Land of the Free?

From the April 21, 2005 Online Edition of the New York Times:

RICHMOND, Va. — Nealie Pitts was shopping for a house for her son three years ago when she spotted a for-sale sign in front of a modest brick bungalow here. When she stopped to ask the owner about it, at first she thought she misheard his answer.

"This house is going to be sold to whites only," said the owner, Rufus Matthews, according to court papers filed by Ms. Pitts, who is African-American. "It's not for colored."

Mr. Matthews later testified before the Virginia Fair Housing Board that he believed a clause in his deed prohibited him from selling to a black buyer. A 1944 deed on his property restricts owners from selling to "any person not of the Caucasian race."

Such clauses have been unenforceable for nearly 60 years. But historians who track such things say that thousands of racist deed restrictions, as well as restrictive covenants governing homeowner associations, survive in communities across the country.

America is a country full of contradictions. Their national anthem may loudly declare the US the "land of the free," but until the middle of the 19^th century, African-Americans were kept as slaves. Until the sixties, African-Americans were considered second-class citizens. (Some will argue that this holds true today.)

Racism also rears its ugly head in the negative attitudes of some Americans vis-a-vis the influx of immigrants from Mexico or Asian countries like the Philippines. This is quite ironic, considering many of them can trace their ancestry to Irish or Italian immigrants who arrived in the nineteenth and early twentieth century.

I feel that despite having one of the most socially and culturally diverse populations on the planet, some white Americans-- deep, deep down-- would prefer to live in a society where everyone had white skin, blonde hair, and blue eyes. These people should study their history. If any one people were to have a legitimate claim to the land they call the United States of America, it would have to be native American Indians (whom they wiped off ), not them.