Yesterday, the Courier News reported in a
front-page article by Sergio Bichao that the Borough of Somerville settled
a racial discrimination lawsuit for $1.75 million, while not admitting any wrongdoing.
A reading of that article coupled
with a prior story on the same topic back on October 2, 2014, by Mike Deak,
would lead most people to conclude that the alleged racist behaviors by Somerville
personnel inflicted upon three African Americans under their supervision should
have been fixed years ago.
Institutions have an inborn bias to protect themselves from
outside influences and, when problems occur, especially if a situation is
sensitive, there is a strong tendency to either overlook it, minimize it, or make
an attempt to ‘fix it’ in-house.
The problem with in-house fixes is that they often simply do
not work, and wrongdoings, if egregious enough, continue to fester until the
sunlight of public exposure and court action finally come into play to enforce
a solution.
Such seems to have been the outcome that finally resolved
the bigoted behaviors that were alleged to have occurred within the Somerville
Department of Public Works.
That’s very unfortunate, because grievances of personally prejudicial
behavior and slurs that were claimed to have occurred over decades within
Somerville’s DPW, and the reportedly limp responses to those complaints that
reached all the way up to the highest levels of City Hall should have been
resolved years ago.
The long-festering neglect of this situation reflects
unfairly upon countless of employees in Somerville who don’t
engage in the type of conduct alleged in the $1.75 million settlement.
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