My Kind Of Town, Chicago Is

I keep wanting to be surprised but I'm not.

Black employees at a Chicago Heights dock facility were subjected to racist graffiti, nooses hanging in the workplace and tougher work conditions than whites, a federal agency alleged in a lawsuit filed Wednesday.

The graffiti, left in the men's bathroom at Roadway Express Inc., included such phrases as "Make America safe, kill a n----- today," said Richard J. Mrizek, the lead trial attorney handling the case for the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. In another instance, a noose was found hanging from a forklift driven by a black worker.

Black employees complained, but it did no good, according to the lawsuit.

A company spokeswoman did not return a phone message seeking comment Wednesday afternoon.

"The working conditions for black employees at the Chicago Heights facility were intolerable," said John Rowe, the EEOC's district director in Chicago.

Work teams were created based on race, and black employees were given more difficult work, the complaint says.

Little has changed since the days of Mayor Daley (Sr).