Michigan Cop Files Suit Alleging Racism At Work After Test Reveals He Is 18% Black

Kiowa

Well-Known Member

HASTINGS, Mich. (WWJ)
– A white police officer in west Michigan claims he was a victim of racism after he took a genetic test that revealed he is 18 percent black.

Hastings Police Sergeant Cleon Brown filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the city of Hastings, saying the racial taunts began last fall after he shared DNA results from Ancestry.com. When he told his boss about it, Brown claims, the police chief called him “Kunte”— the African-American main character from the novel “Roots.”


Brown’s attorney Karie Boylan claims, after that, other officers began walking by Cleon pumping their fists and saying “Black Lives Matter.”

She says things escalated from there.“As soon as my client told the others, the higher-ups in the city, that he was African-American, they thought it was a joke…They treated him as though he was less than them,” Boylan told WWJ’s Beth Fisher.
“There was an instance where my client was talking to the mayor, and the mayor — upon learning that my client was 18 percent African-American — proceeded to tell him a racist joke using the (N word).”

She said at Christmastime a sergeant put a “black-face Santa” in a stocking on tree in the lobby of the police department, marking it with Brown’s name and “18 percent.”
After Brown in January filed an EEOC discrimination suit alleging a hostile environment, Boylan says things got worse for him at work.

“He was shut out, he was shunned, the perpetrators of the discrimination started retaliating against him,” she said. “He was told that he could not go to sergeant school, which he had been promised for 18 months, and he was asked by the chief of police to resign his position as sergeant.”
Boylan counters that her client did not make fun of his ancestry; that in fact he felt proud to discover he was part black and was excited to tell his coworkers.
http://detroit.cbslocal.com/2017/05...-at-work-after-test-reveals-he-is-part-black/
 

LdyKamz

Well-Known Member
Me thinks he's another one who doesn't know the meaning of the word racism. First of all why did he go around telling everyone he was black? LOL I get the feeling he was in on the jokes at first but when they wouldn't let up he cried racism. Some of these people provide classic entertainment on a daily. Thanks for this.
 

gingertea

Well-Known Member
So he has premised a actual civil rights lawsuit off of what? the fact that he shouldn't have to be subjected to being associated with blackness or "black treatment" based on his sliver of ancestral DNA? smh wp get on my nerves... and the sad part is not only will this suit be entertained but he will probably be awarded something..
 

curlicarib

Lovin'' All of Me
Based on the article I don't think it's because he doesn't want to be associated with his blackness, it's because he's being harassed because of his 18%.

So he has premised a actual civil rights lawsuit off of what? the fact that he shouldn't have to be subjected to being associated with blackness or "black treatment" based on his sliver of ancestral DNA? smh wp get on my nerves... and the sad part is not only will this suit be entertained but he will probably be awarded something..
 

Chocolate_Silk

Well-Known Member
This tickles me. No one deserves to be harassed. Good on him for reporting it. I wonder how the other officers were normally. I mean, were they saying racist stuff regularly?

And, great-great-grandma must have been passing because 18% is a lot for a white American.

I'm sure they were and he was chiming right in... It's just no fun when the jokes on you.
 

TLC1020

Well-Known Member
Wow, I say that because the officers feel comfortable saying that to him and their behavior is bad as well so I wonder how they treat the black citizens they are sworn to protect. I wonder if he ever asked his parents where they got his name from, and I wonder if he plan on tracing to see where and who the 18% black ancestor was.
 
Top