WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. (AP) — They threw her new cellphone on the roof of the station house and placed nails under the wheels of her pickup truck. As she prepared to answer a call, someone poured tobacco juice in her boots. It was too much for Timika Ingram to bear.
英格拉姆说：“这给我带来了痛苦，不眠之夜，痛苦，焦虑。
Other Black firefighters who endured similar treatment in the Winston-Salem Fire Department recently brought their complaints before the city. The grievance theyfiled in October该组织说，呼吁威廉·“特雷”梅奥酋长因未能对白人消防员进行训练而被解雇，这些消防员说，该组织通过亲自和社交媒体上的评论创造了一个敌对的工作环境。
“It’s a festering problem that has become even more disease-ridden and even more detrimental to the life of the individuals who work here because of the current chief,” said 28-year veteran firefighter Thomas Penn, a leader of the group that calls itself Omnibus.
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在全国范围内，消防员正在面对种族主义和歧视事件，这是一场新兴运动的一部分，以召集并解决美国种族不公正现象。
两个黑人妇女起诉丹佛市in September, saying its fire department discriminated against them because of their gender and race. One alleged a captain overseeing her training said she should “keep her head down and act like a slave” to graduate from the program.
Last year, a Black firefighter起诉密歇根州兰辛市的城市官员, saying they did nothing to stop racial discrimination within the fire department after he received hostile comments and found a banana on his assigned firetruck’s windshield. He filed another lawsuit this summer.
一名白色特拉华州消防员在7月被指控涉嫌仇恨犯罪和骚扰，据称向黑人护理人员和两名兼职工人发送威胁性信息，一名是黑人，另一名白人有黑人家庭成员新闻杂志报告。
The Winston-Salem group alleged two white captains talked about running over demonstrators protesting the police killing of George Floyd, and that a firefighter made a noose during a rope and knots class in November 2017.
City Manager Lee Garrity cited the state’s personnel privacy law in declining to comment. He said the city has launched a so-called “climate assessment” through a Charlotte-based firm, which will evaluate the entire fire department regarding diversity, race, gender and sexual orientation. A report is due by year’s end, he said.
“We’d had very few grievances or complaints in the last couple of years,” Garrity said. “But I am sure there are opportunities for improvement.”
梅奥没有返回多个电话寻求评论。
宾夕法尼亚州在11月初表示，气候评估尚未开始，并在一封电子邮件中添加了一封电子邮件，其中包括梅奥在内的部门管理员“试图通过采访中走进来恐吓和欺负我们的会员”。
英格拉姆在整个新秀学校谈到她的治疗方法时说：“您会发展鳄鱼皮肤，以便您可以继续进行。然后，希望一旦您进入，您将能够成为倡导者，或者如果有任何事情发生，因为我有很多事情要做。”
她于2006年7月正式加入该部门。她说，几乎马上，其他消防员偷走了她的食物，并将她的制服带出了个人空间。
手机事件是英格拉姆最终离开的重要因素，因为没有它，她的三个孩子就无法接触她。她说，她的白人同行问她是否真的把手机放在最后一次看的地方，甚至假装搜索它。
“我的女儿是9岁那年。我的孩子别无其他方式来取得联系。他们不知道如何。我的孩子出了点问题，我无法找到他们，他们无法和我联系。”她说。“那里的那只是引起它。”
Ingram was transferred and expressed concerns over her treatment to a superior who didn’t address them, she said.
她说：“我当时想，‘我正在与一场失败的战斗作斗争。’你可以说出你想要的一切，说你要说的话。”
2010年7月，英格拉姆退出。她的生活向下旋转了一段时间。她说她嫁给了某人“掩盖痛苦”，但离婚结束了。她的车被收回，她无家可归。她错过了四个月的工作，医生告诉她，由于她作为消防员的压力，她感到狼疮。
退休的温斯顿·塞勒姆消防员加里·瓦德尔（Gary Waddell）在1989年在另一架飞机上经历了歧视，因为他与一名白人妇女的婚姻在他被分配后不久在车站拜访了他。
“I didn’t think anything of it, but when my wife came inside of this fire station, I was told by my supervisor, who was a captain, that my wife could no longer come to the station to visit me,” Waddell said. “But the other members of my crew that I was working with, their wives could come by. But mine couldn’t. So that’s how I started my career.”
今天,英格拉姆在Charlot医疗服务工作te, the same job she took after leaving the fire department. She worked out a deal to get her car back, and she’s pursuing a degree in psychology. But she still thinks about the career she had to abandon.
“I just wished I could have stayed,” she said. “I really do, because I worked hard to get there. I trained to get there.”
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