Not including defense attorney costs. Jorge Arvelo served spaghetti with a dog food sauce to Tennie Pierce at his firehouse as a prank, and alleged racial discrimination. The three firefighters behind the joke said it was just firehouse tomfoolery, but Pierce’s attorney found a professor willing to say otherwise: “The association of a black man and dog food resonates with the deep historical roots of slavery and the corresponding dehumanization,” said sociologist David Wellman, who further opined that “[Blacks] have a gyroscope that picks up hostile stuff that somebody else would not see as hostile.” The City Council voted 11-1 to settle for $2.7 million; it’s not their money, after all. Pierce also gets to take a year off on fully paid administrative leave, and then collect a full pension. The LA Fire Department is 47% minority. (Sandy Banks, “Black firefighter settles suit over racial prank”, Los Angeles Times, Nov. 9).
Note to Los Angeles residents: I’ll eat dog food and let firefighters laugh at me for doing so for a tenth that price.
Update, November 22: Mayor vetoes settlement in response to taxpayer outrage.
7 Comments
“[Blacks] have a gyroscope that picks up hostile stuff that somebody else would not see as hostile.”
Apparently this attorney is an ignorant fool. He does not know what a gyroscope is or why it would be a poor analogy for the idea he is trying to convey. Unfortunately the jury was even more ignorant.
Can’t blame a particular jury for this one: this was a settlement, which suggests that LA was worried that they would lose more than $2.7 million if it went to trial. Appalling either way.
Where’s the hardship here? Modern dog food is so much tastier than that of the 50s…
And that inbuilt “gyroscope” sounds like a willing to see prejudice where none exists. Guess that’s why I’m not a litigator.
“[Blacks] have a gyroscope that picks up hostile stuff that somebody else would not see as hostile.”
Otherwise known as “It doesn’t matter if they didn’t know it would be taken as racist and didn’t mean it as racist – WE decide if you are racist, not you!”
In short, whit people are inherently guilty, and there is no possible defense, because white people just aren’t sensitive enough.
Racism? What racism? Oh, the racism of the people MAKING those claims – THAT I see.
Deoxy’s right – “racism” as a charge against whites (though was one defendant Hispanic?) isn’t so much an accusation as it is an accusation and conviction all rolled up in one. With no appeal. Nobody will ever ask, “but was it really racist?” Or “how do we define racism?” And so on. The New McCarthyism.
We might also ask whether attributing “special gyroscopes” to a racial group isn’t the same sort of generalizing that’s apparently forbidden in the first place. But nobody would answer.
The words of the anti-discrimination advocate, spoken to me years ago, continue to resonate: “you’re a racist, you just don’t know it.”
The simplest (literally) non-sequitur.
[…] so. When it comes to funding services, it is up to New Yorkers to be consistent in our distinction between heroism and lack of fiscal discipline. If we decide Mason is a hero, we need to put our taxpayer money where our mouths are at home. That […]