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The workplace is no place for Black face, Black apes, or Black hate.
According to reports in a recent Penn Live article, a Black former employee of UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh, 30-year-old Caleb Ferguson, has filed a lawsuit against the facility claiming that the administration took no action after he reported that a white coworker named Eileen Keenan had made a monkey doll and named it after him. Sounds pretty egregious but apparently the brass at the ‘spital were unmoved. Not only were they unmoved, but shortly after reporting the unnamed soup cookie, the hospital fired him!
Don’t get it twisted either, Caleb wasn’t some slack employee who was the last to arrive and the first to leave. In fact, he was so good at his job that he was given a raise in early 2023 after being hired at the hospital in December 2022.
All was well until March 20, 2023 when the following was said in a room full of Ferguson’s colleagues…
On that date, Ferguson’s suit said a co-worker name Eileen Keenan, described as an older white woman, was asked about a doll she was making and replied that it was a monkey. “She then held up the unfinished work and said, ‘Look, it’s Caleb,’” states the suit.
B-b-b-but wait, it gets worse!
A week later, Keenan said in front of co-workers that she had finished the doll, held it up and said, “Everyone, meet Caleb.” Ferguson was “horrified, extremely upset and shocked,” according to the lawsuit.
After “vehemently” complaining to his supervisor Joseph Ulridch, Ferguson still got no recourse and Keenan had still not be reprimanded in any way according to the suit. On April 2, Ferguson got into an argument with another employee and was sent to Ulridch’s office where another argument took place. When it was all said and done, Ulridch called hospital security to have Ferguson escorted from the building. The next day, he was suspended and on April 6, he was fired.
Dirty game. We hope brotha Ferguson shakes every red cent of this hospital.
