Alabama woman gets noose from colleague who said Black people are hanged in her town
BIRMINGHAM, ALABAMA: A Black Alabama therapist has accused a White colleague of consistently harassing her at her workplace. In a lawsuit filed last week, Takiya Lawson-McCants has accused a co-worker of calling Black people racial epithets and bragging about hanging them. Not long after Takiya was hired at Alabama Mentor which provides foster care assistance, she began to face harassment that only got worse with time at the company’s Birmingham location.
Takiya said in the lawsuit that the White co-worker said they lived in a “sundown town" -- a community which has a majority-white population -- where Black people are unwelcome. The colleague specifically told her that a family member of theirs hanged Black people if they did not leave the town by sunset. She bragged about her hometown's racist legacy, named in the suit as Arab, Alabama.
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The suit says the colleague claimed that Black children could be lynched there and a White family that hosts Black people is likely to find a burning cross in their yard. The co-worker called Black people the N-word, “black b***h,” “slave,” and “monkeys.” Takiya apparently tried to ignore the racism but it became so bad that she could no longer brush it off. She and a Black co-worker reported the abuse, but no action was taken. The racist co-worker was later promoted and the harassment escalated.
Takiya claimed that a number of White women in the office created a private chat group in retaliation, where they talked about their Black colleagues and slammed Black foster parents. Takiya eventually filed an official complaint, but the harassment did not stop. In fact, it only got worse. Takiya claimed that after she filed the complaint, she found a noose hanging from a tree in her backyard, and received harassing calls from the colleague's hometown, threatening that the Ku Klux Klan was still active.
“Employees have a right to a workplace that is free from racial hatred and retaliation. Takiya is exercising her rights,” Takiya's lawyer, Brian Noble, told The Daily Beast. “In some circles, even here in Alabama, people seem to think this kind of egregious, openly racist behavior has largely disappeared—or at the very least, it’s gone underground. Of course, it hasn’t. It’s very real,” he added. “It takes tremendous courage for anyone, let alone a current employee, to come forward with this kind of information. But that’s what has to happen. In my view, Takiya is a hero and an inspiration.”
Takiya said she went to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to file a complaint, and a defense team was also made by Alabama Mentor, making arbitration agreements in connection with her employment mandatory. The lawsuit said she could otherwise lose her job upon refusing to comply. Takiya ultimately sought retribution for “humiliation, embarrassment, and mental anguish” she had to go through while the ordeal went on. She has also urged Alabama Mentor to implement procedures that prevent such discrimination and racism in the workplace.