There's a reason I drive a Postal Service truck instead of a Minneapolis Public Works truck. I passed our not so fair city's standardized test of dump truck driving skill no problem. Then I got sent to our not so fair city's gatekeeper and contract physician, who dutifully made sure that another woman was not about to collect a city paycheck for anything more serious than operating a typewriter. A few days later the Postal Service called, and I passed the exact same physical exam and have worked there ever since.

About now someone will jump up and insist that mine was an isolated experience and not pattern and practice. Then why was public works caught underpaying women for their skills and forced to pay damages? The disease of employment discrimination has spread to our police department too- remember the woman Housing Police officer who was unjustly fired? The one that was so popular that residents of her "beat" wrote letters in support of her? We lost that discrimination suit, and it cost us a bundle.

The city of Minneapolis reserves a special bigotry for gay workers. A couple years ago when we were having trouble getting qualified police applicants at all a dedicated young man who happened to have been born female applied and was hired. Then a commanding officer who found out his secret made sure it wasn't a secret anymore.

Yet somehow in this mileau of bigotry a lesbian, fueled by skill and determination, swam upriver against this flood of bigotry. The police commanders couldn't stop her, and she worked her way up to the top positions of the force. It took the mayor of Minneapolis himself to stop this proud lesbian woman, and we will not forget that slight. In her place we have a retiree from a police department that routinely ignored hate crimes, who seems to be more escaping the department he leaves demoralized than coming to improve our department.

But hey, he's a white guy, and in Minneapolis that's still all that counts.

hidin' out in Hawthorne,

Dyna Sluyter

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