"Black Like Me" may also be referred to as "Arrested Like Me" and "Fired Like Me"

To say that racial profiling does not exist is to say that when it comes to our society, we are just all one big happy family.

The more you read about unlawful stops, searches and arrests, you start wondering what in the world is going on in this country. But what if you are fired for standing up for yourself? Then what?

That is what Leandro Blair, a former New York Post freelance reporter is now facing after he filed a civil suit against the New York Police Department for an unlawful arrest.

Blair, 28, is a graduate of Columbia University and he has masters in journalism. And while he may one day be one of this country's top media professionals, today he is an unemployed black man who told his story, had it printed by his employer but now is being summarily dumped by same said employer because they felt they were "blindsided" by the lawsuit.

So now the phrase, "Black Like Me" not only means, "Arrested Like Me" but also it means "Fired Like Me".

The Post says it did nothing wrong.

"The Post won't have any comment" on the Blair case, said the newspaper's spokesman Howard Rubenstein.

Really? Why not?

Is it not the Post that said in an editorial that supported Police Department's controversial stop-and-frisk policy?

In the piece, the editorial says, "Police overreach? Well, consider this: Last week, a killer said to be wearing a 'Team Fresh' gang T-shirt fatally stabbed an 18-year-old who was standing his own front porch. Isn't it a pity that the killer didn't encounter a stop-and-frisk team on his way to the scene of the crime?" the Post editorial said, in part. "Taken another way: How many young men didn't fall victim to weapons confiscated by the teams? A lot, we'd guess. If cops stand down, as critics demand, it'll be welcome back crime and chaos. And good-bye, peaceful New York."

Okay now will somebody please tell me, what did Mr. Blair do?

The only thing he did was answer questions, and when he thought the officer was finished, he put his hands down.

Officer Castillo, the officer that initiated this search, was the one who was out of control.

He was the one insulting a young man and the ONLY reason why they even stopped him was because he was Black and lived in a neighborhood where there have been a rash of break-ins.

But I have to question NYPD's tactics?

What you guys don't have computers in the responder cars or something?

And what of Officer Reynolds, who later told Blair that he, was black too, doing when all of this was going on?

Not a darn thing.

So we have racial profiling at its worst because you have two officers who can't figure out that they may have done something wrong AND you have an employer who has been embarrassed by its support for a policy that not only got this one wrong but doesn't have the temerity to stand up for one of its own employees.

What should a black man like Blair, who is thinking that all of his education and employment should be his shield against such an injustice, think?

He should think that maybe the cries we here about from so many Latino and Black men has some validity to it; especially since he is now one of the countless innocents in this bad practice.

The Post did Blair a grave injustice and Mr. Blair really should be filing a secondary suit against the Post. His dismissal came because he was standing up for himself against a policy that he deemed unjust. Considering the fact that a judge dismissed Blair's two summonses, why would the Post not back their employee?

Because they are in bed with the NYPD.

They want favor.

Not justice.

That shouldn't be what an employee wants to hear if he is trying to do an honorable and just thing like trying to clear him of a wrongdoing like this.

The EEOC needs to seriously look into whether Blair's firing from the Post is retaliation or discriminatory in nature. It seems that the only reason why they fired him was because he let the officers know that he was an employee with the Post and that he had a masters from Columbia.

Seriously, how can anyone of Blair's former supervisors even sleep at night?

And how can we expect Blair to get over this ordeal?

This is pure racism at its purist form and the sad thing is that you may have had it portrayed on a minority-by-minority interests.

Blair's ordeal began with a Hispanic man making wrongful assumptions about the situation he rolled up on. You have a black man who stood idly by while another black man was being unlawfully searched and you have an employer who did not stand by the employee even when it knew that the incident Blair found himself in was unlawful.

It's the racial trifecta at its worst.

And why did it happen?

Because Leandro Blair is a black man who decided to stand up against a Hispanic man in uniform.

Why did he stand up?

Because Mr. Blair knew he did nothing wrong and that although he answered the questions asked, he was no going to allow himself to be derogated by a policy that is very much against people of color.

He stood up to a racist policy and for that he was fired.

Because he did something that was morally right he has been labeled as doing something societal wrong.

And that is the ultimate wrong in this story.