I see that Laddie Schnaiberg is a lawyer in Montreal. But I remember when he was a student working at Metropolitan News, my family's international newspaper store in the heart of downtown Montreal.
This memory just came back to me and I am determined to speak truth for posterity day and night.
I was working alongside Laddie behind the counter, selling newspapers, when he suddenly said to me,
"You look pregnant."
I was a little girl, fourteen years old. I was shocked !
I lashed out, slapping him with the back of my hand across his chest,
Later I learned that his eyeglasses were in his shirt pocket and I broke them.
But here is the injustice that hurt me the most. My father paid Laddie for his eyeglasses. Anything to keep the peace. My Pop always wanted to keep the peace.
I felt betrayed by my father whom I adored. He and my uncles, Sam and Harry, were more concerned about the employee's rights than mine. They were more concerned about avoiding scandal than about how I felt. I know Pop loved me. He was my constant companion, my mentor, my best friend, always my daddy.
Not long after that, on Halloween, when we caught Uncle Moe embezzling, my father failed me again. When Moe got caught with the marked bills, he and his son - a boy I liked so much - grabbed me and attacked me and beat me - because I had been asked to mark the money.
Pop and Uncle Harry and Uncle Sam did not prosecute Moe. They did not call the police. Moe lost his job, but there was no penalty for beating me. I was betrayed. I still feel the pain of being betrayed.
"Don't worry. Moe won't come back into the store." But there was nothing for me for helping to catch a thief.
Crime pays. Don't make a fuss. Well, it is half a century later, and I still feel the pain - but I will not be silent about injustice.
Do what is right. Do justice. Victims do not forget. The wounds never heal.
http://phylliscartersjournal.blogspot.ca/2014/07/i-cant-keep-this-secret-any-longer-how_2.html
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