By Mansfield Frazier
Conventional wisdom holds that racism, in all of its ugly iterations, is always bad. But, just as in virtually every other circumstance or situation, there can be exceptions to the rule — and racism is certainly no different.
The exception I’m referring to, where racism is actually good, is the case of Browns owner Jimmy Haslam and his company Pilot/Flying J. As I predicted when the story first broke, the stampede is on down in Knoxville as many employees and former employees attempt to be the first to cut a deal with federal prosecutors in return for leniency. Five or six more just flipped this past week.
The unwritten rule is that the first ones through the feds’ door get the best deals, and rumor has it that the FBI is having to beat some of Haslam’s former executives upside the head with billy clubs just to get them to shut the fuck up. They’re telling shit that has nothing to do with the case … some of it going back 20 or 30 years. And these are the same supposedly tough guys that were caught on tape bragging and making jokes about “butt-fucking” the owners of the trucking companies they were defrauding out of rebates on diesel fuel.
And no doubt embellishment will run rampant; when the feds start tightening the screws, weak sons-of-whores always begin to make up shit. They’ll be snitching about how their momma used to shoplift Sugardale bologna from the local Piggly-Wiggly back in the day when they were shooting rat turds under the bed because they were too poor to afford marbles.
This outcome was as easy for me to make as predicting the sun will come up tomorrow; that the Indians will falter late in the season (they simply do not believe Native Americans put a curse on the team back in the late ’90s and that they will not win a pennant — let alone a World Series — until Chief Wahoo is banished to the dustbin of history); and that the Browns won’t go to the Super Bowl again this year, or next.
To put it more succinctly, as I replied right after the story first broke, when asked by a young New York editor if I thought Haslam’s employees would roll-over on him … “Does Pinocchio have a wooden dick?” … “Is a frog’s asshole water-tight?” … “Do Neeegroes (southern pronunciation) like fried chicken and watermelon?” I could go on and on, but I think you get the point.
I also quickly found out from sources in the South that none of the employees would be persons of color … Haslam didn’t roll that way. He’s an “ol school” southerner, a good ol boy who would never insult his lily-white employees by forcing them to work side-by-side with black or brown folk. So, as it turns out, all of folks down there below the Cotton Curtain practicing to do the perp walk (with the same diligence they displayed when practicing to walk across their high stages to receive their diplomas, but I imagine with a lot less pride) are white. Ergo, racism, in this case, was good for minorities. You can rest assured that if any minorities had been in anyway involved, they’d quickly be designated the kingpins of the nefarious goings-on.
But the fact is, no person of color could be found working for Pilot/Flying J unless they were emptying the wastebaskets, scrubbing the floors, or swabbing out the toilets … and it made no difference if the person applying for a job had an MBA from Harvard, those would be the only positions open to them — and this mindset, in the Year of Our Lord 2013, is still prevalent all over the South, as well as in many backwards-looking cities in the North, such as Cleveland.
Here’s a challenge: Have some PhD-level researchers conduct an empirical study to determine the racial makeup of large Cleveland companies, in an effort to determine which of them still have zero employees of color, and perhaps have never had one. But, not to worry, we’ll never conduct such a study, simply because we really don’t want to know; because being in possession of such knowledge might require systemic change that many companies are not desirous of making.
And then we wonder about the so-called “brain drain” in Northeast Ohio. The fact is, not only do talented young people of color have to leave town to find equal opportunities, many young white progressives also leave simply because they cannot stomach the racism they witness day-in-and-day-out hereabouts … and yes, many of these talented white youth (who love nothing better than seeing Cleveland in their rearview mirror as they head off to cities where leaders are at least attempting to bridge the racial chasm) are snitching about it to me.
Here’s the absolutely amazing thing about racists: They think everyone else is like them. No shit. They have these moral blind spots because no one challenges them on their behavior.
Take Jimmy Haslam again for instance: While he won’t hire persons of color at his company, he’ll damn sure hire anyone who can help the Browns advance the football down the field … no matter their skin color.
This form of selective racism should have been noted by the National Football League when they were considering Haslam for ownership, but hell, their investigators couldn’t discover the fact dozens of trucking companies were being bilked for years and had loudly complained about it to anyone who would listen. Anyone who doesn’t comprehend that the troubles at Pilot/Flying J had been years in the making before the feds dropped the hammer (and that even a rookie investigator should have been able to uncover it before Haslam was allowed to purchase the team) is either a fool or is blind.
Also, a look at the racial demographic of his thousands upon thousands of employees from coast-to-coast would certainly have been revealing … but only to anyone who was interested.
All I can think at this point is, thank God no civil rights organization attempted to sue Haslam’s company for racial discrimination … we already have enough people of color behind bars in this country.
And just to show that I’m not mad, here’s a tip for all of those white folks who are going to have to do the perp walk at some point — anyone who thinks no one is going to the joint, reread that part about Pinocchio’s pecker — when they are about to snap the handcuffs on your punk ass, make a tight fist. This will expand the muscles in the wrist, so that after the cuffs are on they don’t cut into the flesh too much. Trust me on this … it always worked for me.
Oh, one more thing: If any of you wind up stepping off your number in Honor Housing Unit “C” at the federal prison in Ashland, KY, there’s a ceiling tile panel in the second floor shower that’s removable, and that’s where the homemade hooch is hidden. And, as the feds always told me: “Don’t worry, one day you’ll look back on all this and laugh.”
From Cool Cleveland correspondent Mansfield B. Frazier mansfieldfATgmail.com. Frazier’s From Behind The Wall: Commentary on Crime, Punishment, Race and the Underclass by a Prison Inmate is available again in hardback. Snag your copy and have it signed by the author by visiting http://NeighborhoodSolutionsInc.com.