6:00 pmI gotta ask Mr Whitey:
EEs your daughter for sale?
How much for the leettle girl??
October 26th, 2009 at 6:01 pmAccording to the hotel owner’s logic, the following should change their names:
Ander Crenshaw, Eni Faleomavaega, Chaka Fattah, Mazi Hiroho, Chellie Pingree, and Albio Sires
These are a few US Representatives – you know, people working for us in Congress. If we want to talk to one of them on the phone, shouldn’t they have a more “English” name?
/snark off
October 26th, 2009 at 6:07 pmi demand he change his name to Larry Nitwhitten.
October 26th, 2009 at 6:07 pmass_hole works too.
This whole name changing bit fits when you consider that the names Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Peter and Paul didn’t exist 2,000 years ago in Israel.
The names always get changed and it ain’t to protect the innocent.
October 26th, 2009 at 6:13 pmI wonder if he has any hispanic employees named Jesus?
October 26th, 2009 at 6:13 pmthat could be interesting.
Hard as it may be for some people to understand being able to speak English is a good thing if you’re living in America.
Again though attempting to force people to change their name is wrong on multiple levels.
October 26th, 2009 at 6:17 pmWas he dumb enough to say the folks in NC and SC don’t understand ?
Uh, there are a lot of latinos there.
October 26th, 2009 at 6:20 pmHard as it may be for some people to understand being able to speak English is a good thing if you’re living in America.
Wrong tack. Whitten isn’t complaining they can’t speak English. He is whining when they speak Spanish amongst themselves because he can’t understand it. Twenty four years in the southwest and he can’t understand Spanish.
October 26th, 2009 at 6:23 pmThe more languages one can speak, the better. I encourage everyone to try and learn another language.
October 26th, 2009 at 6:26 pm11. Dixie Blood
Thanks for the link to his hotels.
I am especially impressed that the sales and reservations both use an @yahoo.com address. And the web page gives almost no details about what they actually offer. Definitely a classy operation.
October 26th, 2009 at 6:30 pmI wonder if the ol’ creep thinks that President Obama should change his name to “Barry O’Brian”?
October 26th, 2009 at 6:32 pmbuzzie, that’s Faux. Get your networks and talking points straight.
October 26th, 2009 at 6:41 pmworkerbee
First I havent heard CNN criticised like that. What I tend to hear from my liberal friends is CNN called Contains No News. Give up on claiming to be a progressive no one HERE is stupid enough to buy your false flag BS
October 26th, 2009 at 6:44 pmworkerbee
YOu seem to believe a lot of things that are utterly stupid. You can BELIEVE that gnomes sneak into your room at night and nibble at your toes if you want to. If you are going to make an argument based on such beliefs we will be glad to laugh at you and thank you for the free clown show
October 26th, 2009 at 6:45 pmI believe anyone who doesn’t tow the progressive line is called a “mouth piece for the gop” and sometimes “kkkons.” Right?
Wrong side of the fence, buzzy.
October 26th, 2009 at 6:48 pmMr. Whitey has a bad case of language envy. He secretly wishes his wasn’t so small.
October 26th, 2009 at 6:51 pmI believe it was Lush Rimjob who called CNN the “communist news network”.
October 26th, 2009 at 6:52 pmBernie Ebbers, who is in prison and ruined MCI by turning it into Worldcom, started out running hotels.
Seems to be a trend that small time hotel guys are stupid.
October 26th, 2009 at 6:55 pmWhat this guy is saying is his hotel is not catering to the kind of people who would understand an Hispanic name (i.e. he only wants the kind of clientele that would be welcome in his previous hotels in Oklahoms, Texas and SOUTH CAROLINA). I don’t think he’s going to be successful trying to “turn around” a hotel in New Mexico, using the same bigoted tactics he used in those states. Maybe he wasn’t told that Hispanics are in the MAJORITY, here?
October 26th, 2009 at 6:59 pmBelieve me, people in Taos are solidly against this operation. The population here is more than half Hispanic, too. I’d be afraid to sleep in that place, frankly.
October 26th, 2009 at 7:02 pmJane – didn’t know you well before; love you now. Keep it up on these sick racists.
October 26th, 2009 at 7:04 pm#32 – MapleStreet,
I sent an email to each of those email addresses expressing my disgust with Larry “Whitey” Whitten.
It is a very lame website and using yahoo for email means he can’t even get a serious business presence going.
October 26th, 2009 at 7:05 pmYour nickname may be new, but you have the same dirty sock-puppet stench that was possessed by our recently departed trolls.
October 26th, 2009 at 7:11 pmYou’re not fooling anyone but yourself.
Y’all,
I just got this back from yahoo mail:
Seems we are getting to Larry “Whitey” Whitten. Keep it up.
October 26th, 2009 at 7:20 pmRight? I’m kinda new at this so cut me a little slack. :)
October 26th, 2009 at 7:51 pm—-
Get serious. Your little hymenoptera was busted around here long ago.
This guy doesn’t get it.
First, his customers are largely looking to experience the city/state the way it is, and all its people and all it has to offer.
Second, if he WAS in Spain, his patrons there too, would be from all over Europe seeking the experience of the locale.
October 26th, 2009 at 7:52 pmI have to say that although I agree this Hotel owner/millionare was wrong I’m getting tired and worried about Television news going after anyone they don’t agree with. Now we have the left going after this guy.. the right going after Obama’s people. There are attacks after attacks on people. I mean I understand that people protested – in August – about this guy. But does the Media now have the right to ruin his life? Why? Because we don’t agree with him?
TV is out of control. A 22 year old sleeps with a Sports anchor. She’s destroyed in the media! She’s 22! She made some stupid threats… and now she’s killed by the media every day.
I understand that politicians are public servants and they give up their privacy when they work for us… but it’s getting out of hand.
The thought police on the left and right is making me sick.
October 26th, 2009 at 9:05 pmCuriously enough, this guy, who has a “policy” in his hotels, didn’t say anything about changing the names of the employees named Goldberg, Kurtz, or Olaffsen.
And probably he’s fond of politicians named Schwarzenegger, Condolezza, Gonzales, Gingrich, Perino, Hoekstra, Rohrabacher, Boehner, Jindal, and many, many others with no saxon last names.
October 26th, 2009 at 9:24 pmHonestly, my first thought in watching this interview was that Larry Whitten needs to lose his confounding Texas accent. It New Mexico, for crying out loud.
October 27th, 2009 at 2:01 amI’m in Taos, now and this has been going on for months. The protesters outside Whitten Inn get honks of support all day. One thing the national media hasn’t really grocked is what Taos is really like: it’s the oldest European settlement in North America, with buildings more than 200 years older than D.C. Mexicans move here, sure, but Martin’s family was here before Plymouth Rock. He stepped in it, for sure. Quite entertaining to witness. :-)
October 27th, 2009 at 8:04 pmWhitten stepped in it, I mean.
October 27th, 2009 at 8:04 pmRe: TaosJohn @ 44 and Joseph8th @ 54:
Having visited Taos awhile back, it is indeed a beautiful place. (I didn’t stay at a hotel, though; I stayed at my ex’s sister’s place.)
October 28th, 2009 at 1:48 amWhat the above video clip doesn’t show you is what happened later in the broadcast.
Fellow CNN anchor Rick Sanchez AGREES with Larry Whitten.
Rick correctly points out that he uses his anglicized name out of respect for “this wonderful country who allowed us as Hispanics to come here, and I think it’s easier if someone’s able to understand me by anglicizing my name.”
But I suppose you leftists believe Rick Sanchez is racist as well, lol.
October 28th, 2009 at 5:50 pmThis is accepted behavior all over the world. People working customer support are asked to use short easy to remember names all the time. It’s not just in Taos. But they are the only ones who complain.
Do you really think all the computer support people in India are called Bob, Ted, Carol or Alice?
A liitle diversity and understanding is in order for the people of Taos.
October 29th, 2009 at 6:46 amTaos is not the oldest European settlement btw, that is Santo Domingo in 1498. Taos came over a hundred years (ant lots of other cities) later.
October 29th, 2009 at 6:51 amWhat state did this happen in? New Mexico?? New MEXico??
Oh, you must mean New MEJICO, pronounced “me-hee-ko”.
The pronunciation was changed to Americanize it long ago. But I’m sure all of you outraged critics of Mr. Whitten do now, and always have, pronouced it “me-hee-ko”, no??
Didn’t think so…
October 30th, 2009 at 3:21 pm