Andrea Gordon Files Lawsuit Against Boston Transit Authority After Finding Gorilla, Well Dressed-Black Man Action Figures on Co-Worker's Desk

Gorilla, well dressed black man found on desk at Boston's MBTA office
(Andrea Gordon)

Andrea Gordon, a supervisor at Boston's MBTA, said she walked into a district office in Brookline last month and got the shock of her life. She discovered a toy truck with plastic action figures of a gorilla and a well-dressed black man in sunglasses sitting together. I guess racism is alive and well in the transit agency. Ms. Gordon took a picture of this horrific display with her cellphone camera and reported the discovery to her supervisors. She filed a complaint against the agency, saying that it was a direct violation of one of the MBTA's own rules. She has claimed that racism is a systematic problem in the transit agency and I am sure this is not the public relations nightmare they expected or even wanted.

"It brought tears to my eyes. I was embarrassed, I was angry," Gordon said. "I couldn't believe that something that racially disturbing would be sitting on a desk that upwards of 300 people could walk into at any time."

Attorney Michelle Carnevale helped Gordon file the complaint against the agency."At a minimum, the person who had this on her desk should have been disciplined, at a minimum, taken off the payroll for some amount of time," Carnevale said. "But nothing has happened. Nothing."

They're not optimistic that anything will happen given the MBTA's history of civil rights complaints. Discrimination against its own employees has already cost the agency and taxpayers millions of dollars. "I think it's going to get swept under the rug like everything else does," Carnevale said. Source: WCVB-TV

The MBTA isn't the only government entity that has a history of civil rights complaints and sadly, it won't be the last. There are too many racist people in our midst. The agency's policy states: "The following are examples of conduct that may constitute prohibited discrimination: Ethnic, racial, religious, age, sexual orientation or gender based slurs, jokes caricatures, cartoons or graffiti." I wish the coward who put the action figures on the desk would have been adult enough to stand behind his or her convictions and not hide. In other words, blacks didn't run from fighting for civil rights, in the face of unspeakable violence, so too should the punk who did this, not act in darkness.