Care to rethink that? 
Posted on 09/12/2005 12:59:35 PM PDT by SmithL
A bill that would make it much easier to remove racist language from tens of thousands of property records statewide has cleared the Legislature by a unanimous vote and will become law, barring a veto by the governor.
The bill - Assembly Bill 394 - seeks to clean up a vestige of America's racist past: the "covenants, conditions and restrictions (CC&Rs)" that once used race and religion to keep all nonwhites out of thousands of neighborhoods.
"No persons of any race other than White Caucasian race shall use or occupy any building or any lot except ... by domestic servants of a different race domiciled with an owner or tenant," reads a typical "racial occupancy clause" in Arden Park,
...Other "racial occupancy" clauses specifically excluded Jews, Eastern Europeans, Hindus, Africans, Japanese, Chinese, "Mongolians" and Italians - anyone not considered part of the "white Caucasian Race."
Although federal law outlawed housing discrimination in 1948, the offensive language persists, affixed to thousands of homes built in segregated neighborhoods before the civil rights era of the 1960s.
Before AB 394, a homeowner would have to go through a convoluted, often expensive process to have the racist language deleted from his or her property records.
...Gregg Fishman, a Jewish American living in Arden Park, was outraged when he found out how hard it was to remove the language from the documents that came with his 1950s-era California ranch home - and all the others in his subdivision.
After a Bee article in January detailed Fishman's frustrations in trying to rid his neighborhood of the offensive language, Fishman was contacted by Assemblyman Roger Niello, R-Fair Oaks, who represents Arden Park. "We read about his plight and contacted him to see what we could do to rectify it," Niello said.
(Excerpt) Read more at sacbee.com ...
Waste of time. Waste of taxpayer money. The covenants are void - they can't hurt anyone anymore.
I think they serve a good purpose. They are a strong reminder of what our country used to be - and is no longer.
What's a white Caucasian?
I thought Caucasian meant white.
Silly me.
No, it isn't a waste of money, IMO. Time after time, the Democrats go through some poor GOP sap's property records looking for this kind of stuff. When they find it, they smear him with the charge that he's a racist or anti-semite because he hasn't gone to the time and expense of legally removing the language, even though some bigot put it on the property decades ago and it's now void and legally unenforceable. I'm all for anything that takes that weapon away from the Dems. I suspect that's why a Republican is backing this legislation.
What a trivial thing on which to waste tax dollars.
I wonder if it wastes more tax dollars for a person to go through all the legal hoops to remove the covenant? Not to mention all the money wasted by the homeowner.
< / sarcasm, dammit>
I can't cut a tree down that is over 6" in diameter. You can't imagine the stress this has caused to me and my family. Who can I sue?
I absolutely agree. I have one of these racist covenenants on my house as well. I had to sign it, along with another document stating that I acknowledge that the race-specific clauses are null and void. It's a totally straightforward and sufficient way to rectify the problem.
Care to rethink that?
Sen. Landrieu made a big thing of her vote to apologize for lynchings in June. In light of what happened a couple of weeks ago, one asks whether her time might have been better spent doing something else.
California has a lot of fault lines. I am certain that Californians have something better to do with their time and money than this.
idiots on parade
This was done to create another money wasting, useless federal department.
Well, I can't have pigs (although the previous owner had one anyway.)
Yes. I don't know whether I'm outraged at the waste of time and money, or relieved that the legislators are doing this instead of thinking up more ways to rob me of my freedom.
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