Is It Just Business? - Part II

I'm very sick today, so excuse any rambling thoughts...

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Based on my recent experience of hearing several Black workers complaining of so-called "favoritism" and a "plantation" environment at work, when I am aware of the reality that they have many shortcomings performing their duties, my last post talked about some criticism being about business and not being racist or part of some sort of personal attack.

I understand that the lines of business vs. personal vs. racist can sometimes be blurred based on the worker and supervisor's relationship, the supervisor's relationship with other staff, and other factors. However, that doesn't mean that it is never necessary that a White manager approach a Black subordinate to discuss performance based issues that really may be legitimate and not part of some diabolical race-based scheme.

I'll repeat this again...

When Black workers cry racism, when there is a legitimate performance problem on their part, it hurts all Black workers. Blacks, in general, are stereotyped as having a so-called victim psychology and as being hypersensitive and crybabies. So, intentionally false claims of racism to divert attention from the fact that a worker isn't performing their duties goes a long way in hurting our overall struggle for equitable treatment. Knowingly false claims feed into the stereotypes that Blacks are unaccountable for our actions and will use excuses to deflect the fact that we can't take criticism of any kind--another stereotype in the workplace.

So, is it business or is it racist?

Each situation is different. But, the fact remains that if:

--you are coming in late on a regular basis;

--are leaving work early on a regular basis;

--are taking long lunch breaks on a regular basis;

--are not turning in your assignments completed;

--are turning in your assignments with numerous errors (typos, grammatical errors, factual errors, statistical errors, etc.) on a regular basis;

--are actually rude and obnoxious to other staff;

--don't want to be given any suggestions because you think you know it all and are offended that someone is trying to help you out--and then you perform the work incorrectly;

--don't keep team members or your supervisor informed of any problems with your assignments or delays in turning in your work;

--cause other people to have to bail you out by correcting your work, completely redoing your assignments, or yanking people from other projects to help you meet deadlines; and/or

--don't perform all of your duties simply because you don't want to, feel they are beneath you or feel that it doesn't impact anything if you do the tasks or not...

there would certainly seem to be legitimate reason for a manager of ANY COLOR to call you out on these behaviors.

By the way, I've taken all those examples from my real life experience with trifling Black coworkers.

Not everything is about race. Some of it is about business. We are all hired to do a job. We all have expectations and goals for our positions. Other staff rely on us to do our part and to do it correctly. Everyone was hired for a reason.

So, none of us can pick and choose what we will and won't do. We have a job and we should do it. If we've accepted the offer letter, we've made a committment. That's just reality.

Now, it doesn't mean that a racist boss won't be happy that you've given them ammunition to use against you. They're going to have a ball going after you!

It just means that if you haven't been performing your duties to a satisfactory standard, then you may very well deserve to have that same manager call you in for a meeting. Racist or not, some issues have to be addressed. And, management would not be crazy for siding with a manager versus an employee who REALLY isn't doing their job up to basic standards!

So, the best way to approach things is to do the best job you can, to review your work before submitting it, to not abuse breaks, lunch, etc. Essentially, not giving anyone ammunition to use against you. In a nutshell, don't set yourself up to be documented and/or reprimanded.

If you do, you only have yourself--and not necessarily racism--to blame!

I've known quite a few Black workers in my time that got what they had coming to them and I even know some that got away with murder, when they weren't doing half of what they were supposed to be doing in the workplace. Neither of those groups of workers would have had any legitimate right to complain of workplace racism. They were simply a bunch of half-a&% workers!

Those are the folks that make it harder for the rest of us, who are doing the right thing!

Just something to think about.

Is It Just Business?

Yesterday, the issue of non-existent "favoritism" and complaints about people making the work environment "too stressful" by enforcing preexisting rules was brought up by a couple of workers. Some workers have even mumbled or said that they felt like they were on a "plantation." As one of the supervisors, I had to remind them that nothing being said to them was personal. And, I also reminded them that we were working at a business.

On the train ride home, last night, I decided to write a brief reminder that sometimes we have to look at our actions and attitudes and decide if we are in the wrong or if we are being personally attacked or scapegoated based on race or other factors.

To do this requires some serious honesty because it requires each of us to be reflect on our behavior, professionalism, work ethic, the quality of our work, etc.

I would never mistreat any worker and I wouldn't attack anyone based on personal biases. I've been there, so I wouldn't subject anyone to that. Besides, it's not in my nature to conduct myself in that manner. However, I understand (and have lived) that many people have no quarrel with engaging in the abuse of workers.

But, the problem for Blacks is that we do have some people who cry wolf, when they really haven't been doing what they are supposed to be doing. And, those folks make it harder for Blacks facing serious and legitimate race-based issues at work to fight against a system which makes it hard to prove you've become a target.

If you are called out by a supervisor for making stupid errors on your projects or for other reasons, at some point you have to ask yourself if they are right and if you need to make some adjustments to how you perform your duties.

None of us should say someone is targeting us for race-based reasons, when it just might be a business reason and a legitimate behavior that should be addressed.

All Blacks get accused of playing the race card, when a few Blacks play the race-card to cover their tracks and to divert attention from the fact that they've just been cashing a check, while slacking off in their duties. We all suffer and are accused of knowingly playing the victim because we don't want to admit our faults. That's part of the stereotyping we face as a people.

I felt compelled to give a reality check that it's not okay to cry wolf and that sometimes criticism really is legitimate and has nothing to do with being a pretext to hide racial or other biases.

I'll continue this train of thought tomorrow.

No Safe Harbors!

One of my favorite sections on the EEOC web site reads:

“…there are no safe harbors for employers based on the written content of policies and procedures. Even the best policy and complaint procedure won’t alone satisfy the burden of proving reasonable care…if the employer failed to implement its process effectively.”

I've posted these words before and I am posting them again because they are extremely important. Many employers will point to their anti-discrimination, anti-harassment, and anti-retaliation policies, whenever an employee insinuates or outright states that there is a race-based problem in the workplace. Employers can't wait to spit out lines such as:

--"We've got policies prohibiting that behavior;"

--"We don't tolerate that kind of stuff here;" and

--"That's not how we conduct business."

Everything goes back to the written policies, while enforcement of those policies seems to go by the wayside.

But, as the EEOC states, having written policies prohibiting violations of federal statutes ISN'T ENOUGH because there are NO SAFE HARBORS based on written policies alone.

So, if your employer wasn’t taking the necessary steps to ensure that its anti-harassment polices were properly enforced, your employer can wave a hard copy of their anti-harassment policy all day and all night and it won’t do them any good. Simply having a written anti-harassment policy won’t protect them from allegations of harassment nor will it prove that your employer has not violated Federal law.

For example, let’s say you’ve been harassed by your supervisor for approximately 5 months. You’ve tried to talk to your supervisor about the problem, but, since it hasn’t stopped the harassment, you’ve finally gotten the nerve to speak to the head of your department, as well as to Human Resources. In fact, you’ve had conversations with Human Resources repeatedly. Unfortunately, the harassment escalates--now that your supervisor knows you’ve gone over his or her head--and the offensive work environment continues for another 7 months. During that time, you lose weight, you can’t sleep, you are unable to get your job done because of the mistreatment, and you’re denied a promotion that you were promised at the beginning of the work year.

Suddenly, other staff begin to complain about the supervisor and Human Resources finally steps in to put the supervisor on written warning. The supervisor is also sent to supervisor’s training and is put on probation. HR sends out an email statement to all staff declaring, “As our policy states, we won’t tolerate harassment of any kind. We have identified a problem with one supervisor and have taken appropriate action to bring the behavior to an immediate end.”

Guess what?

The fact that HR finally did something may not mean squat under Federal law.

Your company has a written policy against harassment. However, during the 12 months you were being harassed they didn’t take any steps to prevent or stop the harassment. It doesn’t matter if your company’s HR department immediately put a stop to the harassment after other people began to complain.

In this example, you complained and you had been doing so for some time. While HR and the company did nothing, damage was done to you professionally, emotionally, and possibly physically (e.g., high blood pressure, depression, etc.)

Therefore, your company may not be able to successfully argue that the existence of their written policy and their final response is evidence they made a proper and forceful reaction to the illegal behavior. Your company may be liable for damages because they are responsible for the existence, length, and severity of the behavior and, ultimately, for the consequences to your career, such as being denied a promotion by your harasser.

This is especially true if knowledge of your harassment was widespread in your department or throughout the company and no one with authority ever did anything about it. The law expects employers to not only prevent harassment, but to take immediate corrective action to stop harassment. Employers are held to that standard, among others.

In this example, you may have legal recourse because your company did not show reasonable care in effectively implementing its own policies in a timely fashion. When you combine the slow response, which allowed the harassment to continue and escalate, with the company’s own policies, which may have listed penalties for harassment that were not taken by your employer until a year after the harassment began, you can see how you go about building and documenting a case that uses your company’s own policies against them and shows how they intentionally mishandled your complaint.

You Don't Have to Come Right Out and Say It!

If you feel there are race-based issues at your job, you don’t have to come right out and say something like, “I believe I am the victim of employment discrimination” or "It appears that the company has a policy of not promoting Black workers into mid-level management."

You can speak generally about your mistreatment and/or any unequal treatment and still be considered to have protested or opposed discrimination at work.

Anti-retaliation provisions make it unlawful to discriminate against an individual because s/he has opposed any practice made unlawful under the employment discrimination statutes.

This protection applies if an individual explicitly or implicitly communicates to his or her employer or other covered entity a belief that its activity constitutes a form of employment discrimination that is covered by any of the statutes enforced by the EEOC.

Because individuals often may not know the specific requirements of the anti-discrimination laws enforced by the EEOC, they may make broad or ambiguous complaints of unfair treatment.

Such a protest is protected opposition if the complaint would reasonably have been interpreted as opposition to employment discrimination.

The point is, your employer can't use the excuse that you never complained of "discrimination" (or even "harassment" or "retaliation") simply because you never used those specific words. Your employer, HR staff, and members of management have knowledge of federal statutes and should know potential violations of law, when they hear them!

Don't let your employer off the hook because you may have failed to use a red flag word! Your employer must work harder to try to work its way out of race-based problems in the workplace.

No Post Today!

I've got too many errands to run before heading to work for the night shift. I'm off from Wednesday through Friday, so I'll be back with updates on those days.

Not Who I Used To Be

I was speaking to a coworker about racism in the workplace. One of the things I said to her was that after going through years of dealing with an employer that was determined to beat the allegations that they retaliated against Black employees, I'm just not the person I used to be anymore.

It's been 4 years since I left that employer and I still have yet to go back to working in an office environment. I simply have no stomach for it at this point. So, I've done retail work, etc. simply to stay out of the realm of cubicles and arguments over who has how many windows in their offices.

One of my biggest fears is flipping out on a White person in an office environment. When you work in an office, you see the same people every day. Sometimes you see them and HAVE TO deal with them more than you see very close friends and family members. I mean think about it, there are relatives and friends that we'd love to visit with or hang out with for 8 hours a day. Yet, we have to earn a livelihood and work with some of the biggest as*holes and racists on the planet. And, we also have to deal with closet racists, homophobes, sexists, etc.

I just don't feel comfortable going back to that "reality" even 4 years later. In retail, for instance, I don't see the same people every day because everyone is on shifts. So, the people I dislike, I'm not subjected to on a daily basis.

It's sad, but true. This is what my work life has come to--finding employment based on not working with a regular group of people on a daily basis. Battling racism at work changes each of us in different ways.

I'll be the first to admit....

I'm not who I used to be.

Gone are the days of being excited about meeting and working with new people.

Gone are the days of high-levels of patience with stupidity and stupid people at work.

Gone are the days of hanging out with lunch buddies and going out to dinner with coworkers.

I stick to myself much more now.

Like I said...

I'm just not who I used to be.

But, I guess that's normal based on what I've been through.

Next up for me, is getting my book about workplace racism published and pursuing my writing career. That's my version of entrepreneurship. I want to work primarily by myself. Just me an a computer until I have to take calls, meetings, go to events, etc. I want to be left alone as much as possible.

Does or has anyone else felt this way after going through race-based battles at work? If so, post a comment. We'd love to hear from you.

Don't Give Ammunition To Your Enemies

If you're being targeted in your workplace (and even if you aren't), you should take extra care not to give your enemies ammunition to use against you. If someone is targeting you for race-related reasons, they will often attempt to find a pretext to use--a non-race related reason that appears to be a legitimate concern--that will justify why they are subjecting you to scrutiny, criticism and/or employment actions.

You have to remember not to give anyone ammunition to use against you that can serve as the pretext to coverup their real motivation--racial discrimination, harassment, and/or retaliation.

Everything you do will be reviewed with a fine tooth comb. Your every move will be analyzed to see how it can be twisted to fit a negative narrative that can be created for you by your supervisor or employer, as a whole.

Targeting an employee amounts to engaging in psychological warfare. It's about wearing a person down until they stop complaining or until the employee can be set up for employment actions, such as demotion, suspension and, ultimately, termination.

So, an supervisor/employer may try to turn coworkers against a targeted employee in order to isolate them, may pick apart their assignments looking for errors, may only provide partial instructions for assignments in order to cause errors, may give large volumes of work to be turned around in a short time in order to cause an employee to miss deadlines, may physically or verbally threaten a targeted employee, may encroach on the employee's personal space, may bully the employee, may spread lies about the employee around the workplace, may deny the employee a transfer in order to continue a hostile work environment among those willing to target the employee, etc.

All of this creates stress and/or health issues (headaches, nausea, high blood pressure, insomnia, etc.) for a targeted employee. And, under that stress is an increased likelihood that the employee will begin to make mistakes that can be used against him/her. The stress causes distractions and feelings of being demoralized. It's hard for a person to concentrate on work, when they have so many tumultuous things going on at their job. The end result is that many employees will give up their complaint and just shut up to save their job and health, they'll resign or there will be enough "issues" documented for an employer to terminate the employee.

That's why there is today's reminder on not giving anyone ammunition, while you are literally fighting for your employment survivial. You have to focus...as hard as that may be. You have to do everything possible to rob your supervisor, employer, etc. of opportunities to have new examples of negative performance on your part.

Here are some places employers will look for ammunition to use against a targeted employee:

--The use of sick and personal leave (claims of excessive use or unauthorized use);

--Typos in documents or emails sent to heavy-weights at your company or to a client (claims of careless errors and/or incompetence);

--Errors in documents, in a database, in emails, etc. (claims of careless errors or incompetence);

--Claims of negative relationships with coworkers (opportunities to call a targeted employee "negative" or "not a team player" or "angry");

--Failure to follow instructions (claims of incompetence);

-- Etc. You get the picture.

Here's what you can do:

--Go to the doctor to create a medical record of your health as you battle workplace racism and get doctors notes to submit to your employer, when you are out;

--Try not to take vacation, when there is a major assignment going on or that will be happening at that time. This can help prevent you from being labeled as having abandoned major work and causing staffing problems;

--Proof all of your documents, emails, etc. Look for typos and grammatical errors. Don't send email in all uppercase or lowercase. If you're upset by an email you received and want to send a response, don't write back with emotion. It's okay to draft an email with your heart, but you have to edit with your head. Strip out emotional content and just write a professional email that sticks to the facts;

--Carefully review instructions. If you think some steps are missing, ask the person about adding in some steps based on your experience performing the work. Talk over the instructions with the person to get them to commit the instructions to words and not just paper. If there's a problem later, you can recount the conversation along with the written instructions. That puts more responsibility on those that may want to set you up for failure.

--Keep people in the loop on your projects. If a problem comes up due to bad instructions or some other issues, send an immediate email--even if you can't stand the person you are working with/reporting to. Don't sit on it and give ammunition out. Identify the problem and a potential solution. But, do it in writing, so they can't lie and say you never spoke up.

--DOCUMENT EVERYTHING!

--KEEP A LOG REGARDING MEETINGS WITH YOUR ACCUSERS!

What Will Be The Impact on Race Relations?

I've had several conversations with friends about the near and long-term impact that President-Elect Barack Obama will have on race relations in America.

Some believe that acts of racism will spike due to White resentment of a Black president. They think racism in the workplace will also increase because Whites will feel the walls of the world caving in on them and will, therefore, do whatever it takes to maintain a control of power and authority.

Others think that many Whites will feel compelled to fall in line, having seen that "White world" isn't what it used to be based on the coaltion that Obama put together on Election Day. They believe that the reality of a diverse society will force most Whites to work to improve race relations--even in the workplace.

What do you think?

Do you think the election of President-Elect Obama will have a positive or negative impact on overall race relations in America? Or, do you think there will be no change at all?

Post a comment!

"Cooning" On the Job

Do not criticize the Blacks on your job simply as a way to score points with the Whites you work with!

If you've done this, you know who you are.

Perhaps you always like to criticize other African Americans on your job as being “too ghetto,” so that your White coworkers and managers will know that you are a “professional” and the other Blacks are not!

Perhaps you'd like to be the so-called favored Negro at your site or within your department.

Regardless of your motivation, this catty behavior is simply uncalled for and harkens back to the Willie Lynch slave mentality from the plantations.

So I ask...

Why must Blacks needlessly fight and bicker amongst ourselves, while others around us thrive? Why do we have to divide and conquer ourselves...doing the work for those who might wish to oppress, marginalize or ignore us?

Don’t get me wrong. It’s one thing to air real concerns about staff of any color. For instance, if someone isn't pulling their weight, it may be legitimate to seek some input about the person because they are causing you to do double the work or they may potentially cause you to miss a deadline.

But, it’s another thing to just look for crap to criticize other Blacks for as a means to show Whites that you don’t automatically align yourself with “your people” and that you are on their [the company’s/White people’s] side!

I know Blacks have been seasoned to assimilate as much as possible, but seeking to legitimize yourself at the expense of others is dead wrong! And, it doesn’t get you the respect of the White people you are so eager to dime your brothers and sisters out to. So, don’t be a coon!!

Stop running behind your Massa, while you try to put other Blacks up on the whipping block. This is one of the most disgusting ways any Black person can go about gaining points in the workplace. You do everyone--including yourself--all sorts of harm.

The same White people you criticize your Blacks coworkers to are the same White people who talk about you the same way—-behind YOUR back. They probably think you are just as “ghetto” or unprofessional or uneducated as those you point out. If not, they surely have some other negative perception of you to chit chat about.

The Impact of a Hostile Work Environment

In order to cope with racism, African Americans have learned to be damned good at rationalizing not only unequal treatment, but outright mistreatment and abuse. When it comes to race and the workplace, some people—even African Americans—often choose to believe that as long as you weren’t called a “nig*er,” whatever happened really wasn’t that bad. We always find a way to lessen the impact of negative behavior and offensive language.

I want to dedicate a moment to dealing with how it feels to be sucked into a racially charged situation at work, particularly a situation that neither Human Resources nor corporate management chooses to alleviate.

Keep in mind that people are different. So, the reality is that we’ll all respond differently to varying situations. But, from my experience, and those that others with similar experiences have shared with me, if you are being attacked, intimidated, discriminated against, or are suffering from retaliation, you will likely:

· Feel like you’ve punched in the gut by the old version of Mike Tyson! This is especially true if the instigating remark or action caught you completely off guard.

· Feel like nobody is giving you love. If you have become a target, some of your friends and coworkers may side with management and take an active role in targeting you for abuse. Coworkers may stop going to lunch with you and avoid speaking to you—even privately—for fear of being reprimanded for associating with you!

· Feel ashamed and have a hard time looking people in the eyes. You may find it hard to face your coworkers and may find yourself disengaging from normal interactions with your office mates.

· Spend every day feeling like you’re writing your own eulogy. “Here lies [NAME]. He/she was a good person!” You can barely get your work done because you’re always responding to an accusation, a memo, an email, etc. Every time you communicate with someone, you feel like you have to defend every aspect of your character.

· Wonder if you brought the problem on yourself. When you become a target, particularly the target of more than one person, you begin to wonder if the problem really is you. Can all those people be wrong? Yes, they can. It’s easier than you think to indoctrinate employees in a campaign against someone else.

· Turn into a temporary psychopath. All of the legitimate anxiety about your mistreatment and abuse will have a psychological impact on your mental well-being.

· Suffer a physical breakdown. You may begin to experience headaches, nausea, insomnia, loss of appetite or high blood pressure. There is often a physical reaction to being the victim of repeated attacks at work.

· Overdose on sick leave. All you want to do is hide out. You just want a moment or a day when you don’t have to deal with the bullshit. Sometimes you call in sick because you think to yourself, “Today is the day that I will beat her to within an inch of her life, if she just looks at me!”

· Wonder if the attacks will ever stop. If things have gone too far for your employers to apply a remedy (a substantial delay in stopping harassment or retaliation still may make your employers liable for monetary damages), there may be an escalation in attacks in order to run you out of your job or to cause you to make mistakes that can result in you being fired.

· Drive everyone crazy. Everyone knows what’s happening to you at work. Friends and family love you, they feel bad for you, but they can’t take the constant discussions about your job or your tormentor.

· Become a bitter and negative person. Attacks at work can eventually turn a good, fun-loving person into one of the most hateful individuals the planet has ever known. It’s hard not to become jaded and mean, when you’ve been completely shafted on the job.

Most people experience some or all of these things. This is a normal part of becoming a target in the workplace. It's importat to realize that other targets--around the country--have gone through some of the same emotions and that you are not alone.

Harassment

I remember receiving a handout from a former employer, which provided this notation about workplace harassment: “Whether or not harassment took place should be viewed from the perspective of the victim and not the accused.”

In line with that, the EEOC says: There are two requirements for race-based conduct to trigger potential liability for unlawful harassment: (1) the conduct must be unwelcome; and (2) the conduct must be sufficiently severe or pervasive to alter the terms and conditions of employment in the mind of the victim and from the perspective of a reasonable person in the victim’s position. At this point, the harassing conduct “offends Title VII’s broad rule of workplace equality.”

So, let's define these 2 requirements a bit more...

Unwelcome Conduct – In cases of harassment, the conduct must be unwelcome in the sense that the alleged victim did not solicit or incite the conduct and regarded it as undesirable or offensive. When the conduct involves mistreatment or is racially derogatory in nature, unwelcomeness usually is not an issue, even when the alleged harasser and victim are of the same race. Sometimes employers argue that the conduct in question was not unwelcome because it was playful banter, and the alleged victim was an active participant. The facts in such cases require careful scrutiny to determine whether the alleged victim was, in fact, a willing participant.

Severe or Pervasive Abuse - To violate Title VII, racially abusive conduct does not have to be so egregious that it causes economic or psychological injury. Harassment must be analyzed on a case-by-case basis, by looking at all the circumstances and the context. Relevant factors in evaluating whether racial harassment creates a sufficiently hostile work environment may include any of the following (no single factor is determinative):

--The frequency of the discriminatory conduct;

--The severity of the conduct;

--Whether the conduct was physically threatening or humiliating;

--Whether it unreasonably interfered with the employee’s work performance; and

--The context in which the harassment occurred, as well as any other relevant factor.

The more severe the harassment, the less pervasive it needs to be, and vice versa.
Accordingly, unless the harassment is quite severe, a single incident or isolated incidents of offensive racial conduct or remarks generally do not create an abusive working environment. But a single, extremely serious incident of harassment may be sufficient to constitute a Title VII violation, especially if the harassment is physical.

Examples of the types of single incidents that can create a hostile work environment based on race include: an actual or depicted noose or burning cross (or any other manifestation of an actual or threatened racially motivated physical assault), a favorable reference to the Ku Klux Klan, an unambiguous racial epithet such as the “N-word,” and a racial comparison to an animal.

Racial comments or other acts that are not sufficiently severe standing alone may become actionable when repeated, although there is no threshold magic number of harassing incidents giving rise to liability.

Source: http://www.eeoc.gov/policy/docs/race-color.html#VIIA

Stream of Consciousness

There is only one thing to discuss today and that is the election of Sen. Barack Obama as our next President. Just off of the top of my head...

--I think about those beautiful little Black girls growing up in the White House and Michelle Obama as First Lady. Finally, a First Family that looks like us!

--Blacks and Hispanics came hard on Election Day. Yes, Obama got the White votes he needed in many of the suburbs in normally Republican states. However, the Black/Brown divide was nonexistent yesterday. That's how Obama was able to flip Colorado and New Mexico and Florida and Virginia and, maybe, North Carolina.

--I saw drug dealers and some of the most trifling people in my neighborhood going to the polls to vote!

--Obama has a mandate from the American people. They are behind his vision. His electoral vote count represents the slaughter of McCain and the GOP.

--Spike Lee said it best today on a cable news program, when he said the GOP was like TV Land. It's shows like Father Knows Best, Leave it to Beaver, and Howdy Doody. He said the GOP was living in the 1950s, in an all-White TV existence.

--Back when Obama announced he was running for President, my sister said he would win because "America's not White anymore. Everybody is mixed or they are used to hanging around a mixed race group of friends." She was right. Obama had a real coalition of Americans.

--Out in Times Square in NY it was really something to hear cab drivers honking their horns for about 45 minutes straight. The faces were African, Russian, Hispanic, Haitian, Black, and White. But, every face had a huge smile. Passengers were hanging out the windows shouting Obama's name. Crowds were making Times Square look like people were starting to gather to watch the ball drop on New Year's Eve. It was a mob scene.

--Black teens were talking about not expecting to ever see a Black President in their lifetime and now that is a reality before they hit 21 years of age!

--Green (money) meant more than race/skin color. People are broke and scared.

--OBAMA HAS INSPIRED A NATION AND HE HAS CHANGED THE WORLD FOREVER.

--THE ANCESTORS ARE SMILING DOWN ON US. THEY DID NOT MARCH AND PROTEST AND DIE IN VAIN!! THEY MADE A PRESIDENT OBAMA A POSSIBILITY.

What were the thoughts that came to your mind after Obama was called as the next President? Post a comment.