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HAZING EXAMINED IN LOS ANGELES FIREFIGHTER CASE: Should black fireman be awarded $2.7 million for dog food prank by white colleagues?
*Folks in Los Angeles are talking about the mayor’s recent veto of a $2.7 million settlement for a black firefighter who accuses the city of racial discrimination over a firehouse prank.
Tennie Pierce, 51, sued the Fire Department in 2005 after colleagues mixed dog food into his spaghetti dinner. Pierce said he suffered retaliation for reporting the incident, verbal slurs and insults by firefighters "barking like dogs," reports the Associated Press
The case grew more complicated when photos emerged of Pierce engaging in his own pranks — smearing mustard and dumping water on colleagues who were held down. He said those activities were consensual, a firehouse tradition to celebrate a promotion or retirement.
The City Council voted 11-1 earlier this month to award Pierce $2.7 million to settle his racial discrimination lawsuit, but Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa promptly vetoed the award. The council on Wednesday left intact the mayor's veto and trial was set to begin in March.
The case has been a hot topic on the Internet and local talk radio, with some accusing Pierce of playing the race card. In response, Pierce says his 20-year career was destroyed after he broke a code of silence and spoke out against something he believes was racially motivated and crossed the line of typical firehouse fun.
"This is wrong," Pierce said earlier this week. "If four black firemen did it to a white fireman, I would stand up."
Although crass pranks have long been a part of firehouse culture, it’s the addition of dog food in this particular case that gives some African Americans pause.
"The stereotype of the African-American has often been one of monkey, dog, animal," civil rights activist Earl Ofari Hutchinson of the Los Angeles Urban Policy Roundtable tells AP. "Dog food fits in with that racist stereotype of African-Americans that far too many people have."
