A black firefighter in L.A. won a $2.7 million lawsuit against the city because his co-workers fed him spaghetti with dog food on it, then laughed about it.
His claim, per his lawyer: ‘the association of a black man and dog food “resonates with the deep historical roots of slavery and the corresponding dehumanization”.’
Interesting, seeing that dog food didn’t exist until the 1940s. Dog biscuits have been around since the 1860s, but the firefighter, Tennie Pierce, wasn’t complaining about a cookie, but of canned food. That’s pretty new, so any “historical roots” can’t be terribly deep.
The Fray
greyrat says:
So his lawyer should have just said that “These guys are assholes and created a hostile work environment that the city cannot appear to condone or tolerate”. I’ll take my 10% as a cashiers check please.
Leland says:
But Greyrat, the check wouldn’t have been nearly so large had the lawyer not inflamed the jury with the slave-dog food connection.
Eric Berlin » Blog Archive » Food, glorious food says:
[...] As Andrew Kantor notes, however, dog food didn’t exist until the 1940s, so the connection between Alpo and slavery is murky at best. You’d think the defendant’s lawyer might have looked into that before settling for millions of dollars. [...]
Emily says:
Maybe it had something to do with the practice of slave owners feeding errant slaves to the dogs.