Ending Bigotry in Housing

This article, written by Ronald B.Saunders, appeared in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on Feb 18, 1986 in the Black on Black column.

Rational and intelligent Americans were saddened last year by the illegal harassment of the Fox family, an interracial couple in the municipality commonly known as the City of Brotherly Love , and by the firebombing of a Black couple’s newly purchased home in the eastern Pittsburgh suburb of Forest Hills. Recently, similar incidents of racial intimidation have occurred to Black families who have purchased homes in White, ethnic, blue-collar neighborhoods in Cleveland and Chicago.
Philadelphia and Pittsburgh have historically been hotbeds of racial discrimination. Over 25 years ago, I personally witnessed the same type of overt racial hatred in the Philadelphia suburb of Levittown, when a Black family moved into a previously all White community.
The typical community bigot will engage in rock or brick throwing, cross-burning and other forms of property damage or intimidation and very frequently he or she will resort to vociferous objections to the newly arrived Black neighbors. The psychopathic bigot will maim, kill or terrorize any Black or other identifiable racial minority. Usually the psychopathic bigot will attack at night or in the early morning hours.
There have been numerous incidents of Whites intimidating Blacks.
In the fall of 1974, a young Black couple, Calvin and Ruth Toler, rented an apartment townhouse in the Pittsburgh suburb of Brentwood. One hour after they moved into their apartment, their car was firebombed. The Brentwood police dismissed the incident.
Two hours after the firebombing of the vehicle, two shotgun blasts went through the front door, barely missing Calvin Toler, who was sitting in a living room chair.
As a representative of the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission, I investigated these incidents along with the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The culprit was eventually apprehended, prosecuted and convicted.
On November 30, 1985, in the Greenfield section of the nation’s most livable city, Gresha Robinson, a Black woman and her four year old son, barely escaped being hit by a brick that was thrown through their second floor window after they moved into a previously all White neighborhood. Three other bricks had also been hurled through her window before the November 30th incident. The landlady had been questioned by a neighbor as to why she would rent to a Black family. There have been other incidents of racial harassment perpetrated against the family.
Housing discrimination, like employment discrimination, is pervasive in our society, and federal and state enforcement efforts are virtually non-existent. When realtors and home sellers break the law by discriminating against Blacks, they have little to fear from the government and the courts.
In 1980, the U.S. Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, under President Jimmy Carter, filed 12 cases under the Fair Housing Act. Seven consent orders were obtained from discriminators. In 1985, the U.S. Justice Department under President Reagan filed 16 cases and obtained 16 consent orders. From 1983 to November 1985, 245 claims of housing discrimination were filed in Pennsylvania, of which 156 were racial discrimination complaints; 25 percent of these cases were filed in Allegheny County. Unfortunately, the national government under both Republican and Democratic administrations has repeatedly substituted voluntary compliance for enforcement.
Law abiding Americans must recognize that equal housing opportunity is not a philosophy or ideology. It is the law.
In light of our history in the past 40 years, it is evident that unresolved racial conflict has the potential for large scale social dislocation. Thus there will be no racial peace without racial justice.
When the law functions at its best, it fulfills its historic role of preserving public order while at the same time redressing collective grievances. It allows the institutions of our society to change without fatal trauma. The law accomplishes this purpose by providing a non-violent, culturally sanctioned mechanism whereby those victimized by injustice can seek relief. Albeit such relief is usually inadequate and is slow in arriving.
When the courts grant broad relief, the great potential of change through the judicial process is apparent to the oppressed. It also informs the White community that racism has lost its official sanction. Thus we must ask whether the law can bring justice fast enough to allow for that change, or will the politics of deception, the recalcitrance of the Reagan administration and racism destroy this last hope of national decency? Racism is still America’s number one mental health problem. However, the medical and mental health professionals and institutions in these United States still refuse to recognize and identify racism as a mental disease.
Finally, if the families that have been victimized by racial incidents decide to leave their respective neighborhoods, that will be victory for the outlaws of racism and their victory will rest solely on those individuals, agencies, commissions and law enforcement authorities who are mandated by their various city, state and federal statutes to enforce the law.
Ronald B. Saunders is chairman of the National Black Political Caucus.

On 2/23/09, Blogger Black Buzz says according to Melissa Harris, Professor of Politics and African American Studies at Princeton University, the National Alliance of Fair Housing documents hundreds of thousands of acts of housing discrimination each year and has repeatedly criticized the U.S. Department of Justice for failing to adequately pursue and prosecute the vast majority of these cases. Professor Harris further says we can’t talk our way out of residential segregation. Black Buzz states that most of these documented cases by the Alliance do not result in bona fide complaints against any respondents because most victims of discrimination are either too afraid or they have no confidence in the State Human Rights Commissions/agencies, HUD, or the U.S. Department of Justice in their ability and thoroughness to enforce the law. There appears to be more subtle housing discrimination on the basis of race in 2009 than in 1989 even though many more racial minorities have moved into the middle class. Under the Bush administration, rental agents, landlords, realtors, lenders, mortgage brokers and investment banks have had an open field day on racial minorities and the poor in conducting their reign of terror because of their greed, corruption, misinformation in the so-called free and open market.
Furthermore, aggressive law enforcement in the area of civil rights plus strict enforcement of the laws and regulations governing our institutions in banking, mortgage/home loans, financial and investment industry were virtually non-existent for the last eight years. The Madoff and Stanford massive fraud schemes are only the tip of the iceberg in a country that continues to fall into a type of malignant, Machiavellian form of governance coupled with excessive avarice and greed.