After working on and off at Warner Bros. since I was first discharged from the Marine Corp in 1995-I can remember the entire cast of "Family Matters" fondly in my my head.
I remember making fun of a tattoo that Michelle Thomas (Myra on Family Matters)had right gotten on her right shoulder of a Butterfly and the actress that played Laura had come into work with a Toni Braxton short hair cut-the Warner Brother producers were none to happy with the both of them on that day. Ann, the over caffeinated A.D. who was no non-sense used to walk around At 95 MPH to make sure everything got done and the pesty extras for the Urkel and female Urkel wedding scene didn't screw up the shots.
As a newbie to L.A. and in my early 20's-Warner Bros. extra work on their sitcoms had gotten me through some ultra-lean times and the hungry years.
The family atmosphere that one develops behind studio walls often remain for a lifetime but when shows are canceled, often the cast are the last to know. What people outside of Hollywood fail to realize is that-when your working long hours behind a studio wall-no one actually watches the shows on television or watches t.v. at all.
That was about ten years ago-and 10 years later in the Spring of 2007, I applied for a V.I.P. Tour Guide position with the studio. My family had just gone through Hurricane Katrina and were settling back down in Louisiana. I found myself heading up the 101 Hollywood freeway very excited to be giving tours to the public at a studio that I loved.
When I walked into the recruitment center-the fact that my background was Jewish and black didn't appear to play well with the girl who arrogantly, threw down my application. The girl an Asian and must have been a fall out from the Mel Gibson mess-being that she eyed my last name very carefully before proceeding to challenge my resume in a room full of people. That set the pace for the NEW Warner Bros. studios.
I wasn't called for the Spring but somehow I got called for the Summer season. Maybe it was affirmative action-who knows but when I saw the unqualified, white work force-I was floored but just happy to back on the lot.
So, with the exception of maybe the trainers and one other person in my training class- my skills were top of the line plus the personal connections that I had to the studio.
This didn't stop what I can only describe as a good-ole Southern style lynching by Warner Bros. Studio. My Marine Corp training almost kicked in and I was about to give name, social security number and rank! Why did I rate such a racist attack complete with slurs and stares? I was there to help a department the desperately needed helping not to further add to the problem.
None of this was appreciated. No one stepped back, while making these false and absurd accusations, and used common sense-they just saw a black man and that rated me being yelled at and spoken down to like I was trash.
When I came on the lot the VIP tour dept., was a laughing stock-mostly mediocre white kids and management, who couldn't put together a simple declarative sentence without drawing a blank. These tour guides were pulling their carts directly in front of film cameras, blocking shots and being out right rude to the public. Like most whites in Hollywood-they got away with murder!
They were hated on the lot and this sentiment was understandable-it was hard to stay-but my mother said to make a difference and be the best you can be. I stuck it out, through bad management and even worse training. The training guide wasn't even correct or near accurate. I had to purchase a subscription to the Hollywood Reporter, just to know what was and wasn't taping on the lot.
The VIP tour dept. at Warner Bros were not friendly to people of color-the operational managers constantly stated that whites were the priority because this is who takes the tours. Well, of course blacks and Hispanics aren't going to go to a KKK rally! What a screwed up attitude for a manager at a Hollywood studio to have in 2007!
Most of the African American shows and films-were missing from the verbiage of the tour guides all together. There's an entire generation of whites who remember Urkel and asked about the show but the tour guides were unable to answer the public questions.
I was taken to a part of the lot called labor relations and then three Caucasians proceeded to accuse me of saying the 'N" word-as if I had no home training or my membership in NAACP was all for fun. I went to work everyday-in the most professional manner that i could. Being a man of color (black man) you have to dress better, talk clearer and watch every step that you make-and THIS STILL WASN'T ENOUGH TO STOP A LYNCHING!
This accusation came from a Caucasian girl and a young, scared 18 year old African American kid(who has since backed off his statements), who had used the word but being that her mother worked on the lot-she was given some type of immunity. I had a union member present, who was really working for labor relations being that they started a file on me and another African American male the day we arrived on the lot.
The immediate supervisor, in the VIP tour dept, after returning from her vacation and about ten years younger than myself-informed the entire training class that no one was entitled to lunch breaks and that the Jewish executives -particularly Cass Warner, the grand-daughter of the Warner founding father was biased and her book "Hollywood be thy name" was also biased.
The Operational Manager in the VIP tour dept along with a Sr. Tour guide (guides who give five hour tours)-taught a class on Jew-hating. They set a certain tone and being that half the training class were children of the corn-from the boon docks-they were colonized to also jump on this bandwagon of hate, but whites in the training class and VIP management are still walking around the studio lot?
"Hollywood be Thy name" was one of my favorite books and Cass Warner was one of my favorite people(who I had never met or known except through her book and Warner Sister production website).
This set a precedent in the VIP tour dept. I(immediately after those comments were made b the Operational manager-a few in the training class started Cass Warner and Jewish bashing.
Being part Jewish-I brought these concerns up in the labor relations meetings-and they were blown off.
The training class a few days earlier had been given a history of the Warner family, and immediately following this lecture, a Sr. Tour guide trainer informed 50% of the class (the ones who he was training) that the Warner-Jewish family were bad people and scum.
In training, none of the African American shows were taught by the tour trainers except one and the routinely bad mouthed the African American talent like Eriq Lasalle (E.R., Salton Sea, Coming to America)-this was uncalled for but VIP tour business as usual.
I called my mother in New Orleans, and I told her that I wanted to leave the studio-she said to stay and make a positive difference-so this kept me in the dept.
As a black kid who was raised by Brooklyn Rabbis, this created a slight argument-when i informed Mr.Aryan Nazi that Jewish males were black-balled from bank loans which is why they open thrift stores and sold used junk. This is the same concept on why Hollywood was formed. The government can't control entertainment that is public driven. (Even though they hate Hollywood for it)
This was blown off also-all they wanted to do was yell at me for supposedly saying the "N' word. I asked to leave the labor relations meeting at least twice and was not allowed to-they made sure to do a verbal lynching.
Then when the "N' word accusation didn't stick they accused me of a slur against Hispanics (being part black/Cuban and Jewish) myself-I mean they threw every dirty trick in the book but why? That is exactly what I planned on finding out.
The Operational Manager in VIP tour dept. didn't have enough sense to call the VIP building management for an entire week to inform then that one doesn't lock doors at 12 noon, when you have a store that sells water and Starbucks. I found myself, on my lunch breaks, walking elderly people to the other side of the building just to use the restroom.
No one else in the VIP tour dept. cared about the public who pay about 45.00 per ticket.
The labor relations manager used the word Nigger and as someone, who has spent part of his life in New York and part in the deep South-you do not say that to a man like myself. This is what Warner Bros. Studios had become-pathetic.
There was no way of leaving that room-without a forced resignation and that is exactly what I had to do. I felt that there was a threat of more verbal abuse and possible violence from the labor relations manager-they needed to hang a black man very bad-and it all had to do with the anti-Semitic comments and racist comment made by Warner Brothers VIP Tour dept.
What started off as hope and promise-ended with me uncovering the fact that Warner bros. had become operated control by racist and Nazis=and the world needs to know.
In Conclusion, I had the most inefficient, anti-ethnic and racist departments-recruitment center and VIP tour dept. throwing accusations at me and it wouldn't be the first or last.....
corporate H.R. is next per Alan Horn's instructions. I was not going to let this sit-so Alan Horn sent me to Warner bros. "covering their ass" unit-who called none of my witnesses and did a Hollywood snow job with this case.
