"Hickory Dickory Dock....."
Posted on 06/30/2008 12:14:10 PM PDT by Altura Ct.
Eenie, meenie, minie, moe - Here's Donald Cross' tale of woe.
The 65-year-old drug counselor was fired by a Long Island town this month after he recited a children's rhyme and offended an African-American co-worker.
Cross said he was blindsided by the Town of Babylon's decision to can him for racially motivated harassment. He has filed a complaint with the state Division of Human Rights to win back the job he had held for 15 years.
"I am astounded and dumbfounded that I received such an overreaction to such a seemingly innocuous question," Cross said in the complaint.
Cross said the rhyme was running through his head last January when he encountered 71-year-old Kathleen Wood in the Babylon Town Hall annex.
"How did you learn 'Eenie, meenie, minie, moe?'" he asked her.
There are numerous variations of the ditty. But Wood apparently thought of the version with the line, "catch a n----r by the toe," according to court records.
"I heard it before and I know what was coming after, like I know what's always following it. ... I know the rhyme and I just didn't want to hear it," Wood testified at Cross' April disciplinary hearing.
Town attorney Paul Margiotta argued at the hearing that Cross should be fired, likening a white person using the rhyme to holding up a noose.
Cross has also filed a $10 million federal lawsuit alleging his civil rights were violated.
In 2004, an all-white Missouri jury threw out a black couple's suit against a Southwest Airlines flight attendant who said over the intercom, "Eenie, meenie, minie, moe, pick a seat. We gotta go."
Pal, you are lucky if you don't lose everything you ever worked for when the PC Nazis get done.
The N-word was inserted into the rhyme by Rudyard Kipling in his ‘A Counting-Out Song’.
Hehe. It's even better if you say, "You people need to get over it." Triple offense.
Guess I should be glad I read these stories.
As a kid I think I learned it as “catch a tiger by the toe”.
Oh good grief. We used to say “...catch a tiger by the toe...” I guess just saying the first part implies the “other” version.
Please.
"Hickory Dickory Dock....."
Sounds like he just asked a simple question and people overreacted. I once asked this Jewish fellow, in his opinion, how did all the names like “kite, wop, wetback, dago, honkey & even nigger get started.” Simple question. Knowledge is power.
This guy got fired and he didn’t even use the N-word? Put me on that jury, and I’ll vote to give him the $10 mil.
He didn’t even say the rhyme at all to her or in her prsence!
He was fired because she “thought of” the n-word version!
Don't worry Mr. Margiotta. If enough of this politically correct nonsense continues, I'm sure someone holding up a noose will no longer be a racist symbol, but a sign that there will soon be less Town attorneys and other lawyers trying to make life miserable for everyone.
I managed to miss that one. One of my the things about life generally is my dedication not to allow controlling people, all of them, from controlling my language and my life.
No amount of intimidation, no number of laws or intimidation of any kind can influence my view of political correctness, and its relationship to real freedom.
Hostility and attack must always be real, intended and never defined by the professional victims. That is always a free pass to the ignorant and the neurotic. I am forced to bear the result of those losers in other ways, occasionally they vote. That should be enough.
I always think:
Eeny, meeny, miny, moe
Catch a tiger by the toe
If he hollers let him go,
Eeny, meeny, miny, moe.
“Jack and Jill went up the hill, each with a buck and a quarter.”
It’s not ‘kite’ btw.
The first version I learned was with the tiger. Later I heard the other version. Still, I have to wonder what was this man thinking when he asked an African American that question?
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