Imagine fearing for your safety so much at work that you resort to praying each day that God will protect you before you enter the workplace. This is what Marcus Boyd did each day he worked as a supervisor for GM. Boyd, his colleague Derrick Brooks, and other employees of color were subjected to a hostile workplace at the Toledo Powertrain plant in Ohio that included racial slurs, harassment, and even nooses hanging in the areas where they worked.
CNN reports on the lawsuit filed against GM on behalf of eight workers who claim that management neglected to address racial harassment at the powertrain plant. The specific examples cited by the workers are deeply upsetting and jarring. In a way, it feels shocking to think that these kinds of things happened in 2018. But with the state of the country what it is, and knowing how Donald Trump has, not reinvented, but certainly emboldened more blatant racism, it isn’t entirely surprising.
The use of the N-word was a frequent occurrence at the plant. And sometimes white employees tried to disguise their insults, using code to refer to the black employees and other employees of color.
Boyd and other workers of color learned there was a coded language to talk about them, according to the lawsuit. White employees kept calling them "Dan." They thought some people didn't respect them enough to learn their names. But other colleagues told them it was a slur, an acronym for "dumb ass nigger."
There were also repeated threats of violence, including comments to Boyd such as "Back in the day, you would have been buried with a shovel,” and a more direct confrontation with a supervisee who raised a metal clutch assembly at Boyd as if to hit him. Yet when Boyd and others reported the abuse, they were told by leadership to handle the situations themselves.
Then there were the five nooses that showed up on the plant floor, gun magazines anonymously but strategically placed on Brooks' desk, and the appearance of graffiti that read “whites only” in the bathroom. All of these incidents were reported to GM. But the targeted employees say that the company only removed the nooses and failed to deal with the hate. In their lawsuit, they claim that the company allowed for an "underlying atmosphere of violent racial hate and bullying."
Both Boyd and Brooks hated to leave their positions, given that they were supervisors who made six figures. But the threats and the nooses became too much to bear. "How rough and tough can you be when you got 11 to 12 people who want to put a noose around your neck and hang you 'til you're dead?" Brooks asked.
The lawsuit against GM is still pending. But the findings of a nine-month investigation by the Ohio Civil Rights Commission concluded that GM allowed “a racially hostile environment” and did not take appropriate action. The company claims that it properly handled all the reported incidents. And the plant’s union says that GM’s practices are not discriminatory. But it is ultimately people, and not necessarily the policies themselves, that are racist. Policies can be discriminatory, but they don’t tie nooses and threaten employees of color with violence.
It’s unfair and maddening that Boyd, Brooks, and their colleagues were subjected to such harm and hostility. Brooks is a former marine who described conditions at the plant so dangerous that he had to treat the workplace like a battlefield. In 2019, it is shameful that this exists. A lawsuit won’t take their psychological trauma away, but it could be a small step toward change and for justice.