By Pierre R. Berastain
“I understand why people hung people from trees…[I] want to go home and put on my white pointy hat.” Those are the alleged words Denton County felony Prosecutor Cary Piel told his black co-worker Nadiya Williams-Boldware who sued in federal court and was awarded over half million dollars for the discriminatory incident.
After being called a troublemaker by a co-worker, dismissed by her boss—the supervisor happened to be Cary Piel’s wife— and turned away by the Texas Workforce Commission Civil Rights Division, Boldware took her complaints to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas. The story can be found here.
After the verdict—on Monday, June 22, 2012—Denton County District Attorney Paul Johnson fired the four prosecutors who cost the county the hefty $510,000 penalty: Susan Peil, Cary Peil, John Renz, and Ryan Calvert. Calvert is Cary Peil’s brother-in-law, and Renza was Peil’s partner in court. Read more about the firings here.
Friends of Justice 
It is petrifying to me that someone who is empowered by the citizens and think and talk like that. What is also scary is a couple comments at the bottom where people said Ms. Boldware was thin-skinned. “You are too sensitive” is the most common way people of privilege try to shut people of color up and this was blatantly racist. It is hateful, oppressive and threatening. What does a racist have to do in order for people to say, “Hey, you’re racist!”