Opinion ID: 2978769
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Betty Talley

Text: -4- No. 08-6376 Armstrong v. Whirlpool Betty Talley has been employed by Whirlpool in a variety of positions since 1984. Like her co-plaintiffs, Talley described several alleged instances of racial harassment that she neither witnessed nor learned of except by reason of this litigation. Additionally, Talley stated that Dale Travis “would curse, on the line anybody and everybody,” and that she complained to a supervisor about “how [Travis] would walk off the line and how he yelled and nobody did anything about it.” Talley stated that Travis “did his stuff on a daily basis.” Although Talley stated during her deposition that she had neither heard another employee call an African-American employee a racially offensive name at work nor been called a racially offensive name at work herself, she later testified that she had witnessed Travis address another employee by saying, “hey you black mother fu,” and that she had heard Travis call Henry Beasley an “uppity ni.” She also stated that Travis had once used the phrase, “may the klan be with you,” and that Travis had said that “we needed a James Earl Ray Day” and that African Americans should stay with their own kind. Additionally, Talley testified that she had learned second-hand that Travis had called Beasley a “yellow ni” and a “redhead ni,” and that Travis had said that Beasley wanted to be white. Talley also claimed to have learned second-hand that Travis called a co-worker a “black bitch.” Finally, Talley claimed that she had heard Travis refer to co-workers who spoke with her as “ni lovers.” In discussing her complaints about employees other than Travis, Talley stated that a Caucasian employee named Quiggle had “talked about any race that wasn’t white” and had “told dirty jokes” in the presence of supervisors who had done nothing in response. Additionally, Talley stated that during the period in which she worked in the warehouse, she would often observe graffiti -5- No. 08-6376 Armstrong v. Whirlpool on the inside of trailers that she unloaded, although she did not know whether the trailers belonged to Whirlpool. Specifically, she observed the letters “KKK,” and the word “ni bitch,” as well as sexually explicit drawings with racial components, in the inside of trailers that she unloaded. She also stated that her supervisor would spray paint over the graffiti as soon as it appeared.