The most loyal employee I know is Megan. She worked for me when I was a store manager, and was among a number of middle-aged whites that my middle-aged, white, millionaire owners kept pressuring me to get rid of in favor of hiring more black employees. This was partially about health care expenses and partially out of abject fear that with a 70% black clientele and only a 50% black staff, they would be accused of being racist. Of course, most skilled grocers and cashiers are white, at least in the Baltimore area. It was the business they went into in the 70s when the manufacturing jobs left and their parent’s union sensibilities led them to the largely union supermarket chains. Unions were dominant enough at the time that private employers measured themselves against the union standard and even upped it on occasion to compete for the best help. When moving inventory and dealing with customers, quality of staff directly affects the net.

These guilty, white, elite merchants adopted certain pets among the staff. These pet management employees were all of the “house ոigger” type, meaning they had their knives out for any black employee on the floor who showed talent, ruthlessly harassing and concocting lies about these young black men, who I was hard at work training. While I was there my two black assistants would treat my black staff with respect. When I was not, they would do body searches, scream at and threaten the staff, anything to get the young man angry enough before he was hauled in front of a quibbling white, owner lady ready to punch out these two mangers for grabbing his ass and accusing him of falsehoods. So what I was left with was the two rich, white owners trying to get rid of working whites to make room for young blacks, who were then attacked by my two black assistants, who would drag my well-trained black employees before the owners when I was off for the evening and get them fired. I resigned abruptly due to the firing of multiple black and white employees on my day off.

The whites were fired for being white, for the crime of their birth. The blacks—all much younger—where fired for working with these white employees in a cooperative manner and not joining in the purge of whites from the workplace. They even fired a gay, black youth for the crime of working cooperatively alongside of older whites. What the owners wanted was five white people in the building, them, me, my co-manager, and the head of security. They wanted a plantation circa 1840, Virginia.

Megan was one of those good, loyal employees fired for the crime of being white.

I soon got her placed with a company in the same business that I set up a store for. The owner’s son was afraid she would not be able to deal with all of the harassment from black customers, but—as I told them—this was unfounded. She won over hundreds of racist black customers through simple grace, loyalty and honesty.

However, after a good four year run, the riots and Purge of 2015 changed the nature of supermarket work in Baltimore City. Her work site began to be shopped by blacks from west Baltimore who had run their own neighborhood markets out of business. Recently, a black man threatened to kill Megan and her coworkers for being white and also threatened to kill the black coworkers for working with whites, all I front of police, who did nothing. Complaints of racism from customers attempting to commit fraud with EBT cards, WIC vouchers and checks of various types has put a lot of pressure on the owners to bring in more black staff and let go of whites.

Last month Megan was asked to train a new black hire to do her job. She was thrilled, liking the lady and hoping this would mean a reduction from six to five work days a week.

Megan called me at 7:41 this morning and asked me to come get her at work. She had been let go because of a complaint from a black customer who had tried to defraud her and who she had stood up to. These elite whites that own the store cannot stomach standing up to blacks, once the charge of racism has been made.

Megan gets dropped off for work in the morning by her daughter, who does not get off work until five. Broke, having spent all of her last paycheck on her granddaughter’s first birthday, with no way home, sitting in 100 degree heat for nine hours might have killed her, what with the three stents in her heart and her high blood pressure.

The employer—who I know—has lied to her and told her she is just suspended for the week, which should give him a chance to falsify a termination cause that will hopefully prevent Megan from collecting workman’s compensation.

As I write, she is curled up on my ancient futon mattress on the floor, too embittered for tears, too tired for anger, apologizing for interrupting my writing, the most loyal employee I have ever known, discarded for the crime of being the same race as her employer, who can only hide from racism charges behind a shield of black employees.

A person this crushed by injustice has a difficult time getting on with the job hunt. I have four sources to check and will hopefully find her a job in Outer Dindustan, where the Purge is not yet full blown.