8.03.05
12:31 PM
A while ago, there was some…unpleasantness here at the Hospital. A child died, a body went missing and a few patients eloped (not “got married”, but rather, “ran away”). As a result of these terrible fuck ups, the Department of State sent agents here to check the place out. During their investigation (which was known to all the employees here) a security guard turned his back on his post and was fired for not doing his job.
He is now planning to sue the Hospital AND the State Dept. for (drum roll, please) “racism”. Now, I’m not a lawyer, and I don’t know if “racism” is a crime like “grand larceny” or ”rape” is a crime (as in “He was brought up on charges of ‘racism’”, dig?) but that is what the word is. He upholds that he wasn’t fired for turning his back on the front door to a Hospital (an establishment that houses dementia patients that are prone to wander and ride buses, people with infectious diseases who might also have dementia, people with loose stool etc.) but because he is Hispanic.
Of the one thousand four hundred and fifty eight or so employees here, almost half are of Latin descent, including lots and lots of Hispanics.
Anyway, the hell of it is, he’s probably going to win and get his job back. And when he gets his job back and lets another raving, AIDS-infected man out into to New York City…well…I don’t know. He might get fired again and say that he was fired not for shirking his duty (which encompasses sitting and watching a door), but because his skin is darker than that of the State agent that noticed a distinct lack of security covering the front entrance to this place.
“What’s your point, you racist bastard”, you might ask?
I have two: One, playing the race card in this area of New York City is just so fucking ridiculous; there aren’t words for it. Two, I have seen and read portrayals of blacks, whites, Hispanics, all races in positive and negative lights, but, like most things in life, I try to use my own personal experiences to justify my views and opinions. My personal experiences have been mixed: From being semi-mugged by a black dude who might have had a gun to growing up with Stan “The Man” Grayson, a friend of my father’s that was black and a VP at Goldman and Sachs after being on Mayor Koch’s staff. From having a gaggle of drunken gangsta hurl insults and a bottle and me and my girlfriend a few months back to taking classes and acting with Richard Preleau, an incredibly intelligent and talented guy. Like I said, mixed. But then there’s the neighborhood I live in now. I see the gangstas buying forty ounces and Vanilla Dutch Blunts, I see the Hispanics guys playing bongos and hooting at women. These are real people doing these things, not actors. White men in business suits aren’t coercing them. They are doing this of their own accord. They are stereotypes and they are real. Go ahead, be liberal minded, disdain me for my racist tendencies, have fun. But don’t be a fucking hypocrite.