Shawn's Experience Working at The City College of New York in 2008

I don’t want to write this blog. But I feel I need to write it so I can move on.  I haven’t been able to talk about this for five years because it hurt so much. But I finally feel I can finally tell my side of the story.

Five years ago I started a job at the City College of New York as a CUNY Office Assistant. Working in their Science and Engineering Library over the course of seven months, I learned lessons I’ll never forget. Lessons in racism, discrimination, Black female privilege, and the insecurity of Manginas. Lessons I hope you brothers and sisters can learn from and overcome the numerous pitfalls I encountered five years ago.

Having been out of work for several years and coming out of a depression that lasted a year, I wanted to make a good first impression on my new employer. So the day before I was supposed to start April 1, 2008, I went there to meet my co-workers and get a sense of my workplace before I started working there. I asked several questions about workplace etiquette and things like overtime. I was told by the Chief Librarian that overtime was something that happened once and a while, when a student worker had a paper or something.

On my visit, I also learned about the insidious nature of the Mangina. This Professor/Chief Librarian, who was supposed to be my supervisor, instead passed his authority onto my Co-worker and made her my supervisor. This is a classic tactic Manginas use to avoid dealing with conflict.

What this professor was doing was ABDICATING his authority as a manager and refusing to take RESPONSIBILITY for his duties. Hiding behind the skirt of a Black woman, someone who he established in a de facto management position.

Manginas love to put women like office assistants in de facto management positions so they won’t have to deal with conflict. Then when things go wrong they have a scapegoat to blame all their problems and failures on.

When I got there the next day to officially start my official first day of work, The Dean who managed the library told me that the professor who was the Chief librarian was my real supervisor.

But the day before told me that my fellow COA was going to be my supervisor. I asked myself: who’s the boss of this library? Who’s really running things?

The issue over who my supervisor officially or unofficially would be was a clear sign there was dysfunction in the mismanagement of the City College Science Library. Now there were some red flags around me telling me about how things were falling apart there, like a filthy red carpet, books that were over a hundred years old on the shelves, (Shouldn’t those have been archived) and decrepit Dell computers that were six or seven years old.

You can tell if a college is quality from its computers and its library. If you see OLD computers in a library on campus, that college is FUCKED UP. When a college doesn’t spend money on its core infrastructure like its IT or its libraries, it’s a sign that colleges’ priorities are OUT OF WHACK.

Now this chick who was my co-worker/Supervisor was a piece of work. A 57-year old who was an Afrocentric with dreadlocks. And not only was she an Afrocentric, she was a Born-Again™ Christian. A classic WASHED UP Black woman. Now I didn’t have the game I have now to spot those red flags back then, but looking back five years later, that was a clear red flag something was WRONG with this female.

I’ve known pro-Black people who were Christians. But true Afrocentrics want nothing to do with Christianity. To a real Afrocentric, Christianity is the “White Man’s religion” and they subscribe to Islam or they’re Agnostic.

Nor do true Afrocentrics inhale sausage for breakfast like this chick did, because most Afrocentrics don’t eat pork. Another red flag I should have picked up on. But my main goal at the time was rebuilding my savings and trying to keep this job.

Along with the new job, I was also dealing with a severe case of anxiety. Having lost a job five years earlier and overcoming a period of depression from losing that job, I was having severe anxiety attacks.

These anxiety attacks exacerbated by a jackass next door neighbor who loved to play his stereo super loud. So loud it shook the floors and walls of my apartment. This NIGGER put so much stress on me I almost went insane. Combined with the pressure from this new job, I was doing my best to hold myself together.

Brothers and sisters, if you ever encounter a NIGGER who loves to smoke weed, and sit on his ass all day who decides he wants to play his stereo loud every day, don’t put up with that shit like my family insisted on doing. Complain to management and then to the police until they TOSS HIS ASS TO THE CURB. Too many people have compassion on BUM ASS NIGGERS and cut them TOO MANY BREAKS listening to their MR. PITIFUL SOB STORIES. LET LIFE KICK THEM IN THE ASS UNTIL THEY GET IT.

Back to my first day on the job. That day I got my ID Card, learned the ALEPH System for checking out books and met some co-workers. When I met up with the Union shop steward, a Black woman, she quickly got defensive on getting approached saying she couldn’t do anything for me. Again, another red flag.

A few hours later on I met my fellow co-workers in the Union. All Black females. Another RED FLAG. I believe This all-Black female Union was one of the reasons things were so dysfunctional at The City College of New York. In between them and the Mangina college professors, business wasn’t being taken care of. Whenever a problem would arise, the protocol for people in both these groups is to Lie, deny and hide the evidence. And when called to account, just resign and leave the mess for others to clean up.

During this bitchfest of a meeting chock filled with gossip, I learned these ladies didn’t have a raise for two years. And this was with a Pro-Union Democratic governor in charge. And I think the main reason they didn’t get a raise is because these Negro Bed Wenches were too busy Coonin’ for Mr. Charlie to demand one of him the way White men or Black men would.

The second day there after putting my number in his cell phone the Chief librarian asks about my career as a free-lance writer. I tell him about my book. He gave me a funny look. Again, a Mangina never expresses their feelings directly. No, they keep their feelings of jealousy to themselves.

And that second day I’m told by my Black female co-worker to anticipate the customers’ needs. This set off a HUGE red flag for me. In a library you don’t have to anticipate the Patron’s needs. Most people who want something won’t be afraid to ask for it. In most customer service jobs no one ever has to figure out the customer.

Having worked at STRIVE I knew the language of abused people. And her talking about anticipating a patron’s needs was a clear sign this woman had been abused in some way or fashion.

I was also told that the students tended to steal paper from the copiers. Another red flag to how dysfunctional things were at the City College of New York.

At Columbia University, Monroe College, and Audrey Cohen College and even the New York Public Library, the copiers have LOCKS around the paper trays to prevent this kind of theft. But in between the Mangina Chief Librarian managing the Science and Engineering library and the Coonin’ Negro Bed Wench running the front desk nothing was done. Why? Because they’re afraid of conflict. Too afraid of getting blamed by higher up manager for the problem instead of offering a SOLUTION.

Coming back from a break that day my Black female Co-worker is on the phone talking about how she was molested and how people at a previous job at the police department were sexually harassing her. I found it odd a woman would have such a personal conversation about such sensitive topics right there at the Circulation desk for everyone to hear in a library.

Again, I wasn’t up on game back then like I am now. And what this woman was doing by having that conversation in public was looking to see how I’d respond to her. She was hoping I’d come in and play Captain-Save-A-Hoe™ offering some words to comfort her. The whole conversation was nothing but bait language and she wanted to see if I could be manipulated into trickin’ on her.

I walked right by her. I had too many of my own problems at the time to focus on her and being a White Knight to an old washed up grandma.

Anyway, I had been feeling sick that third day. I practically threw up my dinner a few hours after eating the previous night. In between my anxiety and the flu I had I felt like I was passing out. So I took a minute to sit down. For that moment I closed my eyes. It appeared that I was sleeping, but I was out of my mind with something called the CUNY FLU. Turns out the place was infested with germs.

Now I had no idea the department head was coming in. This was another Mangina without the BACKBONE or the BALLS to go face-to face and deal with conflict. This coward didn’t even have the BALLS introduce himself to me until he was firing me in October.

Now this was another simple situation that could have been easily resolved by just going up to me and talking to me face-to-face and asking me if something was wrong. But these Manginas send their Mammy, de facto Manager to talk to me instead. All while they simmered in their rage thinking I was some lazy employee. If these bastards weren’t so afraid of conflict, they would have learned how to SOLVE a problem instead of AVOIDING it.

Since I had just started this job three days in, I had no sick days to give. So when I got home from work, I took a megadose of TheraFlu to get myself back into shape. Still sick, I came in that third or fourth day, I was pretty delerious. My Co-worker, Mammy Bed Wench knew something was wrong and asked me about it. I told her about my flu. She tells me I need to go explain things to him.

Back then I wondered why. But I didn’t have an understanding of how the mind of the Mangina operates. How their insecurities simmer and boil in anger until they EXPLODE.

Again, we could have settled this face-to-face and be done with it. But again, these two Jewish White boys were so afraid of CONFLICT they let a simple situation escalate for no reason at all.

You see brothers and sisters, a Mangina wants a smooth world. A world without conflict. And this Chief librarian wanted his library to be a place without problems. And because his Mammy Bed Wench swept all the problems under the grimy red carpet, the Science and Engineering Library was a cauldron of dysfunction.

I had no idea this guy was so upset and had an issue with me. He never expressed any feelings towards me. Hell, he didn’t even go talk to me like most managers do that same day when there’s a problem. No, dude sat in his office all upset and pissy like a BITCH.

What he wanted me to do was go in and start coonin’ and begging to him like the rest of the shufflin’ slaves on the CUNY plantation. But with me dealing with my own anxiety issues, I just brushed it off and continued working. The way I figured it if it were a serious issue he’d come to me and to talk to me face-to-face.

Now this woman could gossip about me writing Isis to everyone at work, but she couldn’t bother to tell this same Mangina about me having a flu. These White boys were using her to send their messages to me, but she couldn’t say anything to him. Or so I thought. I’d soon find out this Negro Bed Wench had her own agenda and her own plan to get rid of me.

I should have known something was up when her friend, the COA who retired after 30 years showed up. Her 10-year-old grandson took the time to introduce himself to me when he first came in the room, but Mammy Bed Wench didn’t want to introduce me to this woman. I waited for a good ten to twenty minutes for her to introduce her to me. When people in a job don’t take the time to introduce a new hire to people who work there or people and don’t want to take time to introduce you to people who have worked there it’s a clear sign they don’t see you on the job long-term.

I should have also known something was up when I called in sick when I had a back injury a few months later in July. When I call her the woman who is supposed to be my supervior She tells me I have to call up Professor Mangina and tell him. Again, who is the leader of the library? The way I saw it This was clearly a passive-aggressive way of expressing her resentment towards me. This woman could gossip about my book and my writing to others, but couldn't tell this Mangina Chief Librarian why I couldn't come in sick


Now on other jobs I  worked like STRIVE and Food Emporium, my other co-workers could tell the boss I was calling in sick. But this woman couldn't. Again, another red flag showing me how racist and sexist this library was.


As part of my duties I had to open the library. And I’d arrive around 8:25, pick up all the books left lying around, and other stuff. Then I’d return to my desk and wait to open up the library and the circulation desk at nine exactly. Now I had been opening early for a day or two, but one day I was told by Negro Bed Wench that I was giving the patrons a sense of entitlement by opening early. So I decided to lean back and open at nine on the dot.

Again this was another red flag for me. How am I entitling customers by opening early? They paid for that library with their own tuition dollars. They have every right to expect a high level of reliable service from that library they PAID FOR. That’s the way it was at Food Emporium, STRIVE and every other job I worked at previously.

But I learned this isn’t what’s expected at the City College of New York. No, there, the customer is ALWAYS WRONG and is told to SETTLE for what they’re given.

Now sometimes my supervisor the chief librarian would come in around 8:40 or so. But this dude was so afraid of conflict he wouldn’t even say good morning.

That day I was headed to open the doors. When I came to the circulation desk I get a bunch of drama from Mammy Bed wench about the place being dark. As far I was concerned we opened at nine. And everything was fine for several WEEKS. But this day she tells me the doors open at 8:55, not nine o’clock like we did for several WEEKS PREVIOUSLY.

Around two o clock’ Mangina comes out with his cell phone (a different one than the one he texted my number into) and tells me that the INACCURATE CLOCK on it was correct and he wanted the library opened at 8:55.

Now he saw me at 8:40. He could have easily told me that he wanted the library opened at 8:55 THEN. But instead he waits for his Mammy Negro Bed Wench to come in at 9:00 to tell her to tell me when he wanted the library opened. This showed me how WEAK this professor was. Only a Mangina would wait for a WOMAN to come in and tell her to tell a co-worker what to do. A real Manager who wants something done approaches that employee and requests what they want done to be done.

Contrast this to my experience with managers at STRIVE At STRIVE, whenever a manager wanted me to do something they came to me face-to-face and ASKED ME. Even Rob Carmona, the CEO of STRIVE would come and make his request to me directly face-to-face. That way we had a clear understanding of what was required and what needed to be done.

The chief Librarian only had the backbone to approach me maybe four times in my seven months there. The first time was about two months in to tell me to do something about my hair. I was wearing my traditional flat-top fade, a common haircut for men of any race. A conservative haircut, one worn by members of the US Military in basic training, police officers, and celebrities like John Cena and Brock Lesnar. A haircut I wore at other previous jobs and on the interview at the hiring pool where I got hired without a problem. But this White Mangina had an issue with it.

Now the Negro Bed Wench who was my supervisor and the college assistant there wore dreadlocks. A hairstyle considered far more offensive to a conservative workplace. But he had a problem with me wearing a conservative haircut.  Again, Red Flags all about.

This was a clear sign to me of this White man’s racism and his jealousy. It was clear to me Professor Mangina was insecure about being in the presence of a professional Black Man who had his shit together. He had been so used to the jiveass niggers, mammies, and Coons who worked at CUNY that when he came face-to-face with a REAL PROFESSIONAL BLACK MAN he got scared. And he was so scared that he was looking for something, anything to nitpick so he could maintain his sense of pseudo-superiority.

I brushed off his comment and kept wearing my flat-top-fade. My haircut had nothing to do with my work performance. The way I figured it, if these Black women could wear dreadlocks, then why couldn’t I wear my flat-top?

I managed to make it to the 90 day mark with no performance evaluation. Again, the Mangina who ran this library was too afraid of confronting me to even offer a fair critique of my work.

But in spite of my troubles at work and at home with the BUM ASS NIGGER next door, I still persevered working towards my own personal goals, such as building my savings, publishing The Cassandra Cookbook and securing WGA registration of All About Marilyn. Splitting my weekdays between working at the library on weekdays and working nights and weekends towards editing and promoting my new book.

One of the College Assistants working there, the sista wearing dreadlocks asked me about how I got the job there. She was a young sista around my age, a single mother working part time. Hoping to give a sista a hand, I told her how I took the Civil Service exam and passed it. I told her it was easy. As I’ve stated in previous blogs, anybody with an eighth grade education could pass this exam. And since this Sista had a Master’s degree, taking this exam would have been a piece of cake for her.

Now my co-worker who was supposedly good friends with this woman, heard us talking and rushed over to tell her the test was hard. She did her best to dissuade and discourage this woman from taking an exam for a job that would have helped improve the quality of life for herself and her son.

The lesson I learned that day was that Black women weren’t loyal to each other. And that there is no sisterly love among Black women for each other.

Now this woman who was her friend was a single mother. A single mother who could have benefitted from that Civil Service job. The exam would have been fairly easy for her to pass.

But this Mammy felt so threatened by this younger woman she sought to dissuade her No, she felt so threatened by another Black woman rising up she felt she had to keep her down in a position beneath her.

Around May or June the library allegedly ran into money troubles. According to Mammy, they’d run out of money in their budget to pay College Assistants to work late nights.

Now she agrees to work until eleven o’clock and asked if I’d close on the Fridays at six. Now I don’t mind doing my fair share of overtime. What I do mind is when people try to run a game on me.

After I did two Fridays staying until the library closed at six, the following Monday or Tuesday, Mammy Bed Wench comes comes to me and says “Shawn I can’t work all these hours.”

Let that roll through your mind brothers and sisters. “I can’t work all these hours”. Meaning she committed to the overtime and was looking to find someone else to do her work for her.

This Bed Wench was trying to put Shawn in the TRICK BAG.

Having to deal with a chump NIGGER with a stereo and my anxiety issues, and trying to promote The Cassandra Cookbook on the weekends, I wasn’t getting much sleep. And I needed every precious hour I could get.

So I told her I couldn’t do it. And this chick was pissed. Not because I wouldn’t do the overtime, but because I wouldn’t trick on her.

Now after I declined, she tried to get some other Manginas and coons who worked at the college to tell me about her not being able to use the bathroom to make me feel sorry for her, but I wasn’t buying into this shaming language. She told me herself that she did this overtime before, so I figured she could do it again. She agreed to this deal, not me.

And I wouldn’t agree to it because it was unconscionable. Professor Mangina had worked out a deal with his Mammy COAs. They would work off the books and then take unrecorded days off as comp time. This was to be kept between them and not discussed with management or Union officials.

But from what I read in The Gittleshon Group handbook for the Union it clearly stated that overtime was time and a half pay for all hours worked over 35. And I wasn’t going to lose time and a half pay. The job only paid $23,945 at the time and I needed that money.

Now these mammies thought they were being loyal. But what these women didn’t understand was they were doing was enabling this Mangina to NOT ask for help. Again, sweeping another problem under the rug instead of confronting it. This was a public college with over a BILLION DOLLARS in state funding. And Libraries are considered a TOP PRIORITY for most colleges in assessing their budgets. And most corporations and grantmakers LOVE to give money to libraries. They’d put in the EXTRA MONEY for student workers if he ASKED FOR IT. Having worked in Fund Development at STRIVE, I know there’s BILLIONS of dollars in from charities for academic institutions that go UNSPENT every YEAR. This Library should have had more than enough money to pay student workers for working nights.

While I didn’t work nights, I was assigned to opening and closing the library on Fridays. And as Mammy enjoyed three-day weekends, I worked the entire summer. Thankfully, I opened and closed the library without incident.

There was this Puerto Rican guy who worked doing Interlibrary Loans. There was a Brotha doing it too, but he was cool; he minded his business and did his job. But the Puerto Rican guythis dude would constantly ask me about what religion I was.  I’d always decline because I found this particular question to be inappropriate. Now I was a Christian, but in the workplace you NEVER discuss religion of any sort. You never know who you’ll offend. And City College has a fairly large Muslim population running in and out of the Science/Engineering library.  Even though Mammy Bed Wench would decorate her desk with Christian stuff and post up flyers for her church, I felt as a probationary employee I needed to keep things professional. So I’d just say no comment.

One Friday he decides to start talking about landlord tenant issues. Having a family member who worked for a Landlord/Tenant law firm I was explaining to him clearly how to solve a problem he was having. But after I’d answer his questions he’d start laughing. Now I was speaking to him in an articulate intelligent fashion like I always do when I’m addressing people. But he found it funny. I found it sad that he had never experienced a Black man who could speak articulately and intelligently and could answer a question about a complex topic like landlord/tenant law. To this day I have no idea why he was laughing at me.

When I had to work on my own, I had the help of some Workstudy students. And One of the workstudy students Mammy hired (Stole from the main library) was another Black male. Unfortunately, this dude had no idea he was a pawn of Mammy Bed Wench.

Now when my anxiety isn’t bothering me, I’m not much of a talker at work. If it’s not work related, I try to keep my mouth shut. That way I figure you avoid saying something stupid and offending people. And being in an all- female environment I knew to keep my mouth shut and to keep my distance. These women in the workplace today get upset over the least little thing. And I didn’t want to lose my job over something I said that could be twisted into a sexual harassment lawsuit.

This Black dude was a 43-year-old former musician. And she didn’t hire him to give a brotha a chance to get some workstudy experience, she hired him to get me to talk. She probably figured that if she hired another Black man, I’d form a personal connection with him and she’d get some juicy gossip from him on me.

That’s right, Mammy Bed Wench was using this SIMP as a TOOL.

Again, I’m not much of a talker on the job to ANYONE. I keep it professional on the job and never make it personal. And I had less incentive to talk in a place with a gossip. After she put my business out in the street about my book, I decided to keep my distance from this heffa and anyone associated with her.

I knew something was up when this Negro called in on the first day he was supposed to go to work and said he wasn’t coming in because he had a doctor’s appointment. Now I came in the day before to meet everyone, but dude decides not to come in on his first day of work and Mammy Bed Wench feels this is perfectly fine.

Negro Bed wench assigns dude to some of the most demeaning tasks in the library, stuff like taping reference labels to reference books and shelving books. In between his work duties he tries to talk to me Dude tries to talk to me, but if he wasn’t talking about his plans for the future, all he wanted to talk about was women. That’s NO-NO on the job, especially on a job where you’re surrounded by females. Especially Black females who love to GOSSIP.

There’s a time and a place for Shawn to talk about women. On the train, on the bus, in a restaurant, or in a store when I’m shopping. But not on the job, especially one where I’m working with Black females. These Heifers will use ANYTHING a Black Man says against him to get a case with Human Resources to get him FIRED. And talking about women on a job is just like loading a gun with bullets used to kill yourself with.

Anyway, looking to take a break from labeling reference books, this SIMP comes up to the circulation desk one day and asks me where Mammy Bed Wench was. I tell her she’s in the back. And him thinking she was in another part of the library, he starts talking about a coked up white chick who grabbed his ass.

But she was in a room behind the circulation desk. And she must have been coming out to the counter because she hears what he says. And this chick goes off. Now dude wasn’t talking about her, he was talking to me. But she still got upset with him. Upset enough to write a report to security talking about how she felt threatened by him when he stood up for himself. Lies. More red flags that there was something wrong with this Bed Wench.

Looking back five years later, I believe she went off because not because dude talked about grabbing a woman’s ass, but because her plan to get me to fuck myself up BACKFIRED.

With the SIMP outliving his usefulness, she decided to get rid of him in the most dramatic fashion with the threat of a write up to security. Seeing how crazy this Bed Wench was, Mr. Simp decided to take a job in the mailroom. Before he left we were cool. He realized I wasn’t the problem it was Ms. Bed Wench.

Working over the summer and staying over on Fridays I had accrued some floating Holidays and some overtime hours. Professor Mangina walks up to me one Friday and asks if I can come in the next Monday and move some furniture. Heavy furniture like tables. I ask him why can’t he contact maintenance to do this. He says it’s a hassle.

I find it funny that it’s not a problem for maintenance to mop a floor when there’s a leak in the ceiling, but when it’s time to move furniture it’s a hassle.

I have to wonder is it a hassle because they will insist on a proper time to schedule the movement of furniture, or is it a hassle because this dude is afraid of conflict and too scared to approach maintenance workers to ask them to move. I tell him I have a day off scheduled for Monday and I can’t do it. I wouldn’t have done it anyway, because the risk of getting an injury was just too high.

Now this was WAY out of the scope of a CUNY Office Assistants’ duties. On every other job I had, Maintenance did things like moving furniture because they had the proper equipment for it like back braces, gloves, dollies, and lifting straps. And they moved furniture for liability reasons. If an employee got hurt they could get SUED.

Anyway, since I had the day off, Professor Mangina cons Workstudy students into moving his furniture. (Putting them at risk of serious injury and the school at risk for a BIG ASS LAWSUIT) The next Tuesday I come back and he’s had all the tables in the front of the library moved over a foot or two so there can be a clearer view from the circulation desk of the copiers. I’m guessing there were a lot of students stealing paper out of them. I had to wonder: Are the students at City College this desperate, this GHETTO and this PATHETIC that they had to steal paper out of a copier? Paper can be bought at a 99 cent store easily. And people could print anything they wanted for free at the computer lab in the NAC center across the street. Besides, if you’re a college student who has money for $300cell phones, and $200 sneakers and $160 jeans buying a pack of 99 cent paper or a 79-cent notebook shouldn’t be a problem.

Now, he didn’t have to move the furniture. All he had to do was ASK for a security guard or ASK the people from the outside companies who ran the copiers to put a LOCK on the paper trays like they do at private colleges like Columbia University. Again, this was a multibillion dollar public college. There was plenty of money from the state and Grant money from corporations and individuals to pay for guards, especially for a science library open until eleven o’clock at night. But this Mangina was so afraid of conflict he’d rather implement a cockamamie scheme than ASK his superiors or even the President of City College for what was needed to run a library effectively.

Over the summer when I wasn’t working the Circulation desk, there were a series of thefts and security breaches at the Library. A student working the Circulation desk on the weekend had money stolen out of her purse when someone came behind it. And a guy had his laptop stolen in the computer room when I was on break and Bed Wench was working the circulation desk.

Now when I was working the desk there were no thefts and no one came behind the counter. In fact, no one even seemed to dare try to take anything. I guess many of the White, Hispanic and Asian, Arab ,Indian, and African students attending City College were afraid of the husky Black man standing at the counter to try something.

Now there was a Black chick who tried to steal a Dell brand USB Drive we found in the computer lab by claiming it was hers, (The name on the documents in it clearly said Rodriguez when I plugged it in and the name on her ID card wasn’t Rodriguez) But I refused to give it to her because the name wasn’t a match to the documents. Instead I sent it to CUNY’s Lost and Found. But outside of that incident there weren’t any security breaches to my knowledge.

If anything, the attempt to steal something as cheap and sundry as a USB disk drive showed me how greedy some of these students were. Most of these kids get a REFUND check from TAP Financial Aid and they STILL have to steal a cheap ass $16 USB drive? WTF?

From what I saw there was a desperate need for a security guard in the City College Science/Engineering Library. With the library being open for seven days a week and for extended hours Monday through Friday from nine to eleven P.M, and hundred year-old books on the shelves, there needed to be a security guard on hand to protect the collection. But Because Professor Chief Librarian Mangina had ABDICATED his leadership, there was no request for added security.

A few months later I found that thefts at City Colleges’ libraries were an ongoing problem for the past EIGHT YEARS. Books had been stolen from the collection, and some had chapters ripped out of them one book was literally cut out of its hardcover and the shell was left! Students had been having coats stolen, bags stolen and other items like cell phones stolen for EIGHT YEARS. And the Libraries’ response from senior management was a Memo in laminate taped to a door dated December 2000 on the far side of a fire exit and in a place where no one could see it.

Not in the entrance where EVERYONE COULD SEE IT. Not on every table where students could read it and take action to protect their belongings. A fire door.

This was the half-hearted response Mangina who ran the entire library to criminal activity being perpetrated on students by other students. Lie, Deny, and Hide. Then blame the students who were victimized by these thefts for not securing their valuables. If you’re going to extend the hours of a library there’s a CLEAR NEED for added security to not only protect the collection, but the students as well. But instead of asking for funds from the College President, these Manginas just swept the problem under the rug.

All the while in 2008 City College of New York spends $20,000 on carpet for their cafeteria. Roll that through your mind about how WHACKED the priorities at this school were. Your Science/Engineering library which is ESSENTIAL to students doing their work and your tuition revenues is falling APART, doesn’t have enough money in its budget to pay for student workers through until closing for an entire semester, doesn’t have enough money to take hundred year old books off the shelf, has no money for a full-time security guard, has had a theft problem for EIGHT YEARS and the trustees spend $20,000 on carpet for a cafeteria?

*FACEPALM*

Now in late August they did replace all the computers AFTER almost six or seven of those old Pentium 4's DIED in the computer lab. But it shouldn’t have NEVER gotten that bad. Those computers should have been replaced in 2006 or 2007. And what they replaced them with was low-grade crap Pentium D computers,not higher end Core 2 Duos or core i5s that would have lasted a lot longer and given the college a lot more value for their dollar. I’d get into how their idiot IT guys didn't order Adobe Photoshop/Acrobat, AutoCAD, for their library computers (OpenSource is BULLSHIT) or even install other essential downloaded software like Flash or Shockwave on a computer before making them available to students. But that’s another story about the par for the course dysfunction at City College. When your IT guys can't get all the fucking clocks on the computers to tell the right time, they're FUCKTARDS. 

Before the Summer ended Professor Mangina strolls over to the Circulation desk to talk to Mammy Bed Wench in a Brooks Brothers shirt. Now Most of the time Professor Mangina wore rumpled shirts and wrinkled pants. But he decides to walk up to the desk in a Brooks Brothers shirt and the same wrinkled pants.

This to me was a clear sign of Peacock behavior. An attempt to show out to spite me. Every day I worked at the Circulation desk I wore clothes from Brooks Brothers from other high-end designers like Lands’ End or Ralph Lauren. Most of my clothes were pressed because I’d take them to the dry cleaners. I wasn’t looking to be a fashion plate; my style has always been crisp and clean since my STRIVE days. If dude was gonna show out, his wife should’ve told him to iron his pants and put on some decent shoes too. Putting on just the shirt makes you look like a chump.

Now I worked most of August without incident, it was a slow period in the library. There was a little Bitch-made™ math adjunct who threw a hissy fit over a due date on a library book, but again no problems. I’d open and close the library without incident.

Fall Semester rolls around. And Mammy Bed Wench asks me a question I find extremely disturbing to this day. She asks me if I’m comfortable with the job and if I liked it. I found this question to be extremely odd, because no one goes to work to be comfortable. No, people go to work to do their jobs and get paid. Besides, no one I knew went to an entry-level job working at a circulation desk making under $25 grand a year to be comfortable. From my days at STRIVE I was told these kinds of entry-level jobs are just stepping stones towards getting the experience to work someplace else.

This Bed Wench had been in that same job for nine years. And from the looks of things she was so comfortable in that dead-end job she didn’t want to go anywhere in life. If anything that question told me that she was uncomfortable with me. And the reason she was uncomfortable was because she couldn’t figure me out. She couldn’t get me to fall for her games. And she couldn’t manipulate me into her Trick Bag to use as a tool like everyone else she had working for her.

On September 11^th,2008 Professor Mangina musters up some courage from somewhere and decides to finally give me  one of my two quarterly a performance evaluations three months late. He and Mammy Bed Wench send me to a Union meeting and then decide to talk about my work so far.

I came back from the Union meeting then a break. Now Professor Mangina told me he wanted to get this But instead of approaching me to have the meeting he just stood there at a computer terminal. I had to walk up to him and ASK to give me my performance evaluation. This guy was so afraid of conflict he couldn’t muster up the courage to even follow through on his request to meet with me.

In spite of my earlier gaffe with the CUNY FLU, I went in expecting high marks. Many of the students were happy with my work and said I was doing a great job. Ms. Bed wench herself said my work was great and I was doing a good job. Even Mr. Simp was impressed with my work. I was trusted with opening and closing the library on Fridays. And in the middle of the summer semester and the start of the fall semester I was training workstudy students on how to use the ALEPH system.

But when I got into the performance evaluation, Manigna starts out by speaking in a patronizing tone saying I’m improving. He then goes on to say that he’s looking for someone with a sales/customer Service background.

And he used the performance evaluation to minimize my work. And to try to minimize my talents and abilities. This coward was trying to fly an insult over my head and take a shot at me. In his eyes I wasn’t qualified to do the job at the library. Now Human Resources thought I was qualified when they hired me after reading my resume and interviewing me. But this arrogant son of a bitch felt I didn’t meet his ridiculous standard for a COA job. A rinky-dink COA job any freshman college student could do. By saying he was looking for someone with a sales/customer Service background he was trying to say he wanted to hire someone else.

Now writers like myself do sales all the time. We sell when we query editors and literary agents and when we pitch articles. We sell to readers when we promote our work in bookstores and on social media, and at book fairs and trade shows. And we do customer service when readers send us e-mails about our books, our blogs, and our articles. Don’t let anyone fool you, books are some of the hardest things to sell to ANYONE. Because customers hate taking the time to read them. If you can sell a book to someone, selling everything else is EASY.

I also did lots of selling when I did presentations at STRIVE eight years before I worked at City College. Pitching their program to the homeless, one of the hardest groups to sell on anything. So I had no Idea what he was saying about looking for someone with a sales/customer service background.

No professional salesperson would want to work in a library. I know salespeople at Brooks Brothers and they live for commissions. The best ones make six figures a year. They’d LAUGH at a $24,000 a year job at a library. Because they could make twice as much selling product in luxury retail in six months.

Customer service reps wouldn’t want to be bothered with them either. Most people working in call centers make $15 an hour starting salary. Plus they got paid REAL time-and a-half overtime.

And when it came to customer service I was better at it in the seven months I was there than Mammy Bed Wench who was working there for nine years. When kids had an issue I’d explain policy to them in a polite and calm way and try to help em’ out. If people tried to run games and bullshit, I checked them in a professional manner. Sometimes I wasn’t perfect, (I remember working on my 35^th birthday I was tired from a dealing with my sisters’ computer dying and my next door neighbor’s stereo) and I kinda snapped at someone around two o’clock in the afternoon, but in most times I kept it professional.

She on the other hand would argue with students and cause a lot of drama. And my customer service was so solid many students came looking for me. I knew a major part of sales/customer service is FORMING A RELATIONSHIP with the customer so they’ll feel comfortable enough to come back and want to buy more products. Again, I understood this was THE STUDENTS’ Library and THEY PAID for the RIGHT TO USE IT.

Besides, there’s not much sales to do in a library; all the books are free. Stuff like copy cards sell themselves because the audience is captive. If anything all you have to do is show someone how to use a printer or refer them to a librarian. I was told CUNY Office Assistants aren’t authorized to give information about books because we’re not Librarians. And most of the people who I served and my co-workers said I was doing a great job. So why would they want for someone with a sales/customer service background?

Personally, I believe it was because White male Professor Mangina and Negro Bed wench were intimidated by a Black man who had his shit coming together. Who they wanted working in their library was an ignorant COON or a Hood Rat who would worship both of them and see them as the gods they deluded themselves into believing they were. Someone they could manipulate into falling their games such as that bullshit overtime scheme where you get nothing for all your hard work and think they were getting something for nothing.

If anything by making that statement, this Mangina Professors’ jealousy was showing through. Looking back I should have checked his bitch ass then, but I decided to turn the other cheek since I was a probationary employee. I really needed this job and I needed to build up my savings. So I decided to just keep it professional so I could keep working and building my savings and my publishing business.

In addition to telling me my work isn’t valued Professor Mangina Chief Librarian tells me that I would have to go along with his overtime scheme and work until eleven when they ran out of money in their budget. He says for every five hours I’d work I’d get a day off. He tells me that they always have a funding problem and they always run out of money to pay for college assistants. All of a sudden overtime that was once-and-awhile when a student had a paper is now all the time. Basically, this bastard LIED to me on DAY ONE.

I knew from that performance evaluation and his open ADMISSION to his INCOMPETENCE that the handwriting was on the wall. My days were numbered at City College in the Science/Engineering Library. Soon after the performance evaluation all of a sudden the mood of the workplace changed. I could feel a hostility in the air. The College assistants and Mammy bed wench started distancing themselves.

A couple of days later, One of the College assistants walks over with a cart with over a hundred books. And Ms. Bed Wench She tells me to put barcode labels in over a hundred books. Then she goes on to start talking to one of the other college assistants about some superficial non-work related topic.

Now before when there were books with no barcodes we’d all work together to get them processed. But she wanted me to work processing over a hundred books all by myself and service customers at the same time.

Now I said I wanted to work putting the barcodes in the books that didn’t have them when I first started, because one of the kids came to the counter with one book without a tag in it. I thought that looked really unprofessional and sloppy. And I figured it was an issue in a book or two or a shelf or two. Turns out FIVE OR TEN SECTIONS G-QC were left uncoded with no security strips or barcodes. She could have told me about the severity of this problem from DAY ONE so I could know what to expect.

But this woman remained silent.

Moreover, we sat around for the ENTIRE MONTH OF AUGUST DOING NOTHING. This barcode work could have easily been COMPLETED when there were NO CROWDS OF STUDENTS COMING IN FROM THE FALL SEMESTER. But this passive/aggressive stunt was meant to frustrate me so I’d quit. While I felt overwhelmed by the sheer number of books a couple of times over the coming weeks, I still persevered.

Another time, she had a bunch of Workstudy students at the Circulation desk. She delegated them tasks and then after she finished giving them jobs to do she assigned me to shelf reading. Pissing and marking her territory.

Now I was the paid full-time employee, her co-worker making a salary just like she did. What she was doing through her actions was saying that I wasn’t valuable. That below her college assistants and City Colleges’ transient workstudy students were more valuable than I was to their Science/Engineering library. They were probably looking for that person with the sales/customer Service background while I was shelf reading.

We did the labels and barcodes for a few weeks. And when we ran out of labels, they went to get more and the professor over the labels asked why they needed them. Again, a RED FLAG something was FOUL.

Around October, the department head comes back into the Science Library. And again, this Cracker does NOT INTRODUCE HIMSELF TO me. Now President and CEO Rob Carmona and every senior executive and department head at STRIVE Introduced themselves to me on DAY ONE. At my job at Food Emporium I met with ALL the shift managers on DAY ONE. Even at my volunteer job at New Bronx Employment service I met up with senior managers. But seven months later, this ASSHOLE who runs the entire City College of New York Library system can’t get the BALLS to walk up to a counter and INTRODUCE himself to one of his employees on a SECOND site visit.

I only knew about his visit the next day when Mammy Bed wench came to tell me that he was upset that the alarm was going off and I wasn’t asking people to look in their bags. Now I had never been told to do this in the seven months I’d been there. In fact, Mammy Bed Wench and her college assistants regularly let people pass through with no challenge when the alarm went off.

As so called sales/Customer service people working the circulation desk we CUNY OFFICE ASSITANTS COULDN’T engage students. Sales and customer service people in multi-billion dollar retail stores like The Gap and Macy’s do not do security. Why? Because it ESCALATES a situation. And when a situation is escalated, it not only puts the employees’ life at risk when they engage the suspect but puts the lives of OTHER PEOPLE VISTING THE LIBRARY AT RISK. It’s a RECIPE FOR A SERIES OF BIG ASS LAWSUITS.

A sales/customer service person does not do security. If an alarm goes off we’re not to engage anyone or inquire of them if they have anything. No, that’s for a licensed security person or loss prevention specialist to do. With law enforcement and security training, they’re better at assessing and anticipating risk than an office assistant who checks books in and out of the circulation desk every day.

If an individual is stealing books from the library is carrying a weapon like a boxcutter, they may not hesitate to use it if confronted. And if they’re carrying a gun, they could not only kill or injure the COA who approaches them, but also kill or injure innocent bystanders as well.

Even if an alarm goes off it’s AGAINST THE LAW for sales people to engage a suspected thief in retail businesses. According to New York State Law, in order for security to detain someone for theft/shoplifitng, an employee has to SEE someone steal an item from the shelf and watch them leave the premises. It’s only when they leave the premises is a crime committed.

If an employee engages an alleged shoplifter/thief at the door and has no PROOF of a crime committed, they risk putting the business in jeopardy of a BIG ASS LAWSUIT, especially if someone else gets injured as a result of their attempt to detain them. This is why most college libraries invest in security guards. But again, these Manginas were too scared to ASK for the funds to secure their Science library and its patrons. The main Cohen library had guards, but the equally used Science/engineering Library had NONE. In between the lack of barcodes and security strips on entire sections of books, the lack of a full-time security guard, and a faulty alarm the place was a perfect place for criminal minded students and their friends to steal from other students.

But instead of ASKING the President of the CCNY to pay for more security or networking with Grantmakers who had TONS OF CASH to spend, these Manginas would rather have a COA put their life on the line for books and journals they didn’t CARE to protect themselves.

I took offense to the request because it was clear he did not value the SAFETY of the students or myself. I also took offense to this guy not introducing himself to me. I felt it was extremely arrogant for him to walk into the place a SECOND time and NOT introduce himself to the new employee working there. If anything, that was a statement to me that they did NOT value me as an employee.

On the surface it looked like they were just trying to cheap out and have COAs do security. But this Department head was setting up a classic Mangina Paradox trap. And In the paradox trap, nothing anyone does is right. It’s a set-up for a no-win situation.

If I engaged the student and asked them the question of what was in their bag they’d say I was violating written company policy by overstepping my bounds and profiling students and use that as a reason to terminate me. And if I did nothing I would be terminated for being insubordinate. And because the Bed wench gave me the orders they could say I was acting on my own. Him telling her would be considered hearsay. And with the treacherous nature of this Black female she’d swear up and down she never said anything like that to me. It was the perfect screw job.

I did my best to try to endure what seemed to be an onslaught of dirty tricks until the last week of October. The Sunday before I wondered what God meant when He told me to keep going. I had no idea what treachery waited for me that next week. I had no idea what God was talking about until a week later.

Seeing that I managed to overcome all of their dirty tricks, Mammy and Mangina decided to play from the bottom of the deck. That Tuesday, I was working the circulation desk. Now a student had come in for a chemistry book, and one of the College assistants said they’d go get it. I figured he had it, so I took a moment to think about something had my eyes down to thinking about something.

Before I know it, His Mammy Bed Wench comes over and tells me I was sleeping at the desk. I tell her I wasn’t sleeping and she tells me I have my eyes closed.

Now I’m working at the desk thinking there’s no problems. Around two o’clock Mangina professor comes in saying we have to talk. I go into his office and he’s got me written me up on false charges accusing me of sleeping at the desk. Seriously, how can you sleep standing up?

Mangina goes on a rant. This dude is so emotional he doesn’t even make sense. He’s so insecure he drops the name of his boss like I’m supposed to know who this department head is even though this man NEVER introduced himself and no one EVER told me his name. I tell him I was sick that day. He’s tells me to take a sick day. HOW THE HELL CAN I TAKE A SICK DAY WHEN I DIDN’T HAVE ANY THREE DAYS INTO A JOB?

He then threatens to send the write up filled with LIES to Human Resources, the dean and a bunch of other high-ranking people at CUNY who I’ve never heard of and threatens not to make me a permanent employee. He tells me that He told me about sleeping at the desk when he NEVER talked to me about anything. The COA HE designated as my supervisor came over to talk to me BOTH TIMES. His COWARDLY ASS was over TWENTY FEET AWAY AVOIDING CONFLICT. I confront him, call him on his LIE and then getting frustrated just say I want to work someplace else. He just lets me go back to work and act like nothing happens.

All throughout his rant, I could feel a presence in the room with me. I knew it was Jesus. It was like he was standing next to me. I knew I did nothing wrong, and this man was lying on me. And I know God knew he was lying too.

I realized I was screwed. Mangina professor Chief Librarian had his Negro Bed Wench as a witness to substantiate his story, and the Black woman Union shop steward would be no help, because she was probably coonin’ for Mr. Charlie too. Plus, this guy now showed me he was willing to lie to get away with his crimes, and I knew if another situation like this came around at this job I’d really be screwed. With him being a White Man and me being a Black man it’d be my word against his. And his word would be taken as truth by others in authority. And because he had a Negro Bed Wench willing to back up his lies I’d wind up a creek without a paddle. That day it’d be a write up over a false allegation of sleeping on the job The next day it’d be an accusation about a missing item. They’d both say they saw me steal it and my ass would be leaving that library in handcuffs for something I didn’t do.

I went back to work for the rest of the week pondering quitting, but I decided to tough it out. Everything seemed to be fine as Bed wench asked me to stay until six one day. I told her I’d have to get back to her. The day I was to stay late she sends me home. And she was making plans on the schedule to have others fill in.

I came in on Friday October 24^th, 2008 like any other day and at nine began the tedious task of putting more barcodes in hundreds more books. Around 9:30 The Department head, a fat little greasy turd of a man comes in and calls for me to come to the back finally introduces himself to me. He’s looking for a fight. He says you don’t want to work here. I say nothing to him. Then he says he’s terminating my employment. He gives me a letter of termination with a signature from the assistant HR Director and a second performance evaluation dated October 24, 2008. He insists I take both documents so they can have a paper trail to substantiate their lies. I realized he had a roomful of witnesses such as college assistants, and Mammy Bed wench.

I’m thinking dude decided to introduce himself because Mammy Bed wench told him about what I said earlier regarding his cockamamie security scheme and that’s why he walked in all steamed. Yeah, this woman could gossip about things to these White boys when I said something about their lack of professionalism, but wouldn’t put in a positive word to help a brother keep his job.

While they send him to fire me, White Chief librarian Mangina Professor and his fellow librarians hid in their offices. Leaving these defenseless students and Ms. Negro Bed Wench to deal with whatever happened in that back room. I don’t know if anyone saw it, but it showed how little loyalty these White cowards had for the Black and minority workers who worked at their front desk. If I were one of those emotional violent thug Negroes, their lives would have all been put at risk.

I found it funny they had two campus police officers there as a show of force to escort me out. This cowardly department head needs two campus officers to come with him as a show of force when he’s firing someone but he doesn’t have the BALLS to go up to a campus president by himself and ASK for extra money to protect students and library property every day from the numerous thieves who preyed on the City College Science/Engineering library for close to a DECADE. That one action shows me how racist these white boys were. They were more scared of the Black man who once worked for them than they were of the White, Arab, Indian, and Asian kids who were robbing the place blind.

In the wake of the bad news, I remained calm. God gave me a peace about things. With two campus police officers there I knew it was smart not to cause a scene. I got my coat out of my locker, made a call to my mother and told her about things. Then I walked out of the library keeping my distance from the two campus officers. I knew these White Manginas wanted an incident to say how Black men act out and they wanted to see me walk out of their library in handcuffs. I knew the best thing for me to do was shut them down by NOT giving them the incident they wanted to see: A nigger acting out and proving all the stereotypes they knew to be true about Black people.

I never returned to the City College Science Library after that. Instead of wallowing in self-pity, I just moved on. For me, it was a job. I didn’t own it and I had nothing emotional invested in it. With the peace of God in my heart, I followed his word and kept going.

I had no idea that the performance evaluations were all part of the Master plan to get rid of me. Giving me the first performance evaluation on September 11^th was part of a plan to use the second one dated October 24^th to write up a bunch of lies on it to make me look like an incompetent employee. Saying things like I needed to be watched and I was aloof and unapproachable.

When in actuality these cowardly racist ass white boys were too afraid to approach me. If I needed to be watched, then why would I be left to open and close a library? Why was I left to work the counter on my own for several MONTHS working this job? Why was I left for hours to work the circulation desk ALONE in the mornings while Mammy Bed Wench did other work in the back? If I was doing such a good job that was noted by everyone including students and co-workers how could that change in a month?

Now any HR pro would see a bunch of red flags in the dates of these performance evaluations. But City Colleges’ HR department was just as unethical as their bastard professors.

Now I made my mistakes on this job. And I take responsibility for them. But a lot of these issues these people at City College had with me could have been settled if White male managers acted like leaders instead of acting like BITCHES. These assholes talked about how I’m aloof and unapproachable, when it was their own cowardice that prevented them from walking up and talking to me like a man. When it was their own racism and cowardice that prevented them from forming a relationship with me in the workplace. Instead of trying to settle their issues with me and working with me towards solving the library’s numerous problems, they’d rather play the victim and say everyone from the college president to the CUNY trustees to the governor was doing them wrong.

What really irks me is that Negro Bed Wench knew what was going on and didn’t say a word. Ms. Pro-Black Born Again Christian™ who loved to gossip about peoples’ business didn’t say a word to me about anything. Instead, she decided to follow the line of her White Slave masters. If this woman really followed the Bible she wouldn’t sit back and watch as a fellow Black man was railroaded by a white man’s lies. Nor would she agree to go along with his lies to keep a chump change job. The Bible I read says Do unto others as they would do unto You. And true Christians don’t lie and go along with liars like this woman did.

If anything, this woman showed me to those White Professor Librarians at City College were her true god. She worshipped them more than Jesus and was willing to crush anybody Black who got in her way, especially a Black man if the threatened her position as the HNICE (Head Nigger in Charge). I’m hoping her little dreadlocked girl friend saw all this, because it showed the truth about her character. If she’d screw me over, it’d be a matter of time before she did it to her.

That was one of the hardest lessons I learned working at the City College of New York. That these Pro-Black Afrocentric sistas were some of the biggest sellouts on the planet. And that Black people, especially Black women can’t be trusted on these jobs. They were more loyal to White men than their Black co-workers or the Black community.

For years I thought I thought my attitude was one of the reasons I got fired. Then around 2010, I watched The Avenue/Dan Freeman’s classic video The Threatening Black man on YouTube and realized I wasn’t alone. Black men all over this country had been put in similar situations like mine, and that I was merely reacting to the hostile environment created by this Negro Bed Wench and her White slave master. After watching Dan Freeman’s video, I began to understand that I was a threat to the people of that library. And what they were uncomfortable with in the presence of an educated professional Black man who could stand on his own two feet.

The truth of the matter is that in White Liberal institutions like The City College of New York, the insecure liberal white folks who work there need Mammies, Coons and other minorities in jobs like CUNY Office Assistant under them to feel secure about their place in the world. As long as they surround themselves with dumb, ignorant minorities these white liberals can maintain a false sense of superiority and delude themselves into believing they’re more intelligent than everyone else. I find both these groups have a co-dependent relationship with each other and one needs the other to feel comfortable As long as the Mammies and coons know they have a place under the White Man’s table they can still feel safe about where they are at the bottom, and as long as the White Man can believe that he is superior at that table he feels safe about his state of mediocrity at the top. No one ever grows or changes there and no one wants to grow or change. As this woman stated she was comfortable wallowing in the filth of dirty carpets, old computers and thieving students and she wanted a comfortable nigger to be at her side maintaining the status quo of dysfunctional mediocrity at that library.

My mistake was coming in there and being myself. I represented REAL change to these people and I rocked their dysfunctional co-dependent boat by being intelligent and professional Black man who spoke well, dressed well and acted professionally. There’s nothing that doesn’t scare the shit out of mediocre White men and subpar Black women than a professional intelligent hardworking heterosexual Black man. I dare to say he’s more terrifying to both than any horror movie character in any Hollywood film because they can’t figure out how to manipulate or control him. None of their bullshit games work with this kind of man and they know that sooner or later he’s going to pull back their curtain and reveal show the world the smoke and mirrors behind their façade of false superiority. And when the world realizes how mediocre both White men and AmeriKKKan Black women are, the game will be OVER for BOTH OF THEM.

After being terminated for an unjust reason by these unethical and racist managers, I persevered. I threw myself into my writing and began promoting and publishing the remaining titles in my catalog. In the past five years I managed to do what I set out to do in 2007, clear the backlog of unpublished manuscripts and turn them into published paperbacks. It cost me most of my savings but I learned a lot of valuable experience about self-publishing, marketing and writing.

In that time I’ve grown as a writer and a publisher. I’m still not to the point where I can pull a profit on my writing or even get a return on what I invested initially on paperbacks, but I am reaching new readers all over the world. Even as I struggle to make ends meet these days I try not to be bitter about my experience at City College of New York. I don’t want that negative experience to poison my mission of publishing positive Black literature to brothers and sisters. I came there not just to work, but to gain the capital to continue publishing my books. For me, a job is just a stepping stone towards getting your own business. Five years later I’ve accomplished the goals I set in 2007, and I’ve expanded my catalog to over 11 paperbacks and over 35 eBooks. I’ve gotten critical praise from book clubs and readers. People ask for me to guestblog and write articles for them. I’m still not at the point where I can make money from my writing, but I’m a lot further than I was in early 2007 when I was living on $2 a day given to me by family. Right now I want to keep moving forward towards getting to the next level.

The lessons I learned at City College of New York are ones I’ll take to my grave. But instead of being bitter, I want to teach other brothers and sisters can from my experience. I’m hoping someone, somewhere can learn from my lessons and overcome the pitfalls I ran into on the job in AmeriKKKa.

Brothers, whenever you ever see a White Man and a Black woman working somewhere together on the job, WATCH YOUR BACK. That Negro Bed Wench and her Slave Master are conspiring to get you fired. Make sure you keep clear documentation of all your business dealings with them, CC all your emails to a higher manager, and don’t be afraid to tape their asses if you have a conversation with them. Whenever a White Man and Black woman are working together always know they’re working AGAINST a Black man in the workplace. Don’t let them take your job!