Black Rochester firefighter outs white captain over racist party

Source: Liam McBurney – PA Images / Getty

We expect the police to harbor racism but racist firefighters aren’t something that we hear a whole lot about. Today, we hear about it.

According to a WHAM report, a Black firefighter in Rochester, New York has outed his captain for being unabashedly racist. Jerrod Jones stood on the city hall steps and announced plans to sue the city of Rochester as well as the Rochester Fire Department claiming that he was forced to attend a racist Juneteenth party by his commanding officer.

“I have two children who maybe one day will aspire to be firefighters and I don’t want them to experience what I experienced. I wouldn’t want your kids to experience that,” Jones said. “I’m sorry to have to even be here today but in order for things to change we have to do difficult things and one of those difficult things is speaking up against a department that you love with everything in you,” said Jones.

Hope police officers are taking notes but we won’t hold our breath. Anyway, back in July, Jones was on duty when his captain Jeffrey Kryway took him and two other firefighters a private mansion party. When they arrived, there were cutouts of Donald Trump, Juneteenth flags, several buckets of KFC chicken, and photos of Democratic politicians on stakes in the yard. The following day, Jones reported Kryway to his reportedly shocked Battalion Chief.

And investigation ensued and the captain was suspended with further discipline to come. Mayor Malik Evans sounded off on the incident:

As the mayor, from what I’m learning from those that have conducted those investigations, I have very serious concerns that we’re still having these type of conversations that happened 50 years ago that we are literally still having these conversations in 2022, so I’m actually pretty sad today, I’m distressed today,”

It’s stupid have such a party, it’s stupider to invite your Black coworkers while they are on duty, it’s even stupider than that to think that there would be no consequences.

Whiteness is a muthaf***a.