Friday, October 31, 2008

California does not need to move backward in terms of bigotry




h/t to Penman

Update from Penman's post:
Most of us know about Japanese internment and bans on interracial marriage but this is lesser known.
-- Racially Restrictive Covenants: These covenants were widely enforced in the early 20th century to discriminate against African Americans, Jews and other ethnic groups by prohibiting the lease or sale of property. The covenants were widely used in the Central Valley against Armenians. They were declared unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1948.

So this was ended in my lifetime.

I remember being turned down in West Hollywood (!) when trying to rent an apartment because "this is a family apartment complex." And I'm a reasonably presentable and articulate white male. (Well, when I'm behaving myself anyway.)
--the BB

With a special h/t to FranIAm for this collection of important links. Mwah!

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3 comments:

susankay said...

Paul -- welcome home. And a propos of the post -- the Supreme Court may have ruled covenants unconstitutional in 1948 but that fact hadn't hit parts of California in the late 50's and early 60's. When we moved to Palos Verdes in '61 it was to an area refered to by the B'nai Brith Anti-Defamation League as "the lunatic fringe" where there were no Blacks or Jews. My mother's car had repeatedly slashed tires because of her bumper stickers.

On the good news side -- we have Obama yard signs in NM and when we took Molly the WonderDog to Corrales for a walk in the bosque, Obama signs seriously outnumbered McCain ones by about 2.5 to 1.

Paul said...

Susankay, did we talk about your past in PV? My former in-laws lived in RH. I know that the maids and yard workers had to be out before sundown and that Abraham's co-religionists, as I believe Lord Peter Wimsey once termed them, were not allowed to buy property there, which would have been in the 50s at least.

In Corrales? Are you sure? LOL

That was not the case a month ago when there were almost no Obama signs (and I could not get any because Obama HQ in ABQ had none left). On my last visit I saw rough parity. Nice to hear of the shift.

Learning: have plenty of visuals available for your supporters early on and constantly, even if you have to charge for them.

Fran said...

Turned down in West Hollywood? Wow. You stunned me with that one.

Glad you liked and are using those links. I got them from Blue Gal, who I think you may know from her own blog or from Crooks and Liars. I am going to meet her next week.

One day I will meet you and Susankay too- I must get myself out to ABQ!

Re the discussion about neighborhoods- when I was a kid in the early-mid sixties I lived in White Plains NY. White Plains was always very diverse - not to say no prejudice, but as a small city, lots of folks of all kinds lived there.

Nearby Bronxville, NY was a very high end community and I recall learning from my mother that not only blacks and Jews were not welcome there, neither were Catholics. Now of course there were some very well-to-do-Catholics, Kennedy relatives perhaps, that did live there, but not many.

I remember not understanding any of this and it was part of my early training in being a dirty hippy.

The thought of Susankay's mom's tires being slashed- and your info about Racially Restrictive Covenants along with this is a reminder of how many things happened and continue to happen in our lifetime. (wow long sentence!)

Mwah right back at you baby!