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.

The purpose of my book titled “Father Figure – my mission to prevent child sexual abuse”, is to tell a captivating true account story that provides a lot of information to parents, children, caregivers, and to the general public that is not always readily available and that will be helpful in preventing child sexual abuse.

Child Sexual Abuse is an extremely serious problem in the United States. It is clear that we must do everything we possibly can to prevent child sexual abuse and protect children who are dependent on others for their protection. It is also clear that parents and day-to-day caregivers have a lot of responsibility in this regard. However, we cannot eliminate this problem if we don’t look at what every one of us can do in addressing this serious issue.

The purpose of this book is to point out that in addition to the parents and the caregivers, even an ordinary bystander can and should take a proactive role to minimize and/or eliminate the risks of potential child sexual abuse. The purpose of this book is also to demonstrate how we can work with our existing systems in preventing risks of potential child sexual abuse. Even one single episode of child sexual abuse can scar the person for the rest of his/her life.

We must always try to get involved and prevent possible sexual abuse, even if it seems personally difficult and inconvenient to do so (what every ordinary citizen can and should do to protect vulnerable children in the community). Every child deserves that utmost protection and all adults should be ready to help whenever possible.

My book published in Dec 2020 titled “Minority Viewpoint – my experience, as a person of color, with the American Justice System” describes my experiences (along with my comments and opinions) about interactions with and observations of various components of the justice system such as police officers, lawyers, law firms, judges, and the Lawyers Professional Responsibility Board (LPRB). Here are some of the questions that truly puzzled me:

• How do lawyers get evaluated for how they performed in a specific case? How does a law firm evaluate one of their lawyers? Can a firm truly evaluate a lawyer’s performance without any feedback from the client?
• What really is the role of a Lawyers Professional Responsibility Board? Is the board supposed to try and understand a client’s issues or is the board there basically to defend a lawyer? Isn’t it important for the Board to make sure clients feel somewhat satisfied with the Board’s evaluation of a complaint?
• Isn’t it critical that police officers take utmost care when talking to one individual about another individual? Do they understand that what they say about someone can be misunderstood or misinterpreted possibly causing significant issues?

Probably the most concerning are the issues and situations described specifically about interactions with the legal community. What I experienced here with the legal community is something that likely happens every day all over this country. That is why it is not surprising why the general public often express negative opinions about lawyers and law firms. Why is it that the legal community of lawyers, law firms and boards are okay with this negative image of lawyers? Why are they okay with being known as one of the most untrustworthy professions in the country? Specifically, why are the “professional responsibility” boards across the country okay with this image of the profession?

My latest book titled “Minority Viewpoint – my experience, as a person of color, with the American Justice System”, describes an actual defamation case and how it got started and what happened and everything learned that can be extremely helpful to many average Americans. The story includes several different matters that bring up questions about where things are in terms of our justice system. The book describes the author’s experiences (along with his comments and opinions) about interactions with and observations of hotel employees/managers, police officers, lawyers, law firms, judges, and the Lawyers Professional Responsibility Board (LPRB).

It all got started when I submitted a complaint to a hotel regarding what I considered to be unprofessional conduct on the part of an employee of the hotel. I have worked for hotels before and I am aware that hotels are typically extremely concerned about customer satisfaction – a guest is always encouraged to bring up any issues to the hotel management. So the question is: does the hotel management do anything about a complaint or just ignore it? Most hotels, I believe, take any complaints seriously and follow up on it and make appropriate recommendations, if necessary. However, in this story, it appears that a complaint to the hotel manager might have been the thing that got everything started.

This hotel employee eventually complained to the police against me most likely because of the complaint I put in against her. It would not have bothered me a lot if she had complained about any valid concerns, but she had included some untrue statements (as per the police report) and that cannot be acceptable. However, is there anything one can do to fight back against this? Well, that is the key issue in this latest book.