A Texas man has filed a federal lawsuit alleging that he was fired for complaining about his co-worker’s racist behavior.
Christoper Vickers’ supervisor at Bison Speciality Services openly made jokes about Black people and bragged about being affiliated with a white supremacist gang. When Vickers complained to his superiors, the company fired him, a lawsuit obtained by The Atlanta Black Star alleges.
Vickers’ attorneys said what his employer did was retaliation after violating his civil rights by making him stay in a hostile and discriminatory environment, where his supervisor would fling around racist slurs.
“It’s the environment that he had to walk into every day in order to earn a living,” said Rochelle Owens, one of the lawyers representing Vickers in the case.
“I don’t think that there’s anyone in the United States or anywhere that would appreciate having to realize that your race is the reason why you’re being treated in a certain manner, and it’s going to continue as long as those employees are there.”
During the two-and-a-half years Vickers worked at the industrial maintenance company in Beaumont, Texas, he was supervised by a man who reportedly boasted about having friends in the Aryan Brotherhood gang, the lawsuit alleges.
The Aryan Brotherhood is the oldest and most notorious racist prison gang in the nation, according to the Anti-Defamation League.
Albert Leblanc often described Black people as “lazy blue gum n-words” and sent racist texts in group messages with other employees, the lawsuit reads. He also had called Black employees at Bison Speciality the N-word, the complaints says.
In one instance, LeBlanc sent a video of a Black man dancing on the freeway to a song with the lyrics, “Go back to Africa,” the lawsuit alleges.
Read full story at Atlanta Black Star here.
