January 03, 2019
City News Service
A company that produces crushed stone and other construction materials is being sued for alleged racial discrimination by a Black former employee who says a boss told him he hoped Oprah Winfrey’s home would burn down.
Patrick Bickham also maintains in his Los Angeles Superior Court lawsuit that another supervisor for Vulcan Materials Co. told him he was “far to the right of Donald Trump.”
Bickham alleges he was fired after complaining about the alleged disparate treatment at Vulcan plants where he worked as a load operator for nearly 30 years, mostly in Sun Valley and later in Irwindale. He was fired in March and his suit, filed Wednesday, seeks unspecified damages.
A Vulcan spokesman did not immediately reply to a request for comment.
Vulcan hired Bickham in April 1989 and he performed his job “in a reasonable and competent manner,” the suit states.
In 2007, a co-worker of Bickham’s sprayed the plaintiff with water, according to the suit. After the water-spraying incident, a Vulcan assistant manager wrote a draft memo asking that employees respect each others’ “heritage and race,” but those words were removed from the final document, the suit states. The deletions demonstrate a “systematic racism that was part of Vulcan’s workplace culture,” the suit states.
The same assistant manager once knocked Bickham’s papers out of his hands, but Vulcan “generally tolerated and even fostered the hostile work environment,” the suit states.
The comments by a boss that he hoped Winfreys home would burn down and the statement by the plant manager that he was to the political right of Trump were “racist comments ... intended to intimidate and harass Black employees such as plaintiff,” the suit states.
In contrast, white employees were given preferential treatment, including the first chances to earn overtime pay, the suit alleges.
Management wrongfully blamed Bickham after a traffic accident with a trash truck that was not his fault, the suit states. Additionally, his pay was reduced by $3 an hour after the work unit to which he was assigned closed, even though he performed the same duties of other employees in his new work area, the suit states.
Some personnel changes were made after Bickham sent an anonymous letter to Vulcan headquarters about the alleged discrimination suffered by black workers, but “the hostile work environment remained despite plaintiff’s protests,” the suit states. For example, a plant manager in 2015 “made jokes about (the) plaintiff liking chicken because his is Black,” and someone placed a “free watermelon” sign by a time clock, the suit states.
“The watermelon stunt was racially motivated and contributed to the already existing work environment,” according to the suit.
Bickham was fired March 3 after a boss told him his failure to follow instructions caused an accident in which sand “avalanched” onto the side of the loader the plaintiff was driving, the suit states. The grounds given Bickham for his firing were a pretext because the plaintiff actually lost his job “in substantial part because he is black,” according to the suit.
December 20, 2018
By Washington Informer
Gladys West, hired in 1956 as a mathematician at the U.S. Naval Weapons Laboratory, has been presented with the Air Force Space and Missile Pioneers award for her decades of contributions to the Air Force’s space program.
The award is one of Air Force’s Space Commands highest honors.
West, 87, is one of a small group of women who did computing for the U.S. military in the era before electronic systems. In doing so, she participated in a groundbreaking, award-winning astronomical study that proved, during the early 1960s, the regularity of Pluto’s motion relative to Neptune.
West is also credited for helping to develop technology that that ultimately led to the Global Positioning System.
“Her story is amazing,” Gwen James, a fellow member of the Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, told The Associated Press. “GPS has changed the lives of everyone forever. There is not a segment of this global society — military, auto industry, cellphone industry, social media, parents, NASA, etc. — that does not utilize the Global Positioning System.”
The Air Force Space and Missile Pioneers Award pays tribute to the leaders of the early years of the Air Force space program, as well as the subsequent innovators whose vision and perseverance overcame the obstacles of the unknown, those who transformed the cutting edge of technology into operational systems, and those who dedicated their lives to exploring space in support of our national security concerns.
December 20, 2018
By Niele Anderson
Contributing Writer
By now, America has heard of the blue Democratic wave that surged in 2018, in large part to the constant support and advocacy of African American women.
No group of women could have been prouder than the authors of “For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Politics,” Donna Brazile, Yolanda Caraway, Leah Daughtry, and Minyon Moore. Together, these four women are considered by many as the most powerful African American women in politics.
“For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Politics” is a fascinating joint memoir of four girlfriends who got into politics in the 1960s and ’70s and are now the rare Washington insiders who understand people from all areas of the nation.
The book came out in October and since its release the four ladies have embarked on a national book tour. The tour recently made a four event stop in Los Angeles in partnership with Eso Won Books, the National Council of Negro Women and the Los Angeles Sentinel. The ladies also had help from their girlfriends Barbara Perkins and Glenda Gill.
The ladies’ first Los Angeles stop was a “sister circle conversation” recording for Los Angeles Sentinel viewers, which is now available at www.lasentinel.net. Their next stop was the African American Voter Rep offices, where a line was wrapped outside the venue awaiting their arrival. Later the ladies were received by former BET chairwoman Barbara Lee for an intimate gathering.
The next day the ladies were hosted by AT&T assistant vice president Tanya Lombard and Creative Artist Agency (CAA) executive Alex Avant in Woodland Hills, CA, the event included a Q&A moderated by Hill Harper, along with a book signing with the authors.
Attendees to all events were eager to snap photos and have their books signed by the four women who have dedicated their lives to advocacy and service. The book is available locally at Eso Won Books and available online on all mediums that sell books.
About the Authors—Brazile (“Hacks: The Inside Story of the Break-ins and Breakdowns That Put Donald Trump in the White House,” 2017), a Democratic political strategist and TV commentator; Caraway, a public relations executive and Democratic strategist; Daughtry, a preacher, organizer, and CEO of the 2008 and 2016 Democratic National Conventions; and Moore, a former assistant to Bill Clinton—all came from different parts of the country, but had in common strong family upbringings and a devotion to civil rights.
December 13, 2018
City News Service
The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors approved matching funds to create a $1 million investment in programs aimed at addressing trauma and increasing academic achievement for boys and young men of color.
The Department of Mental Health will spend $575,000 over two years and the Obama Foundation's My Brother's Keeper Challenge will provide the balance in a grant.
Supervisor Hilda Solis recommended joining the MBK Challenge in 2015. The money will be used to help jump-start initiatives, build capacity, support evaluation and attract additional resources and partners.
“Improving outcomes for young people, especially young people of color, is essential for the next generation, their families and our communities,” Solis said. “This award shows what can be accomplished when L.A. County partners with local organizations to improve opportunities for our greatest resource: our youth.”
The MBK Challenge campaign was launched in 2014 by then-President Barack Obama, who called on local governments to develop plans to close educational and opportunity gaps for boys and young men of color.
The campaign plans to provide strategic support and more than $5 million in funding to select communities nationwide to expand evidence-based initiatives to reduce youth violence, grow effective mentorship programs and measurably improve the lives of boys and young men of color.
The Liberty Hill Foundation was the lead organization for the county's grant application, which included a coalition of several nonprofit organizations.
Solis pointed to successes already underway in eliminating opportunity gaps, including a new unit focused on diversion and re-entry for youthful offenders, a countywide mentoring program and the Bridges program, which educates youth about public sector careers and helps prepare them for success.
“Ensuring that every child and young person has an equal shot at a good education and career is exactly why I entered public service,” Solis said.