IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF THE STATE OF
|
LARRY PITTMAN, et al., Plaintiffs, v. Defendant. |
No. 99-2-52345-8KNT DECLARATION OF NATHAN KILCREASE IN REPONSE TO DEFENDANT’S MOTION
TO DISMISS |
I, Nathan Kilcrease, declare,
I have read the Motion for Summary Judgment which requests that I be dismissed as a plaintiff.
The point is not whether I did a good job or a bad job or got promoted or demoted, although I know that I got promoted faster than the blacks, for sure faster than Larry Pittman. The Defendants say that my claim of racial discrimination is based on “failure to demote” (Defendant Summary Judgment Motion, page 17). This is not true. My claim is because there was a racially hostile environment. The point is: was racial discrimination going on at King’s Command? Yes.
I can say this because I was part of it. When I was supervisor, I talked down to the blacks along with the other two supervisors. It is the way we handled the blacks. It was an implied agreement among us supervisors that this is the way we were going to handle blacks. After some of the blacks talked to me about it and then I discussed the situation with my mother, I realized how wrong it was and I stopped doing it. This is why I joined the suit. It was a way of doing business to talk down to the blacks. When King’s Command says that we have no evidence of racial discrimination, they are wrong because we have witnesses. We have black and white witnesses who are willing to come forward and testify that there was discrimination going on. In November of 1999, I came home and was talking to my mother about the way things were happening in the plant and she said it was discrimination. A couple of days before Larry Pittman was fired I was talking to him about the discrimination and saying someone should sue King’s Command. I was thinking of doing it myself. Larry is the one who followed through and got it started. Then I joined in, out of principle.
Now, specifically, as far as things I witnessed, there are some.
I saw Kirk McCoy hitting Larry Pittman in the shoulder and yelling at him using racial epithets. I remember him saying “what’s up black man.”
I heard Kirk McCoy talking to Terrance Davis. He called him a black something. I’m not sure what. But the comment was definitely racial. This type of verbal abuse was used by supervisors to “keep blacks in their place”.
Dave Cassatt, my supervisor, called me “Chief”. That’s racial isn’t it? I’m Native American. I don’t hear anyone going around the plant and saying “what’s up whitey” or “what’s up German” or “what’s up Swede”. Those things don’t happen. This is racial. I said before I was guilty of this and came to my own conclusions that it was wrong and stopped it. The management at King’s Command never stopped. I don’t think they have stopped even today.
In the Defendant’s Motion for Summary Judgment to dismiss me, they say a lot of things about me complaining about the work of some blacks and the blacks complaining about my work. I have come to understand that pitting minorities is a tactic of racial discrimination. Keep them fighting with each other and they won’t rise up against the master. This is a tactic that was used in the plant and now by their lawyers to divert attention away from the issue of racial discrimination and instead talk about how the individual plaintiffs don’t deserve to be heard about discrimination because they behaved badly.
I didn’t hear all of the racial epithets directly, but that doesn’t mean that I didn’t know about them from other plaintiffs in the case. Verbal and physical abuse definitely went on. I am still angry about the way things were at the plant. King’s Command must be held accountable for what they did.
I ask the court not to dismiss me but to give me an opportunity to express the forms of discrimination before a jury.
I make this
statement under penalty of perjury under the laws of the State of
DATED this 6th day of January, 2002.
_____________________________
Nathan Kilcrease
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