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Recently, the city of Los Angeles decided to quickly settle a “discrimination” lawsuit filed by a former Black firefighter by the name of Tennie Pierce. For those of you who are not familiar with the story, here is a very quick version.

“Pierce, a 19-year veteran of the fire department, sued the city in November 2005, claiming racial discrimination. He claimed other firefighters at his Westchester fire station fed him dog food mixed in some spaghetti in October 2004.” (source)

The problem with his story was that he conveniently left out the fact that he himself had participated in similar pranks against other firefighters. In fact, he was known to be a big prankster in the firehouse. According to the other firefighters, he was given dog food because he used to always say during volleyball games “Feed the big dog”. So as a joke, they honored his request. The first picture here is Pierce participating in a prank where a fellow firefighter is strapped down covered in a white sheet inscribed with the words “Oy Vey! I’m Gay”. Looking at the picture, Pierce thought it was funny. However, when it came time for him to be the butt of the joke, he cried “racism” and slapped the city with a $2.7 million dollar lawsuit. Just when city council was getting ready to settle (mind you, they had access to a whole series of similar pictures of Pierce), word of the possible pay out hit the radio airwaves and taxpayers got angry. Even LA mayor Antonio Villaraigosa declined to settle the case.

Early this month, this was the headline that greeted Los Angelenos one morning:

(from the same article excerpted above)

City Approves $1.43 Million To Settle Pierce Case

(CBS) LOS ANGELES The Los Angeles City Council voted 10-4 Tuesday to pay former Los Angeles firefighter Tennie Pierce’s $1.43 million settlement and back pay stemming from his discrimination lawsuit against the city.

The procedural vote released the money for the settlement reached Sept. 21 between the council, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and Pierce’s attorneys.

[SNIP]

In addition to the settlement, Pierce will get $60,000 in back pay, which makes him eligible for pension benefits.

Brenda Lee, a Black lesbian firefighter was recently awarded $6.2 million for her claims that she was also a victim of racial AND sexual discrimination. To tell you the truth, there may be more truth to her claim than that of Pierce.

Today I came across the following story in the LA Times.

The race card backlash

By David A. Lehrer and Joe R. Hicks

The Los Angeles City Claims Board awarded former Department of Transportation head Gloria Jeff $95,000 last week. That action has been appropriately lambasted in local editorials, which decried paying out a princely sum — presumably to avoid a lawsuit — to a city employee who served at the mayor’s pleasure. It is unclear what the basis of a legal action might have been, but what is clear is a pernicious subtext to the Claims Board’s action: When it comes to employment, the race card is a trump card.

Jeff, who is African American, was terminated after what the Los Angeles Times described as clashes with “members of the City Council and her own staff” and a “vote of no confidence” petition signed by 54 of the traffic officers in her department. She was replaced by another African American woman, Rita Robinson, who moved over from her job as head of the Bureau of Sanitation.

The City Council’s three black members — Jan Perry, Bernard C. Parks and Herb Wesson — met with black pastors to discuss Jeff’s termination. The Los Angeles Sentinel, the major African American newspaper in town, raised questions about “what is transpiring with black employees under the mayor’s political umbrella.” Frederick O. Murph, senior minister of Brookins Community African Methodist Episcopal Church, told Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa: “We don’t want to see any more African Americans get fired. We don’t want to see any more African Americans resigning.” According to the mayor, about 20% of his appointed department heads are African American. This in a city with a black population of less than 10%.

The unmistakable message from black leaders was that Jeff was to be protected because of her minority status. Parks and Perry offered support for Jeff but didn’t substantially counter objections to her tenure. In all, there was no ringing defense of Jeff’s performance at the Transportation Department, no recitation of achievements — rather, an invocation of race as the reason she should be retained.

Perry called Jeff “highly competent” but allowed that she also was “abrupt.” And Perry also essentially said that one black administrator was as good as any other, as long as she was black: “Aren’t we just playing a zero-sum game when we promote one African American woman because we removed another?” (more…)

What makes laughable, but sad is that while Los Angeles has been a city that has prided itself as being liberal and culturally diverse, folks have still found a way to find and profit off of racism. As the article above stated, Blacks make up roughly 10% of the city, but 20% of department heads within local government. Is the grip of racism that strong under Black leadership or are folks just too afraid to call out crap?

I choose the latter.