Posted on 04/22/2005 10:54:48 PM PDT by freepatriot32
The modest brick house, with its yard full of wilting tulips and rusted old cars, isn't a candidate for the pages of Better Homes and Gardens.
But on a spring day in 2002, it was just what Nealie Pitts had in mind. She approached the owner, Rufus T. Matthews, and asked the price.
According to court documents, Matthews said the house was selling for $83,000 - but that a deed restriction meant only whites were eligible to buy it.
"I was hurt and angry, like he had slapped me in the face," Pitts, who is black, said in an e-mail.
Nearly three years later, the Virginia Office of the Attorney General said it will soon take Matthews to court for the alleged fair housing law violation.
It's a bittersweet victory for fair housing proponents, who wonder how many other people are turned away by racially restrictive deed covenants.
"We very rarely encounter anybody who believes they can be enforced," said Connie Chamberlin, president of Housing Opportunities Made Equal (HOME). "We are aware they're certainly out there."
In milder forms, covenants can be used to control things like the color homeowners can paint their houses.
But in the Jim Crow South, they were often used to keep neighborhoods white. Racially restrictive covenants were ruled illegal by the Supreme Court in 1948.
"Many people don't even know they're in their deeds," Chamberlin said, adding would-be homebuyers can ask to have the racist language removed. "That can't be used as a reason to stop a sale."
According to court documents, Matthews told Pitts his house in suburban Richmond was "not for colored. We decided we are going to keep this area right here all white."
The next day she contacted HOME, which sent out a black test buyer.
"Precisely the same thing happened," Chamberlin said. "We have it on tape."
On Thursday, Matthews told The Associated Press that he would sell his home only to a white buyer. But he denied the house was for sale, saying a sale sign he had was for items in his yard. "The house has never been for sale," he said.
Matthews is accused of violating the Virginia Fair Housing Law. The same code says officials can attempt an out-of-court settlement in cases where the law has been violated.
At an April 13 meeting, the Virginia Fair Housing Board rejected a settlement offer. Board Chairman David Rubinstein declined to detail why it refused the proposal from the attorney general's office.
But Thomas Wolf, an attorney representing Pitts, said the offer would have required Matthews take two hours of class on fair housing law, at taxpayer expense.
"That is not a serious settlement proposal given the facts of the case," Wolf said. "Were they planning to pass out Happy Meals with little Confederate flags?"
Emily Lucier, a spokeswoman for Attorney General Judith Williams Jagdmann, could not explain how the proposal was formulated, but said settlement is not unheard of in discrimination cases.
Pitts is seeking $100,000 in damages in a separate case against Matthews. Lucier said because Pitts has gotten her own lawyer, the office cannot legally seek monetary damages in the civil matter.
Instead, she said, the office will continue pressing for injunctive relief and education. A court date has not been set
I don't buy that Rufus is an innocent idiot at all. You're trying to sell your house and find that clause. Black person comes to buy the house and what, in the year 2005, do you say? Gee black person I can't sell you this house because some bigot long dead says I can't. Spare me. How about gee black person, maybe after all that civil rights stuff we might be able to find a way around this.
I'd bet rufus is just an ass that enjoyed jacking with people. Whatever the lady doesn't get I hope the lawyer gets the rest.
"If it were a Hispanic or 'Blacks' only deed would this even be in the news?
Hell, it would probably be celebrated as 'diversity'."
No... that would be illegal too.
"What kind of idiot would try to enforce a racial covenant in this day and age?"
Yes, that's a completely indefensible position, not enlightened like giving minorities entry points for their ethnicity in the contest to enter Univ of Michigan Law School, or giving favortism to minorites over whites for plum jobs, etc., etc.
LOL! So how is affirmative action different than a racial covenant? Hint: all men are created equal, but some are [viewed by the government as] more equal than others
(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)
"...Pitts is seeking $100,000 in damages in a separate case against Matthews...[sic]"
She don't look that damaged to me. She looks like some white hating black woman with a chip on her shoulder hoping to win first prize at the judicial jackpot of injustice.
sounds like a job for a certain org to put the smack down....
expatguy wrote:
She don't look that damaged to me. She looks like some white hating black woman with a chip on her shoulder hoping to win first prize at the judicial jackpot of injustice.
Your so racist!/Sarc
Only in Richmond! Glad I escaped to Louisa County.
Because when you slam one poor schmuck, you then are able to cower every other poor schmuck.
Witness the homosexual radicals.
That is excellent. You are absolutely correct.
Senator Robert Byrd?
Yes, but only against "white n$$$$rs".
I don't see it this way. Considering we're talking private property (in theory) and considering more especially all the weighted elements in favor of minorities in education, jobs, legal protections and so forth... I cannot find a liberty-loving argument against a person being selective with whom they choose to do business.
I live an a neighborhood which has been part of mass shift in ethnic makeup. Property values have risen thanks to market forces *however* the attractiveness, cleanliness and basic community itself has degraded. Sure, this reflects the usual tenant apathy vs. owner-occupied self-interest but the fact of the matter is, why would I want to sell or rent to person who do not value the property and community within which they're asking to become a part?
On the flip side, this "multicultural" fascism is quite dangerous. Language is becoming a problem when a longtime English native-speaking resident cannot communicate with the neighbors, with employees of neighborhood shops or read signage of the neighborhood services. Culture is becoming a problem when older men drop their pants and make use of the neighbor's lawn like they did in the old country. Neighborhood residents and children be damned.
I grow increasingly tired of seeing unfinished food thrown on the ground because it's too much of a burden to carry the rest of the sandwich across the street with you. I grow tired of watching half-chewed food being spat-out into a gutter because you ran out of your softdrink. I'm tired of shopping carts become the lawn-ornament de rigeur.
And that's just based on what I've seen this week.
I'm not saying I agree with the concept of a "whites only" deed but I question the strictness of limitations put upon owners by judicial activism or liberal social experimentation. The more excuses made under "multiculturalism" and "tolerance" for coarse, intrusive, and bad behavior the more balkanized our nation will become until eventually we will live in a cities, towns and neighborhoods antithetical to the values and traditions which have made America great. We need more assimilation, not less and I believe property owners should have the right to insist on assimilation rather than allowing defacto occupation by foreigners and fostering reconquista movements.
Are you saying the courts have ruled you can't *not* sell to illegals?
ping
It might be illegal but that doesn't mean it doesn't happen in effect. We all know how neighborhoods organize in cities into ethnic ghettos. Ever wonder how it is that these aren't broken up by the diversity police? Oh, of course... the diversity police depend upon these ghettos to get elected and maintain power.
The sellers mistake was being stupid enought to say something like that.
Excellent points made.
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