8/31/15 re MY EXPERIENCE @ FORD of ORANGE (orange, ca)

TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN,

8/31/15

I am writing in regard to my experience at Ford of Orange (Katella Ave, City of Orange, California) the week ending Friday 8/28/15 . I own a 2005 Ford Freestar which I purchased to be a “temporary vehicle” ( or so I thought at the time). That is, earlier this year (Spring of 2015) as I was suddenly without any vehicle at all due to extenuating circumstances, I found myself seeking a new used vehicle and could not find one that matched my price & category qualifications in a timely manner.

However, I came across a vehicle that I decided might be suitable as a temporary vehicle as I continue to search for something else. That is, it was not too expensive, yet it was not a clunker. It passed smog at the time, and did not have any major blemishes or dents, etc. All the basic functions seemed to work satisfactorily. In fact, it if wasn’t for the high mileage, I would have considered the deal a “steal”, so to speak. However, because it had over 400,000 miles on it, the price was naturally low, as one would expect. So I took the vehicle and figured for the price I paid if it only lasts a year or two without major issues, I will still have gotten my money’s worth. And it’s been running decently ever since I purchased it.

Recently (August 2015), I received a letter in the mail from Ford Corporation informing me of a safety recall for this vehicle, involving the need for a “torque converter” replacement.

Although I don’t normally “live” there per se, the letter was sent to my registered address in Bellflower, which is my parents address, a suburb of Los Angeles, a fifteen-minute drive from Seal Beach; and about a 25-minute drive to Anaheim. I am not familiar with the Ford dealer location in the Bellflower area, but became aware of Ford of Orange because I have various reasons for often being in Orange (church, activism, donating blood, and Angels baseball, among other things). [for those of you who are reading this at Ford of Orange, I am sending this to Ford Corporation in Michigan as well,among others, some of whom may not know the details of southern California , thus my reason for being more descriptive].

Let me back up because this will become RELEVANT to why I am writing. I personally am originally from Grand Rapids, Michigan, a few hundred miles from the Motor City of Detroit, where Henry Ford and the Ford Corporation began their great automobile business. I grew up rooting for all the Detroit teams thru good times and bad: Lions, Tigers, Pistons, Red Wings, et al. I even lived for a short time in the Detroit area as I attended Wayne State Law School (albeit decided to move on to another career after a while). I attended Calvin College in GR, and graduated with honors and later after switching careers attended graduate school in southern California. But our family moved here before I returned as an adult.

My family moved from Grand Rapids to Bellflower in 1984 when I was in high school. Why Bellflower? Well, my dad actually grew up, partially, in Bellflower in the late 1930’s and early 1940’s because my grandfather Gareth Kok came to southern California as a pastor for the Christian Reformed Church (CRC) which is based in Grand Rapids, MI. The name “Kok” is mistaken by some as Asian, but in fact is a very common Dutch name, almost as common as Smith is in the united States. I mention this because there are those who do practice forms of bigotry based on surnames, and I have found myself being discriminated against due to a misperception of me being Asian, and I suspect it may have happened at Ford of Orange as 1

well. I am a white American with Dutch ancestry. My father was born in the USA. My grandfathers were born in the USA. My great-grandfathers were born in the USA. But one of my great-great-grandfather(s) was born in the Netherlands.

On the other side of my family (my mother’s maiden name is Peters) I believe our family history is even deeper in the USA, and have seen some family trees that indicate I had ancestors who actually fought in the Civil War (for the north). Also my late grandfather on my mother’s side was the founder of Butterball Farms in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Their connection to Butterball Turkey is only the name, which my grandfather sold to the turkey company many years ago, along with retaining the rights to use the name in association with his “fancy butter”, which is also sold in small patties to McDonalds across the USA for the morning breakfast platters. It’s always fun going to McDonalds here in California and seeing my grandpa’s butter all the way from Grand Rapids on my hotcakes. Today, my half-uncle Mark operates Butterball Farms. He’s a year older than me and we grew up occasionally boating on lake Michigan together, learning to water ski together, etc.

I tell you all of this to give you some context about who I am. I absolutely do NOT believe in prejudice and discrimination of any sort, (ie discriminating against people based on their race or surname, or skin color as well as “name bigotry” (mocking or ridiculing or discriminating against people based on the sound of their name or what one might think rightly or wrongly their name suggests about their race or ethnicity). I say this because I know for a fact that I have been discriminated against because of the way people read my last name “Kok.” I’ve heard it intentionally used in a way to disparage me, and other times I’ve realized that people are making negative assumptions about me based on their negative assumptions about whatever biases they have against a certain group of people, based on a perception or misperception of the etymology of my name.

Sadly, due to this sort of bias, I have actually attempted to not use my birth name around southern California or in places where I believe it will be discriminated against. This is sad because I grew up a normal, healthy, Anglo kid in Grand Rapids Michigan playing football, basketball, baseball, …. skiing, and the list goes on …rooting for the Tigers, Lions et al …a good, red-blooded, American patriot. In fact, my late uncle was a Lieutenant Colonel in the U.S. Army. He even served in Vietnam, and we actively helped his kids (my cousins) in some of the issues of being a “military family”. Thus we were a bit of an extended military family.

But we moved to Bellflower in 1984 after my junior year of high school. This was, as mentioned, due to the fact that my dad took a job in southern California working for the Crystal Cathedral as a pastor (before it fell on difficult times in 2012-2013). At the time, he also was in association with the Christian Reformed Church in Bellflower. I myself was planning on attending Valley Christian School in Bellflower to finish my senior year. Why Bellflower? In order to understand why Bellflower (and why this matters to me writing to you) you have to understand the Dutch (& Christian Reformed) roots of Bellflower. My grandfather came to Bellflower in 1936 to be a CRC pastor for the 1 st Christian Reformed 2

Church of Bellflower. At the same time he was responsible for founding the Valley Christian Schools, which is a highly respected accredited K-12 school system still in Bellflower/Cerritos.

My grandfather spoke Dutch & English and helped new Dutch immigrants assimilate to American society as many of them came straight from the Netherlands. At the time, much of Bellflower was dairy farmland, many of the farms owned by new Dutch immigrants who employed other Dutch immigrants. Later, many of these Dutch farmers moved to Ontario California as the Bellflower area became more urbanized.

Today, there remain several Christian Reformed Churches in Bellflower, all of whom still have a largely Dutch-American identity, albeit less so than decades ago. The pastors of these Christian Reformed Churches all still come from Calvin Seminary in Grand Rapids, Michigan and are part of the “Reformed Tradition”. The Dutch Reformed Church that came from the Netherlands and originally settled in “New Amsterdam” (now Manhattan Island, New York) split into two separate denominations early on in their American history: 1) The Christian Reformed Church; 2)& the Reformed Church of America (RCA).

However, the differences seem trivial today and the RCA and CRC are separated mostly by name only , not by any significant theological or doctrinal disagreements. The Crystal Cathedral led by Robert Schuller was part of the RCA. Because the differences are so trivial now, for this reason my father found himself working for both an RCA church as well as the CRC in 1984. And for this reason he decided to move his family to Bellflower, so that we could be within close distance of both the CRC stronghold of Bellflower, as well as close to the nearby Valley Christian schools, and also within a short driving distance of the Crystal Cathedral, which was thriving in 1984. My dad was given an office on the 10 th floor of the Crystal Cathedral as he became director of the pastoral care services for the church. It was a great time for our family and for my dad. And it was exciting coming to “sunny southern California” at the time. What young man wouldn’t want to be living near the beach and nice weather at such a time in life?!

Anyways, that’s the story and history of how and why our family came to Bellflower California in 1984. I actually ended up eventually started going from California to Michigan and back as I attended college back east, and many of our family still live in Michigan, but Bellflower has remained a home address for our family since that time, even if I don’t spend that much time there anymore.

I eventually taught school for many years both in Coachella California and Los Angeles, and later transitioned into Christian ministry as well, and attended Fuller Seminary in Pasadena for many years. This brings me back to Ford of Orange. As mentioned I received a safety recall letter. I might add that the vehicle I bought as a temporary vehicle is a former taxi, and I found out they had changed the engine and possibly the transmission as well (maybe even the torque converter), but they would not provide paperwork to confirm any of their mechanical work.

3

When I drove in to Orange of Ford on August 21 (?) I first met a guy who called himself “Jimmy” (Asian I think, I mention this for a reason). I showed him the letter, and he said if I can get a receipt showing the work had already been done then I could get a check for $1400.

I wasn’t sure the taxi company had actually done this work, and was aware they were not providing any paperwork attesting to it (by the way, I did NOT buy this vehicle from the Taxi company but from a party who had purchased it from the taxi company), so I wasn’t hopeful I could get such paperwork, and wondered even if they changed the transmission whether they would have included the torque converter with it.

Thus, I inquired about how long it would take to do the job, and Jimmy said one day to get the parts and one day to do the work. I asked whether they could provide a loaner car for a day and he responded that “We don’t provide loaner services anymore.” So I didn’t want to leave my car for the weekend, and told him that I would have to come back on Monday and have to rent a car. He said he would order the parts and have them ready to begin work on Monday.

Returning on Monday, Jimmy was NOT there, and somebody else helped me. I asked whether Jimmy had ordered the parts , and the guy didn’t seem to know, ….didn’t seem to be aware of any instructions left by Jimmy. I told him I didn’t want to rent a car but …And he interrupted me and said that they could provide a loaner vehicle via their Hertz rental agency on the same site. I wondered why Jimmy told me otherwise a few days prior?! I was happy that they would provide a loaner. That would make life easier, and what should not be an expense for me, given this was a safety recall. But I felt insulted because Jimmy had basically lied to me, and I was starting to wonder if I was being treated in an inferior manner because I was here for a safety recall, not a paying customer with a new car or new warranty etc.

Nonetheless, I brushed it off for the time being and got my rental car and expected that they would call me the next day and tell me it was ready. However, the next day (Tuesday) I didn’t hear from them and so I called and asked how it was coming along. Around this time I spoke initially with “Bob” who I was told was Jimmy’s boss. Bob transferred me to “Jason” (Latino maybe? I mention this for a reason) who sort of apologized (not with much conviction) for Jimmy telling me they don’t provide loaners . I complained that I didn’t feel he was treating me respectfully. He gave me his cell phone # if I needed to follow up. And he told me that they still didn’t have the parts when I was expecting to hear him tell me they were almost finished. Thus my car had been sitting there all day Monday & all day Tuesday and they hadn’t even gotten started. Jason said that they had used the ordered parts for another Freestar (really?). All the while, neither Jason nor Jimmy ever called me “sir”. It was always “Philip”, in a controlling manner, another reason I’ve gotten accustomed to not using my birth name very often anymore. At age forty-eight, I don’t like people using my name the same way my kindergarten teacher used to do so.

I told him that I would have to come by and get a few things out of my vehicle . I had a lot of things in my van because I was personally in the process of moving, as I had informed both Jason & Jimmy. He said that wouldn’t be a problem. Later that day around 6:00pm I returned 4

to Orange of Ford, driving from Newport Beach where I was working at the time, and found my van in the back with the WINDOWS WIDE OPEN the way they had left it the day before, and the KEY in the IGNITION! It was my calculation that they had LEFT MY WINDOWS OPEN ALL DAY & NIGHT ! I couldn’t believe it. If anybody had wanted to take stuff out of my vehicle, it had apparently been left wide open for them all night long (with what appears to be easy entry on to the lot at night). Again, I assumed they were careless or negligent because they disparaged the value of my vehicle or anything in it, despite me telling them more than once that I was in the process of moving and had “lots of stuff” in the vehicle.

Most of the Ford of Orange offices were closed at this time. “Jason” & “Jimmy” were apparently already long gone (I put their names in quotes because it appears that some of them may be given “American names” for the sake of working at Ford…which is NO PROBLEM for me…but makes it more ironic & outrageous if I myself was discriminated against for my last name and/or for socio-economic reasons). So I went into the customer waiting area and I see a guy in a suit and ask him if he works there. He says he does , his name is henry and I ask him why my car windows are wide open and the key is in the ignition exactly the way it was when I left the day before, as if it had been sitting wide open with the key in the ignition for two days and a night?! He was dumbstruck himself and apologized for it. He said he would take the key and make sure he followed up the next day.

The next day (Wednesday) I called back around 9am and made sure I spoke with Henry to remind him about the key. Henry had just arrived and said he was taking care of it. There was no further mention of this matter. Another day went by and the car was still not finished. By this time, I re-arranged my schedule. I tried to be nice about it the next day and told Jason that given the heat I don’t want to hurry you, but just want you (ie “Kenny” the Mechanic) to do a good job so that there won’t be any need to bring it back later.

Finally, around 1pm on Friday the 27th I received a voice mail from Jason indicating they were taking the “final test drive” and were going to wash it and then it would be ready to go. I called him back and told him I was in Newport Beach (working) and hopefully would be able to get there before they closed. He said “We close at 6 buddy” …Now it’s “buddy”?

Traffic was good from Newport Beach to Orange, and it was also convenient to pick up the car on Friday because I was planning to attend the Harvest Crusade at Angel stadium that evening. I pulled in and found my van and transferred a few things from the rental back to my van and then returned the rental. As I sat by the rental car desk, Jason returned and started going thru my paperwork. At one point he pointedly says, “Philip, I notice you live in Bellflower.” I didn’t bother reciting to him all that I mention above or that I was in the process of moving, figuring he was verifying my mailing address for paperwork reasons. So I said “yeah” and he responds in a haughty highbrow manner saying “Hmmm” as if trying to imply something. It was CLEAR THAT HE WAS TRYING TO DISPARAGE ME BASED ON MY ZIPCODE, in a subtle, but all-too-obvious manner.

5

I couldn’t believe it ! I did not confront him about it at the time, but definitely DWELLED UPON it later after I left and realized that I NEEDED TO WRITE TO YOU ABOUT THIS. I don’t know what makes “Jason” think he is SO HIGH & MIGHTY as to try to imply something inferior about Bellflower, California; or where he lives that is so much better; or what makes him a superior person to me, but it definitely was insulting and uncalled for.

I did NOTHING to deserve being insulted. Despite the things mentioned above (1)being originally told they do not provide loaners; 2) having my car windows left open all night with the key in the ignition; 3) a one or two day job turning into a whole week; I had remained gracious about everything. Yet here this guy was trying to make me feel inferior because of the zipcode on the paperwork. And I am a white educated male. I can ONLY IMAGINE what kind of treatment a black male with less education from the City of Compton might receive.

That is called, plain & simple, RACISM ! And of the worst kind. There’s NO EXCUSE for it in this day and age.

I mentioned me wondering if “Jason” is Latino because I am well aware that Latinos outnumber Anglos and blacks in southern California and are able to discriminate more so accordingly. At many stores & restaurants & shops it is often a Latino clerk, and their attitude, favorably or otherwise, towards you as a customer, makes all the difference. They can intentionally, subtly or obviously, discriminate by how they treat you as a person. When Jason called me “buddy” on the phone, there was a bit of an attitude to it. I’ve had Latino clerks at other places call me “boss” and that ALSO is actually a very clear term of disrespect. I didn’t always know that but now I do. They’re implying something derogatory even though they try to make it sound like their just being deferential. Often times it is plain disrespect for the educated person.

I came to Ford of Orange due to a safety recall that needed to be done to keep the vehicle in good operating condition. Given it was a safety recall regardless of whether I drive a brand new Ford vehicle or if I drive an older Ford, I should expect normal respectful treatment of me as a person. I should NOT in any way feel like I am less deserving because I do not drive a new Ford, or because I am not paying anything out of my pocket for the work being done.

I spent many years of my life going thru the education system (BA/BA/M.Div) and am proud of what I have accomplished as a teacher and a missionary (I also did mission work in the Philippines & Costa Rica) and continue to do so for Christian m inistry. In general, Christian ministry is NOT a lucrative career, nor should it be, in general. I’m NOT complaining, and don’t require a large income. I pay my bills,my taxes. My car is properly registered & insured.

That’s all Jason & Jimmy need to know. I work for God and He will be my judge. I don’t know why Jason or Jimmy working behind the desk at Ford can come to the conclusion they are superior to me, or why they feel they need to marginalize me in the way the address me or treat me. I don’t assume their jobs require a lot of education or training. I have much greater respect for the mechanic himself who does the actual work. The jobs they do are simply making sure that the paperwork is complete, and that the customer is treated fairly and 6

respectfully, and to simply make sure that the car’s windows are up and doors are locked and the key in the office at the end of the day. That alone would have merely required a walk thru the lot at the end of the day to see that one of the vehicles was WIDE OPEN !

Finally, as I was finally about to leave, I started my 2005 Ford Freestar and heard a BUZZING NOISE that I hadn’t heard previously. It was a definite abnormal noise, not something incidental. So I pulled around and asked Jason about it. He called Kenny the mechanic and as we waited for Kenny , Jason says to me, pointedly, “How many miles are on this?” Why was he asking that right now? He had my paperwork. He already knew how many miles were on it.

Clearly, once again, he was trying to IMPLY SOMETHING. Yes, it has over 400,000 miles on it, but it was running decently. There was no buzzing when I came in a week ago. He was preparing a “counterpunch” against me in case I tried to say that they had caused a further problem. Kenny arrived and listened and said “It’s a bad catalytic converter.” I just said OK at the time, and didn’t argue. I knew Jason was ready to attack if I argued that it WASN’T DOING THIS BEFORE. SO I said ok and left. It may in fact be a bad catalytic, not due to anything Kenny did while working on the car apart from moving things around. I’m not a gold-digger trying to get something I don’t deserve.

I just tell you this for further context about how I felt mistreated by Jimmy & Jason at Ford of Orange on Katella Avenue. It was NOT FAIR to me. I shouldn’t have left knowing they had tried to make me feel as if I was an inferior person (to Jimmy & Jason ). There is NO JUSTIFICATION for Jason or Jimmy thinking they are superior to me (or want me to feel that way) and that I am inferior to them, either based on education, on race ethnicity or skin color, or socio-economics, or not being a paying customer, or any other reason. Or that based on any of this I should accept sub-standard treatment and customer service. Once again, if I have to write this letter as an educated Anglo person, I can ONLY IMAGINE what a lesseducated black person from Compton might have to endure from Jimmy & Jason.

And after so many years of progress we seemed to have make in creating a more equitable society for all people, with which I have actively & intentionally participated, isn’t it disturbing if some of those people for whom many of us have strived to help create a better society, in turn do the opposite for us?

I’m 48-years old, partly disabled, but nonetheless not complaining and not quitting, and should NOT be mistreated by Jimmy & Jason, or anybody else.

SHAME ON JASON & JIMMY AT FORD of ORANGE (and of any “winking” superiors who allow this sort of discrimination to occur, if such is the case). By the way, I am actually contemplating a permanent return to Michigan after this many years now for various reasons, not limited to, but including some of these sort of “unpleasant social issues” that seem to be on the rise, making life in southern California not always so desirable anymore.

Sincerely Philip A. Kok

7

8