Mantality, a testosterone clinic in the Saint Louis area, recently got some unwanted attention from the news media in the form of this story:
At least three black women applying to a Missouri-based chain of testosterone clinics were told that their "suggestive" and "ghetto" names made them unfit for employment — a policy that seems to amount to an astonishingly blatant example of discrimination and racism.
It turns out that their computer account was hacked, probably by a vengeful ex-employee:
Mantality owner Kevin Meuret says his company's Indeed.com account was breached by "potentially an ex-employee" from outside Missouri. Meuret believes that the hacker sent twenty racist rejection emails before the company became aware of the situation and shut down the Indeed.com account.
According to Meuret, the unknown hacker not only targeted black women, but also Mantality employee Jordan Kimler, whose name was manually entered in the signature-field of the messages.
"For some reason it was a personal attack on her," Meuret says. "I'm deeply upset that her name was tied to something that disgusting. Anyone associated with her knows that doesn't match with anything she's said."
The two lessons are, first, change all your account passwords if you let an employee go. It's a pain, but not as much a pain as what happened here. Second, the Internet has changed into a giant outrage machine working at the speed of light. When you see something that looks outrageous, please wait before you jump on it, because it may be a misunderstanding.
At least three black women applying to a Missouri-based chain of testosterone clinics were told that their "suggestive" and "ghetto" names made them unfit for employment — a policy that seems to amount to an astonishingly blatant example of discrimination and racism.
It turns out that their computer account was hacked, probably by a vengeful ex-employee:
Mantality owner Kevin Meuret says his company's Indeed.com account was breached by "potentially an ex-employee" from outside Missouri. Meuret believes that the hacker sent twenty racist rejection emails before the company became aware of the situation and shut down the Indeed.com account.
According to Meuret, the unknown hacker not only targeted black women, but also Mantality employee Jordan Kimler, whose name was manually entered in the signature-field of the messages.
"For some reason it was a personal attack on her," Meuret says. "I'm deeply upset that her name was tied to something that disgusting. Anyone associated with her knows that doesn't match with anything she's said."
The two lessons are, first, change all your account passwords if you let an employee go. It's a pain, but not as much a pain as what happened here. Second, the Internet has changed into a giant outrage machine working at the speed of light. When you see something that looks outrageous, please wait before you jump on it, because it may be a misunderstanding.
