Author Archive

The purpose of my book titled “Minority Viewpoint – my experience, as a person of color, with the American Justice System” is to help the next ordinary person faced with the daunting prospect of having to file a lawsuit, as well as to help all ethnic minorities and persons of color stand up for their rights in a civilized manner. Here are some of the issues discussed in the book:
• What exactly is defamation?
• How does defamation spread through a community?
• Are there ways to stop this from happening?
• What do you have to show to prove that defamation happened?
• Is it okay to defame someone to the police?
• What about defamation of a famous person?
• What is the process of filing a lawsuit?
• When does someone send a cease and desist letter?
• What is the purpose of depositions?
• How do you decide who to depose?
• What is a summary judgment motion all about?
• What is a motion to compel?
• Does a lawsuit always mean a jury trial?
• What kinds of things one needs to keep in mind to select an appropriate lawyer?
• What happens if you are not happy with the service provided by the lawyer?
• How might a law firm respond if you try to share your views about the performance of a lawyer?
• What is involved in deciding to file a malpractice lawsuit?
• What is the role of a lawyers professional board?
• How does an appeal work?
• Can you do anything if you suspect that defamation might have been racially motivated?
• Can comments from the police help spread the defamation?

In my book titled “A Life Interrupted – the story of my battle with bullying and obsessive compulsive disorder” I talk about my recovery from a devastating mental illness to illustrate the fact that bullying can have very serious impacts on the lives of the victims. And the mental health impact can linger on for many years beyond high school years.

It is true that some victims of bullying are able to move on without any serious impacts, but for many victims that is not the case. In many situations debilitating mental illness has ruined lives of victims of childhood bullying. As I traveled around the country for my speaking engagements, I have met people who are in their forties and fifties, and have still not been able to get beyond the impact of the bullying they faced during school years.

One of the problems is that the school staff are not always able to detect the issue in a timely manner. If a victim of bullying can start receiving validation and therapy at an early stage, it is very likely that he/she will be able to recover within a reasonable time frame and may be able to avoid significant long term impact. For example, if a victim of bullying in grade 5 or 6 starts receiving therapy and support immediately, he/she may be able to recover from the impact by the time high school years roll in.

That is why it is very important for school staff not to ignore any complaints of bullying by anyone in a school. And if a complaint is received, then appropriate support and therapy must immediately be provided to the victim as long as he/she needs it. It is critical for school staff to make the assumption that all bullied children need help and make arrangements to provide that help in a timely manner. This is extremely important unless bullying is totally eradicated from the school environment.

The story I describe in my latest book “Minority Viewpoint – my experience, as a person of color, with the American Justice System” starts with a complaint I had made to a hotel manager about a negative experience I had with a hotel employee. I didn’t think I was doing anything wrong since most hotels encourage comments and/or complaints so they can continue to improve their services. But in this specific case, repercussions turned out to be significant.

I had worked for several hotels during the early days of my career. I was trying to figure out if I would want to stay with the hospitality industry. All the hotels that I worked for had trained their employees to be extremely courteous to ALL guests and to encourage all guests to write in comments, especially if they had any negative experience. The hotel managers always told us that the feedback from guests is extremely helpful in improving services and in training employees. That is why during all my travels as an author and speaker, I have always tried to fill in a comment card irrespective of whether my experience was positive or somewhat negative.

That is exactly what I had done in this particular case. I even received a nice response back from the manager thanking me for my comments and confirming that I would have no issues at all during any of my future visits. I believed it because that is exactly what happens in most hotels, but in this case, things did not go well when I returned to that same hotel four months later for another visit.

The employee mentioned later that she was never disciplined for this complaint, she did not receive any verbal coaching either. In fact, she said, that apparently she and the manager felt that my complaint was ridiculous and laughed about my complaint. But then she reported to the police against me with some untrue and defamatory statements, which I had to fight against. This has been one of the most puzzling things about this interesting story of defamation and the ensuing lawsuit.

One of the things I describe in my recent book titled “Minority Viewpoint – my experience, as a person of color, with the American Justice System” is about my interactions with the legal community. When I talk about the legal community I am including the lawyers, law firms and the lawyers professional responsibility board.

The first thing I observed is that the law firm I was dealing with didn’t seem to want to listen and understand the issues I was having with my lawyer. As we tried to explain our issues to the managing partner of the law firm, it seemed that his biggest concern was to make sure that we do not file a malpractice lawsuit. Several times during the conversation he mentioned that if we decided to file a malpractice lawsuit, it won’t go anywhere – meaning we would not be successful if we pursued a malpractice lawsuit. Well, we were not thinking about pursuing a malpractice lawsuit anyway, but that was clearly his main concern. Even after the meeting when he sent us a letter he mentioned it again that if we pursued a malpractice lawsuit, we wouldn’t be successful. I was totally surprised. I thought that the big boss of the law firm would be really interested in what the client thought of the performance of one of his lawyers and maybe think about changing some of the ways they do things. But there was no way he was going to acknowledge that some of the things could have been done differently. Overall it was not constructive at all.

What surprised me most about the lawyers professional responsibility board is that they didn’t seem to want to fully understand the issues we had described in our complaint. And then when we requested for a short meeting or a phone call to try and understand what their reasons were for not investigating the matter, we never heard back from them. That was most disappointing.

I truly believe that with a bit of effort the legal community can certainly become more trustworthy for the clients – but they have to be willing to put in that effort.

One of the points I tried to make in my book titled “How to stand up to workplace bullying and take on an unjust employer” is that employees are not totally helpless when it comes to fighting back against bullying and harassment in the workplace. I do understand that fighting back can be stressful and many employees may just find it easier to simply quit and find another appropriate employment. Also, in some cases it is possible that the employee does not have any other opportunities available to him or her and decides to put up with the maltreatment. But there are times when fighting back is appropriate because of a couple of reasons:

1. The employers need to understand that it is their responsibility to maintain a positive workplace environment
2. The employers need to understand that there can be serious consequences if they fail to maintain a bully-free environment for the employees
3. And sometimes, it can be extremely helpful for one’s mental health to be able to fight back against unjust and oppressive behavior

However, in order to have any success in a fight of this nature, it is absolutely essential for the employees to maintain clear documentation which must include things like dates and times when bullying happened, if there were other witnesses, if the incidents were reported to the employer, if any actions were taken by the employer, if any response was received from the employer, etc. Without detailed notes of this nature, it will not be possible to fight against the employer since, in that case, it will just be one’s words against another’s.

In my situation, for example, the employer fired me thinking that every employer has the right to fire an employee. However, because of my detailed documentation I was able to demonstrate that there were good reasons to believe that it was wrongful termination. Without the documentation, it would have been very difficult to build a case against my employer.

Over the past several weeks, I have participated as a guest on a number of podcasts. I find this in to be a very interesting and effective way to reach people especially in these times of restrictions due to Covid. These podcasts allow discussions on various topics that could be of interest to a large number of people from various parts of the country.

The first one I did was for a podcast called “Determine Our Future”. We talked primarily about bullying in schools, and specifically about how school bullying can be racially motivated. I was able to provide many examples of racially motivated bullying that I had to deal with during my school years. We also discussed the fact that there are many other reasons that can prompt a bully to torment other children at schools.

The next one I did was for a podcast called “Puberty Prof”. This podcast focuses on discussions primarily for parents about various issues impacting teenagers. Here we talked about bullying and mental health, and the fact that many teens do not want to open up and discuss their mental health issues with their parents. Following many of my speeches at schools, I often received emails from teenagers who shared their mental health issues that they felt uncomfortable in sharing with their parents. We felt this was a very good discussion for any parents with young children.

The last one I did was for a podcast called “Anxiety Asset”. The focus here was on various anxiety disorders and specifically on the fact that anxiety disorders can also be an asset, especially if it can be kept under reasonable control. I found this very interesting – trying to look at the positive aspects of a mental health disorder.

I look forward to participating in more similar podcasts in the near future, with the possibility of communicating my messages to various different groups of people.

In my latest book titled “Minority viewpoint – my experience, as a person of color, with the American Justice System”, I have included discussions about the fact that people of color are at times not treated fairly in various situations. Some of those discussions are as follows:

I believe, albeit speculation, that some of the small town police were quicker to judge me poorly because of my race and color. Even the judge up north herself – who unlike the MN Court of Appeals judges attributed no fault at all to the hotel employee – might have been influenced by my race, color and ethnicity. 

The fate of being treated as different doesn’t appear to change over time. It seems to remain a heavy burden which we minority people must carry – in both big ways and small ways – day in and day out. Though I did not prevail in court, I am grateful that I was able to show everyone that there are folks who will stand up and fight for their rights honestly and ethically! Hopefully the hotel employee never again will commit such a similar kind of act.

The point of this lawsuit was to teach someone a lesson. Let us hope that the lesson was learned. I hope that my story will motivate others to fight for their rights as well.

Along with the blame on my defamer, the hotel employee, I am also tremendously ashamed of the person(s) in charge of running the Country Inn Hotel in Deerwood, Minnesota at the time of this lawsuit. And they too ought to be tremendously ashamed of themselves!!!

Whenever I speak to adults around the country about bullying and mental health, one of things I try to point out is that all adults and specifically parents have a significant role in eradicating bullying from schools.

First of all, parents really need to understand the possible devastating impact bullying can have on a person’s life. And then, it is very important for them not to downplay the impact being felt by their children. It is not appropriate to tell the children (who are being bullied) that “these things happen”, or “we just need to learn to accept it”, or “we need to learn to fight back”, or “just suck it up”, etc, etc. Instead it is very important for the kids to know that their parents totally understand what they are going through and are trying their best to support them.

The next thing they need to do is to try and work with the school staff to make sure the school is doing their utmost to stop this. Most schools these days have put together systems and processes to try to eliminate bullying. So parents should not hesitate at all to go to the school staff and tell them about what’s happening and ask them to try and stop the bullying. Most schools will likely cooperate and do their best to improve the situation.

Parents of children who are doing the bullying, also have a significant responsibility in this matter. If they find out (primarily from schools) that their child is acting out as a bully in the school, they should not just ignore the matter. They also should not just punish the child. In most cases the bully child is likely dealing with some other difficult issues in his or her own life and is acting out as a bully in school. It is necessary to talk to the child in a supportive manner to try and figure out what’s going on with him or her. And often, it might be very useful to get the child to see a therapist.

In summary, parents have a significant role in minimizing bullying in schools and they must do their part.

In my latest book titled “Minority viewpoint – my experience, as a person of color, with the American Justice System”, I have included discussions about the fact that people of color are at times not treated fairly in various situations. Some of those discussions are as follows:

Although it is all too often staring us in the face, we never like to focus on the issue of race and its possible role in such negative situations as the one in my true story. As mentioned in Chapter One, my status as a dark skinned ethnic minority has haunted me throughout the course of my life. With the epidemic of racism still rampant across America as of 2020, I know that stories like mine are far too commonplace.

Though I have no concrete proof to say that my race/color was a factor in the hotel employee’s mind, I certainly harbor my personal opinion that it played a role in her vindictive behavior. It doesn’t stretch the imagination to presume that the employee might have felt especially irked that a man of color had the gall to demand respect from her at the pool and then later to criticize her job performance in great detail to her employer. Clearly, her apparent dislike for me upon our very first interactions supports the idea that my race/color was a factor.

Though it may qualify as speculation, I do not feel I would have been treated nearly as poorly by this employee had I been white, as she was. One merely needs to look at her dislike upon first glimpse of me, her unprovoked rudeness, her questioning of the kids (instead of asking me as the paying adult guest), her behavior at the pool and then her false report months later to the Deerwood police. I felt treated as a second class citizen by her, right from the start and throughout. Common sense leads me to believe that she does not treat most other guests in these ways!

My book titled “How to stand up to workplace bullying and take on an unjust employer” describes a true story in order to provide useful guidance for both employees and employers. The main message is that a workplace can and should be peaceful and positive.

Bullying and harassment in a workplace simply cannot be tolerated. Any organization (large or small) hiring employees to work on their products and/or services, is responsible for providing a reasonable environment for the employee to do his or her job. In fact, it is important for the organization to provide an environment that is peaceful, positive and rewarding.

Everyone agrees that employees must receive appropriate feedback if their performance is not satisfactory. But the feedback does not have to be in the form of bullying and harassment. Any organization hiring employees must set up an appropriate performance management process. Even a small organization can set up a simple process that allows evaluating an employee’s performance and providing appropriate feedback with a development plan if needed. A process like that will allow the company to terminate an employee if performance does not improve over time. Employees typically cannot complain if they are aware that a process was followed. However, if a process does not exist, then it can lead to bullying and harassment.

Similarly supervision of employees is a critical task, but this too must not involve bullying and harassment. Most employees work better if directions and advice are given in a positive and encouraging manner. If employees do not respond to positive supervision, then the performance management process must be utilized. But there is no need of using bullying and harassing tactics.