A former co-worker of mine mentioned seeing a former assistant manager at The Pleasure Chest named Alex Valdes, but goes on social media by the name Reagan Holiday. They said that they saw her at an event and somehow, my name came up. My former co-worker said that Alex said, “Me and LeNair didn’t get along. But one thing I can say is that he’s very resilient.”

This immediately incited a reaction. For it’s true, Alex and I did not get along, to put it mildly. But in order to survive her actions, I had no choice but to be resilient. Resilient like many Black men, women & children have had to be centuries before me because of creatures like her.

Alex was a white-presenting Latina repeatedly trying to undermine my knowledge earned from my 9-year seniority at the time. And it was targeted behavior. Behavior I had no choice but to report to the CEO of The Pleasure Chest, Brian Robinson, because in his Trump-like arrogance, Brian stopped hiring an HR person. And in response, to go along with his desire to fire me or make me quit since my becoming a more prominent voice in our staff’s unionizing, he gave excuses to justify her behavior. All confirming what I had been told.

I have been told by new people hired in managerial positions before and since Alex Valdes, without even having a conversation about it, how they allegedly were told by the CEO that I was “difficult to work with” and to feel free to write me up. And the reason they confessed that to me was because they saw and respected the complete opposite in my work performance. What makes it more obvious of it being targeted is that those managers were not even hired to work at my location. So this proves 2 things:

• 1) Brian Robinson had an unprofessional fixation on me to defame me to potential hires. Especially ones I’m not initially meant to work with, and;
• 2) if he tried defaming me to new hires not for my location, then he definitely did it to a new hire specifically for my location.

Alex Valdes however, lowered the worth of her existence by allowing herself to be a gothic, clown-faced muppet with Brian Robinson’s hand up her butt because he is too much of the f-word to come at me himself.

Alex Valdes came in immediately trying to undermine any and everything I said. She wanted to hear nothing from me of how things were done prior to her employment and actually worked. Even though by then, I had already been there for 9 years. Now, I am open to a redirect of a new way of doing things by a new manager, even if they don’t work. But before I implement your idea, I am going to explain myself to that manager as to why I was doing it the way you tried to correct me on. She was welcome to it… from anybody else. But from me, she tried to say I was backtalking her. Hence proving how her behavior was targeted and instructed by Brian Robinson.

So come Valentines Day 2023, she questioned my coming into the stock area as if I was a newbie. I immediately found what I was looking for. Told her I had found it, then left. I vented my annoyance to a co-worker that for some reason mentioned it to Alex afterwards. This led to Alex calling a meeting between her and myself. One in which, Alex tried to write me up and lied in the write up. One of the lies being her using a racist narrative by claiming that I stormed out of the meeting. A lie that is easily proven as false. For unbeknownst to her,… I recorded the meeting. And not only did it prove that she actually dismissed me from the meeting. It also proved that in her claims of me interrupting her, she, an assistant manager, interrupted me first and more often.

About a week after that incident, Alex went on sick leave. During her absence and after collecting myself from being enraged, I filed a grievance with the union using that recording as evidence. It resulted in the write-up being removed from my record. And what a surprise, she did not return. But not because she was fired like she should have been. It was instead because she resigned.

To go back further, showing my resilience, did you know during the 2020 lockdown, I was FIRED? It’s because the manager at the time, Bahar Baharloo, while of Middle Eastern descent acted like a Karen. Trying to make a private message about my dislike of them in a GroupMe chat among union staffers seem like a threat. I personally could care less about them knowing of my dislike about them. It is trifling since word got to them because of the betrayal of a union staffer (at the time) going by the name, Persephone Weise. All of this is told in the Opinion & Rewards document from that arbitration hearing.

Since the messages was as I said, 1) private and 2) not a threat, I filed a grievance with the union. And after my turning down their insultingly cheap offer to settle and let the firing stand, we went to a hearing that resulted in me winning. And the union staffers returning to work.

Because you see, in our union contract, in the event of a layoff, recalls are to be done in order of seniority. And if a recall had happened before the arbitrator’s decision came in, with me being the most senior union staffer, I would have been owed back pay. And that would have been money Brian Robinson did not want to pay.

Both of these tales have documents and files to back up my side of the story — THE TRUTH. Including hard copy, flash drive, and the cloud (which are linked in the article).

These instances prove my resilience to be generational by the fact of how throughout history, actions such as what Alex Valdes and Bahar Baharloo did have resulted in the unjust harming of Black people. From slavery times to present day. Lies, overreactions, and undermining of one’s earned stance like those committed by Alex and Bahar have led to Black men, women, and children being unjustly fired from jobs, beaten, lynched, raped, and/or murdered.

For this reason, in no way do I want to see or hear excuses for what they did. I don’t care if a boss told them to do it. I don’t care about their financial hardships at the time. Getting backed into a financial corner is never an excuse to make a worthless existence of oneself by being a sellout. Especially when it puts that target’s livelihood at risk.

So yes, my resilience is definitely generational. For the ugly history of this country and non-white people assimilating it to get ahead has come to affect Black people on a cellular level. Hence why Black people are quick to give pushback to being disrespected. For our ancestors earned respect by standing up. Some paying with their lives. But it paved the way for Black people today to fight back with even less fear of consequence when they are in the right.

Perhaps if Alex and Bahar weren’t so low on self-esteem and humanity, they would know what that’s like. They would know how while wearing such armor can be stressful at times, it gives a great sense of accomplishment in the end. A joy they will never know.