San Bernardino Council believe the evidence if not the presenters

Hardy L. Brown

What is one to do when some council members are so blind by envy, jealously and financial contributions that even the evidence cannot increase their intelligence? When an elected leader reaches that threshold the only thing left for the citizens to do is to elect someone else. I'm afraid of the council members that are demonstrating that kind of behavior.

In the case of Operation Phoenix Program a highly respected retired judge coordinated with other respected agencies such as County Board of Supervisors, California Highway Patrol, California State University, Stater Brothers Market and community leaders, including city council members, Chief of Police, and code enforcement director. It had legal input from their own city attorney. They had as witness council member Dennis Baxter and business leaders adjacent to the area give high praise in support of the operation. We have had the news media reporting of the program success yet you still do not believe. Maybe you want to see the nail prints first? No, that was doubting Thomas, not the intelligent members of the San Bernardino city council.

So paraphrasing what Jesus told the disciples if you have problems with the presenters of the information or the way it was presented then call them a LIAR or accept the report and act in an intelligent educate manner on the evidence presented.

Riverside City needs to do more community outreach

The citizens of Riverside finally presented their concerns before the city council about the way the new city manger is making decisions when it comes to employment of minorities. The perception is that more Blacks and Latinos have been fired than hired since Brad Hudson hit the city. It was Victoria Jackson who said to her knowledge 13 minorities have been fired since June 2005, the month Hudson started employment. It was Hudson who refuted the allegations by saying the percentage of management employees for Blacks had increased by 1.7% and 1.9% for Latinos since he took the position of city manager. This is good and welcome news to all of us but one of the problems that existed with the city is the lack of community involvement with visible minorities since Hudson took office while all of the high profile minorities were let go. It still rings true that if the public does not know what you are doing, then you are not doing anything. When the only thing they see is an exodus of people who look like them coming out of city hall and the only ones looking like them going in paying bills, it leaves a bad taste on the tongue. This is what the community was saying to the council, "don't we count as citizens?"

I want to encourage the mayor and city council to seek ways to keep the Black and Latino citizens better informed because we are not active members of the chamber, Kiwanis, Rotary clubs, attend the same churches, shop at the same supermarket or our children don't attend the same schools nor exercise by walking up Mount Rubidoux. We don't get our hair care from the same establishments and our political affiliation is different so the chance for us to get information accidentally is not great. 

The things we have in common is we pay taxes, live in the same city, breath the same air, ride the same congested streets, but fall short when it comes to sharing the fruits from the economic trees of the city.  We hear the words of inclusion but not feeling or seeing the results. The city needs to identify those 1.7 and 1.9 percent to the public and work on increasing this number. 209 didn't stop you from hiring Blacks and Latinos it was suppose to level the playing field.

Don't practice "Disparate Treatment" of employees in the workplace

Over the past several months we have been inundated with complaints of racial discrimination from Black female employees from a cross section of employers in the Inland Empire. All of the complaints have the same recurring theme of subordinates informing upper management that these ladies have an attitude problem, are arrogant, incompetent, and staff is afraid of them. In all of the complaints the Black female employees are better educated than their subordinates, self assured, articulate and have a positive assurance about decision making. In each complaint the employee stated that they have been made to feel as though they have done something wrong. In one case, a supervisor had been heard saying?  I'm happy for 209 because we don't have to hire any more Blacks. Nothing could be farther from the truth than that perception of 209. Not hiring Blacks is one sure way to prove your company discriminates because of race.

None of the anti discrimination laws have changed since 1964 in the passage of Title VII of the civil right legislation. Discrimination is still a numbers game for the employer to prove they do not discriminate. Yes and just like a sexual hostile environment is created in Sexual Harassment the same is still true when it come to race. When a supervisor makes it known in the workplace that the "Natives are restless" referring to Blacks, " They are lazy" or " we have not hired a Black in this department in the past 10 years because we can't find any who qualify". Do you as a supervisor allow employees to tell racial joke in the workplace? Those kind of statements create tension in the workplace that eventually lead to disparate treatment when someones feelings get hurt and management does not adequately investigate.

One of the things each complainants express is "disparate in treatment" they see and experience a difference in how they are being treated as compared to their white coworkers. Some of the females have examples to support their allegation. Some have witness from other races and now the witness feels being retaliated against for speaking out against these perceived acts of discrimination.

Now the question is how does one prove discrimination, the courts have long recognized that "direct evidence of discrimination is virtually impossible to produce" so they rely on comparative evidence where there is no nonracial explanation for the difference in treatment, according to author Barbara Schlei and Paul Grossman of Employment Discrimination Law Book.  In other words do you as a company allow all employees to rat on their supervisors in the company and how do you respond to their complaints? Do you allow a supervisor to say we have not hired a white employee in this department over the past ten years and we are not going to start?

To counter that, I would suggest the Black female document, date, time, place and witness so that a comparative analysis can be offered as evidence.

Because of these many complaints I will prepare some article about discrimination with regularity in hopes of helping employees and organizations improve work relations. Watch out for "Disparate Treatment" of employees in the workplace