Racist Bush?

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George Bush Will Be Moving Into A Whites Only Neighborhood!

As George Bush prepares for retirement, he and Laura are moving to the upscale Dallas neighborhood of Preston Hollow, an exclusive area, which in past times was kept even more exclusive by means of a covenant, a sort of a promissory agreement:

In the 1920s and 1930s, covenants that restricted the sale or occupation of real property on the basis of race, ethnicity, or religion were common in the United States, particularly in the South where the primary intent was to keep "white" neighborhoods "white".

Such a covenant might prohibit a buyer of property from reselling, leasing or transferring the property "to any colored person or persons or any person or persons of Ethiopean [sic] or Semitic race or the any descendant [of such a race]." These restrictions were invalidated by the U.S. Supreme Court in the case of Hansberry v. Lee in 1940. Title insurance policies now often contain exclusions preventing coverage of such restrictions.

From CBS11 in Dallas, we learn that "the covenant was enacted in 1956" and was not legally changed until 2001. "Eight years earlier, in 1948, the U.S. Supreme Court made it illegal to enforce such covenants. The court said although private groups could legally make agreements to exclude people of certain races from using property, the states could not enforce them".

Part of the original document reads:

Said property shall be used and occupied by white persons except those shall not prevent occupancy by domestic servants of different race or nationality in the employ of a tenant.

Of course, none of this implies that George Bush is a racist, or anything of that sort. Such restrictions are a throwback to the past, a sad reminder of an earlier era. But the irony of George Bush moving back to Texas to a formerly all-white area just as Barack Obama readies to move into the White House is quite rich indeed.

(I wonder is any African-Americans or Asians or Arabs have been allowed to buy homes in this neighborhood since 2001?)

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Katrina

"I think being called a racist because of Katrina was a low point. I remember people saying George Bush is a racist because of the response," he said, referring to criticism of the slow federal response to help thousands of New Orleans flood victims, most of them African-Americans.

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York, PA

This week (09-Jul-2004), Bush attended a campaign rally in York, PA - it makes the THIRTIETH campaign trip he has made to the state. Could it be that Bush is courting the NeoNazi/KKK crowd? They are, after all, among his most aggressive supporters. And, PA, home state of Tom Ridge, is a hotbed of such groups - hosting more extremist conventions and meetings in recent years than ANY OTHER STATE. York, PA, in particular, has been associated with KKK activity. The mayor was tried in 2002 for the vicious murder of a black woman - then acquitted by an all-white jury.

Bush's visit to York comes just a few days after once again refusing to attend the annual NAACP convention - guess he didn't want to offend his "supporters" in PA?

(Could his incursions into mostly Moslem Iraq and Afghanistan be considered racist? Could his allowing Israel to slaughter Palestinians and Lebanese be considered racist?)

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