The Nature of Courage: Moving Toward Justice

The Nature of Courage

On the last Monday of February, I woke up with an upset stomach. I had spent the day and night before feverishly preparing for a showdown. I was going to court, taking my former landlord to small claims court.

I supposed I wouldn't have minded so much if I thought the landlord and his management company were treating all the tenants the same. Yet when I got to know the other tenants better, when I entered their houses, I realized how differently we were treated.

Some of the other tenants mentioned that the black woman who had moved out before had similar problems and they thought it was racism. Two of these women, white and very verbally assertive, had told me in October, after the unlawful detainer had been added to the eviction, that they would testify on my behalf to show how this landlord, his managers, and his property management office regularly treated tenants and how, even then, my treatment was worse. Yet for all their loud complaints, their words were nothing but white noise.

A month passed, and both women refused to even consider testifying. One no longer would speak with me and signed a letter for the landlord saying the cottage she had left just before I moved in was in perfect condition. Only a month ago, she had said he had threatened that she wouldn't allow her to move to a bigger one unless she kept her mouth shut and didn't complain. The other woman, a teacher, said she didn't think the PTA and her students' parents would approve.

What had the landlord said to them to change them, frighten them?

In the end, the reason I took him to court was that I remembered those that had gone before. I remembered what my grandmother went through to live in her adopted country and what my mother and father had faced to live as Americans in the land of their birth. I remembered what my mother still must endure to live out of an ethnic ghetto as the first Asian American on the block.

The Nature of Bullies

My manager thinks somehow I am at fault for getting into these situations. To me, that seems like blaming the victim. My take is a little different.

I was once asked why I stand up to people who are bigger and stronger than me. The answer was simple: almost everyone over the age of ten is bigger than me. Bullies tend to pick on those who are smaller. Bullies tend to pick on girls and women. Bullies tend to pick on people whose circumstances may keep them in a position or make them more dependent or desperate. I was a bit surprised at the number of organizations online that deal with bullies and bullying, in school and at work.

Article Author: Purple Tigress

Former theater critic for the LA Weekly and Los Angeles Times . For the last five years, an editing slave at a dot-com but recently laid off. Currently an under-employed freelance writer and artist.

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