neighborly love
Posted by Michelle Moquin on March 1st, 2011
Good morning!
Don’t we all wish we had a neighbor like this:
Foreclosure Hero: Man Pesters Executives, Saves Friend’s House
Lee Castillo, 34, is an IT systems engineer with zero experience in the mortgage industry. But when he found out that his friend had been scammed by a loan modification company and was a week away from losing his home, Castillo decided to get involved.
“He had been trying to work with CitiMortgage and OneWest bank to get a loan modification, and they made it extremely difficult for him, especially since English was not his first language,” Castillo told HuffPost. “He came to me and said he needed to find a place to rent because the bank kept saying they didn’t receive all the documents they needed and that they were gonna foreclose. So I said, let me look into this for you and see what’s going on.”
Castillo’s friend in need, Julio Salazar, says he started losing income from his Falls Church, Va., hair-cutting business last March due to the recession. When he could no longer afford his $1,700 monthly mortgage payments, he sought the help of Friendly Financial Services, a loan modification “specialist” in Miami.
The company referred Salazar’s case to a mortgage lawyer named Robert Rosenwasser, who charged Salazar $2,300 up front and then failed to send in all the applicable financial materials to OneWest bank.
Homeowners are never supposed to pay upfront for loan modifications. Charging money upfront isillegal in Florida, and a federal ban on collecting upfront fees took effect Jan. 31. Frank Dorman, a spokesman for the Federal Trade Commission, told HuffPost that loan modification scams have increased with the recession to take advantage of increased foreclosure.
“We advise people to avoid any company or individual that requires a fee in advance, guarantees to stop a foreclosure or modify a loan, or advises the homeowner to stop paying the mortgage company,” he said. “Many of the complaints received by the FTC include not being able to contact the company after paying for mortgage refinance services, not being able to get their money back, and not receiving proper help from the company after paying for services.”
Salazar received no help after paying Rosenwasser the $2,300 fee.
“I got a foreclosure letter after three months,” Salazar, 40, told HuffPost. “They took my money and did nothing.”
Rosenwasser told HuffPost his employee did send in all the appropriate forms on Salazar’s behalf and that Salazar must have had a “false impression of what was going on with his file,” but OneWest bank confirmed that it did not receive a complete financial package from Rosenwasser and that he did not respond to their follow-up requests for more documents.
“Our loss mitigation services are free of charge,” said David Rodriguez, a OneWest executive who worked on Salazar’s case. “Anyone or any company asking for money up-front should be thoroughly examined before a customer agrees to pay for such services.”
When Salazar said he was ready to give up and walk away from his mortgage, Castillo convinced him not to and promised to personally stop the foreclosure from happening. He became authorized to work on his friend’s behalf, sent OneWest bank a complete financial package just weeks before the sale date, and started digging up the contact information of various bank executives to rally them around his cause.
“I met with the director at OneWest, I went to the president of Freddie Mac, the lender, and I even got Congressman Gerry Connolly’s office involved,” he told HuffPost. “You can get to these people in the executive offices. You have to be smart enough to navigate the web, but you can get ahold of them and pester the hell out of them until they do something. I said, ‘Look, if you fix this and get this through, then I don’t have to bother you anymore, but if you don’t then you’re gonna hear from me every day until we get this resolved.’”
It was a smart tactic: Banks are notoriously uncooperative with homeowners seeking modifications. Homeowners typically never speak to the same person twice when they call their banks.
One week before the sale date on Salazar’s house, OneWest agreed to a permanent loan modification — from $1,700 a month down to $850 — and stopped the foreclosure.
Salazar says he immediately called Rosenwasser to ask for his money back, but the lawyer refused.
“I called them when I found out Lee was able to help me and I told them, ‘You didn’t do nothing. Give me half back,’” he said. “And they said no, because I broke the rules by having Lee call the bank. I thought that was funny — I broke the rules by trying to save my house.”
Despite having navigated a notoriously frustrating process and rescued his friend’s home within weeks, Castillo says he is no hero — he just did what any neighbor should do.
“I’m not a religious person, but I am very fortunate to have a really good job, and I think it’s my duty as a human being, when another human being is going through a hard time, I need to step up to the plate and help,” he said. “I think if we as Americans or neighbors or friends took the time to get to know someone and take on someone’s cause, well, imagine if everybody did that?”
……..
Readers: Hmm…gotta love that last paragraph. Yeah…imagine.
peace out…
Lastly, greed over a great story is surfacing from my “loyal”(?) readers. With all this back and forth about who owns what, that appears on my blog, let me reiterate that all material posted on my blog becomes the sole property of my blog. If you want to reserve any proprietary rights don’t post it to my blog. I will prominently display this caveat on my blog from now on to remind those who may have forgotten this notice.
Gratefully your blog host,
michelle
Aka BABE: We all know what this means by now :)
If you love my blog and my writes, please make a donation via PayPal, credit card, or e-check, please click the “Donate” button below. (Please only donations from those readers within the United States. – International readers please see my “Donate” page)



March 1st, 2011 at 7:26 am
The power of one voice CAN make a difference!!
March 1st, 2011 at 9:34 am
Harmony:
I assumed you were white because what you are expressing is white logic. Most whites express themselves exactly the way you have. They don’t see the evil they do only the bad things others do.
The other major thing most whites do is that they expect others to account for their bad deeds especially ones that they have done to them. I.e. the bombing of Pearl Harbor that killed maybe a thousand – “lives forever” – Whereas the Atomic bombing of two highly populated cities in Japan that killed hundreds of thousands of civilians – “get over it”
——————————————–
At the risk of being accused of going off on a tangent again, let me mention two glaring traits about the consciousness of whites when they wield absolute power. The Japanese bombed a military target in Hawaii . Our criminal president bombed civilians in Japan. Then he picked a second target to let the rest of the world (Russia) know that we had a weapon with incredible killing power. So the second city he bombed was pure murder of hundreds of thousands of civilians. But to this day no American president has acknowledged even the bombing of Japan, except Obama.
Had that weapon not been handed to the Russians, OTWs would not be free today. If the white boy in America had remained the only ones with Atomic power, they would not have been pressured to stop killing the black demonstrators by other OTW countries under Russia’s protection. They would not have to be worried that the OTWs of the rest of the world would have lined up behind Russia who was telling the rest of the world that if those consciousness bastards are killing and enslaving their own citizens because of the color of their skins imagine what they will do to you.
Shortly after that statement and pictures of the white boy beating shooting and hanging blacks in America was broadcast by Russia to the Middle East.
Egypt accepted Russian weapons and assistance. The rest of the Middle East was poised to do the same.
Since the gutless white majority in America was afraid of being isolated and they no longer were the only ones with Atomic power, they were forced to give the OTW in this country rights.
———————————————–
Long winded I know but, you like most whites, like to pretend innocence by ignorance of your past deeds and general tendencies to be money worshiping racists when you propose shit for others that you would not hold yourselves to.
Let us not forget “9/11″ another white tragedy in which a few thousand died and two buildings owned by greedy whites that must “live in infamy.” Whereas the criminal conduct of then president Bush that killed, maimed, and displaced millions of Iraqis is a “get over it.”
Which brings me to your now sweetly given statement of innocence about what Beyonce should do with money “She certainly doesn’t need.”
I could take from that you are implying that the white boy in America(notice how I continue to attempt to bring you home to look at your own filth before you attempt to do the laundry of others)
needs all the money he keeps from those here in dire need.
Less you plead ignorance of this fact let me make it clear. You have more billionaire whites grabbing all the money they can here in the USA, than anywhere else in the world. Why not propose that Gates, getty, etc, etc, etc, give some of the millions they have criminally acquired back to the American people before you launch your humanitarian efforts towards Lybia?
But that probably hasn’t occurred to you. And you ask.
Why do I think you are white? That would be Harmony, because of your behavior i.e. eagerness to solve the problems of another country while denying or ignoring the same problem in your own country.
Now for your misdirection claim.
A cursory read of the above would tell the reader that I am on the correct course. Which leaves whether I went off on a tangent, in as much as I called a spade a spade here and I took the time to prevent the spade from denying that she knew she was a spade with the minimum information necessary to prevent said denial I would venture to say that I was rather terse.
March 1st, 2011 at 10:01 am
Beware of These Packaged Foods and Drinks
Olga Naidenko, PhD
Environmental Working Group
When you buy a food product, you probably don’t give much thought to the lining of the food cans, for example, or other material used for packaging. But you should be aware that some materials used to package popular foods and beverages are potentially dangerous. For example…
Candy bars, fast food, microwave popcorn, stick butter and take-out pizza. These fatty foods are frequently packaged in materials made with a grease-resistant coating that contains perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), a chemical commonly used in stain- and water-resistant coatings.
Problem: Traces of PFOA invariably remain from the manufacturing process, according to an FDA study. PFOA is highly toxic, and once ingested, it remains in your body for years.
Animal studies have linked it to increased risk for liver, pancreatic and testicular cancers, birth defects and developmental problems, a weakened immune system and elevated cholesterol.
Self-defense: Avoid any foods wrapped in grease-resistant paper.
Ask restaurant personnel to put food directly in a paper bag (or to wrap it in foil first, for some foods) without the usual grease-resistant paper wrap or cardboard containers (especially when ordering egg breakfast sandwiches, French fries and chicken nuggets — all of which tested highest in PFOA levels in one study). Never heat foods in grease-resistant paper — this increases PFOA exposure.
When heating food in the microwave, I prefer covering it with waxed paper instead of plastic wrap (if it’s natural waxed paper and not chemically treated grease-resistant paper wrap). Use foil when not heating food in a microwave.
Also avoid microwave-ready popcorn — the bags have PFOA in the lining. Instead, buy loose popcorn and pop it on the stovetop in a pot with a small amount of oil or use an electric hot-air popper.
If you can’t avoid grease-resistant packaging, as with store-bought butter, take it out of the wrapping immediately and store in a glass or ceramic container.
Bottled beverages and canned foods and beverages. Bisphenol A (BPA) is a component of hard, clear polycarbonate plastics that are used for bottled water and beverages and in the linings of many canned foods.
While BPA, unlike PFOA, is excreted from the body, 93% of Americans who have been tested have traces of BPA in their urine, according to a recent government analysis.
BPA’s health risks stem from its estrogen-like effects while in the body. Animal studies have linked BPA exposure to reproductive problems, including miscarriage, infertility and birth defects, as well as increased risk for breast and prostate cancers, liver damage, cardiovascular disease, diabetes and metabolic and nerve disorders.
BPA is present in many beverage bottles and five-gallon water-cooler bottles, as well as the epoxy lining of many food and beverage cans. Canned chicken soup and ravioli are the worst offenders.
Also dangerous: Canned tomatoes. That’s because tomatoes’ high acid content causes BPA to leach into the food more readily, as well as the cans of any kind of food that have been on the shelf for a long time. While no such period has been defined, scientists know that the leaching of BPA from can linings is an ongoing process while cans are in supermarkets or stored at home.
Self-defense: Limit your consumption of canned foods and beverages, substituting fresh produce or products in glass containers whenever possible.
Eden Organic (888-424-3336, http://www.EdenFoods.com) is one company now using BPA-free lining for most of its canned foods. Tomatoes are available in protective white enamel-lined cans with minute levels of BPA.
Finally, avoid drinking from plastic beverage bottles or five-gallon plastic water-cooler bottles with the numeral “7″ in the recycling triangle on the bottom of the bottle or the letters “PC” (for polycarbonate).
For those concerned about tap-water quality, the best option is to install a water filter. (Learn about filtration systems at http://www.ewg.org/tap-water/getawaterfilter).
Food and drinks packaged in Styrofoam. Polystyrene (found in Styrofoam food and beverage containers) has been found to leach into liquids and food — particularly in the presence of heat, fats, acid or alcohol.
Polystyrene invariably contains residual traces of the chemical styrene, which has been linked to nerve damage and cancer risk.
Self-defense: Don’t drink beverages from Styrofoam cups — especially heated liquids such as coffee, tea (particularly tea with lemon, which appears to increase leaching) or hot chocolate… fatty liquids, such as milk… or alcoholic drinks.
The same goes for fatty liquids, such as olive oil or oil-based sauces and dressings, which also should not be stored in Styrofoam.
Avoid meats and other foods packaged with Styrofoam backing. When ordering take-out food, request non-Styrofoam containers. Never microwave food in Styrofoam.
Important: It may seem difficult to follow all of this advice all of the time, but you are likely to benefit from just being aware of the risks and limiting your exposure whenever possible.
Health interviewed Olga Naidenko, PhD, a senior scientist with the Washington, DC-based Environmental Working Group, http://www.ewg.org, a nonprofit, research-based organization dedicated to protecting public health and the environment.
She specializes in the effects of toxic chemicals on human health.
March 1st, 2011 at 10:34 am
Hafa adai
I don’t know what is happening on the mainland but here on Guam the crooks are raising regular gas by 10 cents at a time every week.
They are gouging us because they can. Sorry Harmony, you’re sweet, but Robert is right. We have enough crooked mega thieves right here at home to worry about.
Peter
March 1st, 2011 at 10:39 am
Michelle someone is jamming your website. When I am not having trouble getting on, I find it difficult to go backwards or forwards looking stuff up. Sometimes I get an almost screen or nothing and this notice “Error establishing a database connection”
Igor
March 1st, 2011 at 11:37 am
Robert I’m just a girl. Just a girl who made a statement. I appreciate your history lesson. It would take you many years to teach me all I do not know about history. I posted for the first time here and was duly/unduly chastised for something somewhat small I wrote I think. Besides history I have learned today I must censor what I write here to not offend anyone or be misunderstood. I’m sorry if what I wrote offended you. You must do what you must do and you do have points to make but I think I’ll stay silent from now on. I am too shy. I dont have the fight in me I see many of this blog do. I respect you and send you love. Thank you again for the teaching
March 1st, 2011 at 1:13 pm
Jose, sorry…ptb = powers that be
Harmony, I used to think I had to censor or be careful before posting here lest I upset someone, then I decided to speak and if anyone takes issue with it/me, then I have the option to make it matter to me or not. If it has merit then said commenter gave me something to think about, if I don’t care for the particular kind of heat someone is throwing my way or I don’t feel it has merit, then I don’t have to participate or listen bc they think I should, it is MY choice. Robert always leaves historical content, which is great. There is a larger historical content out there that it all fits into though his provides excellent lessons for white people and the stuff we do either on purpose or through indoctrination and upbringing. Personally I think you should chime in anytime you feel like it.
…back to work, Luv, Zen Lill
March 1st, 2011 at 6:43 pm
Harmony:
Forgive me if I offended you. That was not my intention. It was not you I was directing my “history lesson” as Zen Lill said.
Ignore me, I’m a blowhard who works in an industry ruled exclusively by whites. They on occasion allow one or two OTWs(Other Than Whites) to make money there.
I happened to be one of the “tokens” they let in. I make an embarrassing lot of money there. Of course I make much, much more for my bosses.
However, they have made it abundantly clear that if I offend them or their clients. They could care less about what I earn for them the “N” will have to go.
Hence, I work their closed mouthed or I kiss yards of white ass all day long. They are not shy about letting me know that they know that I am making an effort to kiss their ass. They are not shy about making known that they like it that way.
And yes, before you ask, it is worth it. I made more than $30 million there last year and I may double that this year.
March 1st, 2011 at 6:54 pm
Harmony:
My trigger finger hit the enter button before I was ready there. Didn’t even get to proof read it.
I wanted to add that because I have to kiss white ass all day at work. It is an absolute pleasure to have discovered this blog.
It is a blog that never censors. It allows us to vent. You young lady just happen to present a topic which allowed me to vent.
It was not personal. I try not to be personal, hence I stay away from commenting to George(our resident bigot).
As Zen Lill so adeptly stated, if the heat thrown your way for whatever reason isn’t acceptable to you. Don’t read it, or comment on it.
But DON’T allow someone the power to shut you up on a blog. It is but a board full of words that expresses someone’s opinion.
And what do we know about opinions? Yes, they are like assholes, everybody has one.
Please forgive this man’s rudeness. It wasn’t intentional.
Robert
March 1st, 2011 at 7:45 pm
She started her class by saying,
‘Everyone who thinks they’re stupid, stand up!’
After a few seconds, Little Johnny stood up.
The teacher said,
‘Do you think you’re stupid, Little Johnny?’
‘No, ma’am, but I hate to see you standing there all by yourself!’
March 1st, 2011 at 8:24 pm
Emily….LMAO!
March 1st, 2011 at 8:41 pm
A unionized public employee, a member of the Tea Party, and a CEO are sitting at a table. In the middle of the table there is a plate with a dozen cookies on it. The CEO reaches across, takes 11 cookies, looks at the tea partier, and says, “Look out for that union guy, he wants a piece of your cookie.”..
March 1st, 2011 at 9:33 pm
For the past 5 years i’ve been wanting to tell this story. About 19 years ago I was 22 and in college. I had a crush on a girl I’ll call Eve. She was also 22.
We were virgins and we had decided that before we graduated we would lose our virginities. She was a real looker so I knew that she would have a problem.
But 4 years later there she was telling me that she was in the same predicament as I. We were still virgins. I was shocked. The woman was 5’9″, maybe 120lbs with coal black shoulder length naturally wavy hair. She had full Sofia Loren lips and deep blue eyes.
I asked her how that happened. She said that she was waiting for me to make my move. I said that it never occurred to me that she would sleep with a guy like me.
She said that I was the smartest guy she knew and the nicest. I was incredibly happy. I had never allowed myself to think of Eve romantically for fear she might discover my feelings and shun me.
“So,” she said, “What do we do about it?”
I couldn’t think because my mind was still wrapped around her telling me she wanted me.
Then she suggested we go to her uncle’s cabin for the weekend before we went home for the Christmas break. We could camp out and make love in the forest. The next two days waiting for classes to end for Christmas break hung around for months.
We told our friends that we were going home for break, but we had planned to rent a car and head up to her uncle’s cabin. When we got to the cabin it was stocked as she had said. She showed me her uncle’s hunting gear which included several rifles a german luger and three fantastic Bowie knives. We unshielved them and feigned skinning deer and bears.
Finally we settled down to getting up the nerve to do it. We made a fire. And polished off two bottles of wine a very good red and a so so white. She undressed down to her bra and panty and I down to my briefs.
But it was cold and the fire wood was low. So I suggested that I take the axe and go out and cut some more fire wood from the logs in the wood shed.
She laughed hysterically and said that the axe looked bigger than me. I could see that she was drunk and nervous so I told her to quit playing with the knives and sit down until I returned but under no circumstances was she to lie down because I did not want to return to a sleeping woman.
I got dressed and went out to the wood shed to manly axe some wood. When I returned about 30 to 40 minutes later she was laying in a pool of blood. I don’t know how but she had fell on one of the Bowie knives and it was sticking from one side of her neck through to the other as she lay on her back.
She had lost so much blood that the bear skin rug she lying on was soaked. I sat through the night with her body crying. Morning came with me wide awake and scared to call the police. What if they thought I had killed her?
So I cleaned up the cabin and took the body out into the woods and buried it. I took her things and dropped them off at a good will station near campus. Then I drove home. It was a long empty 12 hour drive.
Before I returned to school I had resolved to confess. I was going to leave home early and drive up to the cabin and retrieve Eve’s body and take it to the police.
When I dug up her body all I found were her two legs from the Knees down without feet. Looking at what was left it was clear that someone had neatly severed that part of her body from the rest and had carefully rapped the remains to keep it from decaying.
I ran to my car got in and drove away. I was still fully committed to telling the police what had happened that night. But the shock made me rush to my dorm and take a hot shower.
I had only been sitting on my bed for about five minutes when I heard Eve’s voice from the other side of the door demanding that I open up and greet her.
I opened up; she smiled and said “I missed you.” and kissed me.
It was Eve. There she was very much alive and happy to see me. She came in sat on my bed kissed me again this time with purpose. We made love and she spent the night.
We were inseparable for the next four months. I noticed a slight difference in her behavior. Or rather an unbelievable difference. She acted as if she didn’t really understand what she was doing.
Spoons, forks, knives, slang, and some every day words and expressions would baffle her. It was as if she had been in a coma and she was just learning what it was like to be alive.
She clung to me and asked me about her every move, even to what kind of tampons she should buy. I mean she made me buy them for her. The we put them in together. Me holding the tampon while she opened herself up so I could put it in. She said it made us closer.
“Either that or you don’t know how to do it I said.” “like you knew how to do it that night in the cabin” she said. I said “you’re not Eve.”
She smiled and said I’d better be because we are going to be married or you are going to jail for murder. Frankly at that time, I really didn’t know what to believe.
The only thing I was sure of was that I loved Eve and her asking me to marry her was a stroke of luck because I would never have had the courage to ask her.
We graduated 6 weeks later and got married. We decided not to get pregnant until we both had good jobs. I got an offer from a computer firm in Silicon Valley paying a high 5 figure income.
Eve advised me to take it and said that she would get a job when we got there. She did. It took her about three weeks to get an advertising job in one of the big firms in San Francisco.
I never visited her at her job and we always went to my company’s affairs. A few years later I came home and she was crying. I had never seen her cry before. I held her and asked her what was upsetting her. She said that she knew I was going to leave her.
I told her that I loved her and that I would never leave her. Then she told me that the doctors told her that she could not have children. I said that we should get a second opinion. She started to bawl again and I said it didn’t matter because I loved her. We never brought it up again.
On her 30th birthday she said Ly I only have 5 more years with you and then I have to go back home. That was when it all came back to me and I said “You are not Eve.”
She smiled and said, “Of course not. Eve stumbled and fell on her uncle’s Bowie knife and you buried the body in the woods behind the cabin.”
I said “if that’s true, who the fuck are you and how come you look exactly like Eve down to that glass cut she got on her left thigh when she was 11.”
She smiled and said, ” don’t forget the knots on my toes for wearing my high heels too tight.”
“Who are you” I asked. This time I was not sure if I was angry or scared that the answer would break us up forever. God knows I still loved the woman standing before me.
She said, “It’s me, that’s all you need to know.”
“Then why would you say we only have 5 years left together?”
She looked at me lovingly and said “You are an earthling, your body composition makes you a prisoner of this tiny rock in a one world inhabited solar system. I am a star traveler.”
She was smiling and holding her arms open for me to enter them as she said it. I said “you are crazy.” She sat down, put her head between her shoulders and sighed. Then she stood up and up and up until her head touched the celling.
She had become 10 feet tall in an instant. Five years later, she left and when back to her planet. We were both 35 years old.
I am 40 today. On her birthday March 4th she will be 40. At least as Eve, she will be 40. She promised that on her 40th birthday, if I never told anyone, she would return and we could take up where we left off.
Last night I woke up and I didn’t believe her any more. So I’m telling.
If you are reading this, I don’t love you anymore Eve. It has been too lonely without you.
Ly
March 1st, 2011 at 10:00 pm
Ly, you still have a few more days…let go of the need to understand what you think you are supposed to think that you are supposed to understand and let things go of what life and reality are really about…
March 2nd, 2011 at 8:59 am
Robert, thank you, I can be a bit too sensitive and take things personally at times. I am dipping my toe back in the blog water. After reading you made $30 million last year, I can see why you might have some objections to asking a black person to give up their money! (Do you need a girlfriend?) Kidding. Anyway, I thought of you this morning when I read the below in an article. It has to do with a Petition that posted on Change.org, which I see come up here sometimes. People can make a difference. I don’t really think the $30,000 fine is enough, but its a start I guess. The article states that the owners were upset with the potential for attracting “gangbangers” based on the people they profiled in line but I am thinking that could also be that the owners were just jealous to see so many successful, well education African Americans.
Late last year, a Boston nightclub ended an event for black Harvard and Yale alumni for fear that the long line of African Americans outside the club would attract ‘gangbangers’. Now, after months of legal wrangling, the club owner has agreed to apologize!
It all began just before Thanksgiving, when a black Ivy League alumni group claimed that Cure Lounge in Boston prematurely ended an alumni party held at the club on November 20 for fear that a line of African Americans outside of the nightclub would attract “local gangbangers,” according to Michael Beal, a Harvard alum who helped organize the event. Some alumni had traveled across the country to attend the event, and the incident made international headlines after the alumni group accused club management of racial discrimination.
Club spokesman George K. Regan explained that Cure Lounge’s decision to end the event early had nothing to do with race, claiming security spotted “some people in line known to police as ‘bad people.’” But many, including Boston City Councilor Ayanna Pressley who called for further investigation, didn’t buy that excuse.
Police were reportedly never called to the scene, so how could security have identified anyone in line as “bad?” Moreover, Beal said that event organizers pre-sold tickets to the celebration exclusively to Ivy League alumni, making it implausible that gangbangers managed to infiltrate the event.
“Massachusetts businesses cannot refuse to host events because of racial reasons,” Coakley said in a statement. “In this case, club waitstaff made harmful and ill-conceived conclusions based on the simple fact that most of the guests were black.”
The $30,000 fine the club had to pay will be given to organizations that help African Americans in higher education. Plus, the club’s public apology will remain on its website for 30 days. It states in part: “The owners, managers and employees of Cure Lounge wish to extend our deepest apologies to all of those affected, both directly and indirectly, by the unfortunate events that occurred on the evening of November 20, 2010… Cure Lounge does not tolerate racism.”
Racism in nightclubs is an issue throughout the country. African Americans consistently complain of being turned away from clubs for specious reasons. Hopefully, the actions the Massachusetts Attorney General took against Cure Lounge will discourage other nightlife establishments from racially discriminating against clientele. No business reserves the right to refuse service based on race.
In light of these inconsistencies, Nadra Kareem Nittle wrote a Change.org petition and news story three months ago demanding that Cure Lounge apologize for its treatment of Harvard and Yale’s black alums. More than 130 Change.org members answered the call, generating a significant volume of protest emails directly to the club spokesperson. It worked!
March 2nd, 2011 at 3:38 pm
Erica, if you are still in the Bay area, I am available.
Henry from San Rafael.
October 23rd, 2011 at 3:27 pm
homemade…
[...]Michelle Moquin's "A day in the life of…" » Blog Archive » neighborly love[...]…