Southern California Edison Sued For Racial Discrimination: A Lesson in Racial Reality

A group of black Southern California Edison (SCE) employees recently filed a class action lawsuit against the company, alleging racial discrimination dating back to the '70s. The plaintiffs claim that SCE has routinely passed over black employees for promotion, and discriminates based on race in hiring. The plaintiffs also allege that they contend with a racially-hostile work environment, in addition to unequal pay and job assignments.

This is not the first time that SCE has been accused of racial discrimination, having faced discrimination class action suits in 1974 and 1994. Consent decrees from both lawsuits required the company to make "good faith efforts to increase the employee population and improve the opportunities for African-Americans ." However, as reported by Southern California Public Radio, the numbers of black employees at SCE has decreased by approximately forty percent since the most recent suit in 1994.

Although we should not jump to conclusions or presume guilt based on previous behavior, the allegations made by the plaintiffs in the SCE class action suit are disturbing. If true, these allegations show a pattern of racial discrimination against black employees embedded so deeply in the culture of SCE that two previous lawsuits weren't enough to get the company to change its management style. It appears that SCE does not even want to make the slightest attempt at treating black employees fairly.

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Best and Worst Company Names of All Time

A great company name has to captivate customers and explain what, exactly, the company does -- usually all in one word. Names can make or break a company, and Inc.com's list of the best and worst company names of all time is an eye-opener for aspiring entrepreneurs. Click forward to see why each of these names is an asset or a detriment.

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Best and Worst Company Names

"Bookgoo, which is a site that allows you to highlight Web pages, sounds like something nasty that would make the pages of a dirty old library book stick together," says Christopher Johnson, a Seattle-based naming expert, who runs The Name Inspector blog. "The way the pronunciation gets 'stuck' between the k and g sounds strengthens this unfortunate association."

Best and Worst Company Names

"The name limits this company to being identified with a single category," says Phillip Davis, the founder of Tungsten Branding in Brevard, N.C. "But they sell books, music and magazines. As a result, they must market harder to overcome this."

Best and Worst Company Names

"Just try to say it three times fast," Davis says.

Best and Worst Company Names

"The truncated geographic descriptor name limits the company to one category in one country," Davis says. "If you're looking for a computer in the U.S., this is your place. But for a DVD player? Who knows?"

Best and Worst Company Names

"There's almost no point in even trying to understand where they're going with this," says Eli Altman, a brand strategist at One Hundred Monkeys, a naming firm in Mill Valley, Calif. "OK, so they do transportation in the air -- I get it. To just say exactly what you do, and say it in the most boring way possible, doesn't really help anyone involved."

Best and Worst Company Names

"Of course, this is definitely not a word, but it sounds like one," Altman says of the VOIP phone service. "The problem is there's no inherent property in this name. You hear it, and it's just kind of a passable word. It seems like the goal with a name like this is to go unnoticed. I would love to hear their explanation of what this has to do with who they are or what they're about."

Best and Worst Company Names

"It's not clear how to pronounce this name, but the most likely pronunciation is identical to the word "incubi", the plural of "incubus," the name for a demon from Medieval folklore that rapes women in their sleep," Johnson says of the online inventor community. "Have we learned nothing from the Reebok Incubus fiasco?" [In the 1990s, Reebok came out with a women's running shoe called Incubus.]

Best and Worst Company Names

"Co America? Is there another America that I don't know about it?" Altman says. "I guess this company could say that they work with America. America is never a word you should play with or add things on to. I think people have extraordinarily complex views of the word. They're playing with a very available and present word, and they did it in a careless way."

Best and Worst Company Names

"This great example of bad wordplay seems to combine two words with unhelpful meanings: "fertilizer" (meaning 'manure') and "fair" (meaning 'so-so')," Johnson says of the online music company. "The transition between the first two syllables is unnatural in English, so the eleven-year-old in all of us can't avoid seeing and hearing the name as Fartilizer."

Best and Worst Company Names

A story like this one should be like cold water in the face of those who want to deny that there is still racism in this country.

From the Shirley Sherrod firing, to the NAACP resolution asking the Tea Party to address the racism in its membership, race issues are really coming to the forefront in America in a divisive way. Now we have Senator Jim Webb of Virginia claiming that white privilege is a myth, and that affirmative action in all its forms should be disbanded. These events and more show how important it is that we remain aware of the racial reality in this country, no matter what people try to claim. The reality is that racial injustice still exists, regardless of the objections of ignorant people who want to ignore it.

Blacks and other non-whites still face systematic and ongoing discrimination such as what these black employees at Southern California Edison are claiming. Some black people have been scared into silence because they have been shamed by conservatives against "playing the race card." Yet, it would be the epitome of foolishness for black people to allow our attention to be distracted from the issues that significantly impact us by accepting the false arguments of those who have the most to gain from distorting reality.

I commend the employees of Southern California Edison for taking a stand in the midst of our culture of denial.