Disgusting sign of the times (racism related)

I read that he’d made social media posts upset with the school’s actions on bullying. I assumed she’d been a victim. Maybe not.

 

While that disorderly conduct charge covers a lot of it, it still seems quite a bit of what should be prohibited conduct can fall between the cracks.

The false imprisonment charge is serious, it's a felony.

The foot thing might be a sexual battery, I didn't look it up.

 

I saw that and that's how I interpreted it. That would remove the hate crime element, but it would not be a defense to disorderly conduct or false imprisonment.

 

Do you not know who Wendell Pierce is? It baffles me why folks will twist themselves into pretzels to try and explain away racism. Racism isn't logical. It doesn't need to "make sense."

She is her own person.

 

So the racist teachings didn't take, good for her. I would have shook his hand anyway if I were her.

 

Depends. I’d think the principal would also be involved in any of those actions. Not just the superintendent.

 

Of course I do, but who he is doesn’t matter much. What happened or didn’t happen does.
I understand housing underwriting really well, and what people think they know about it is quite often not close to reality. He may have a mortgage default on his credit which is an almost instant disqualifier…and yes it happens to celebrities too, even wealthy ones…Ed McMahon had his home go into foreclosure for instance along with a litany of others, heck Rihanna did too…and it should be at least a small red flag that he is renting and not buying. He could also have just had a bad credit score, or unable to prove future income right now even with his success, among other things. And the bigger bucket are people with money who just don’t pay their bills, in underwriting you always talk about ability to pay and willingness to pay. Some people just aren’t responsible in paying their obligations, regardless of their income or assets.

Again, maybe the guy was a flaming racist and everything Pierce said was true, but had this happened to a white guy we wouldn’t even question it. And it happens to people of all stripes day every day. Simply yelling racism isn’t at all instructive without more info.

 

What depends? I don't understand. If this guy was simply upset with the superintendent's handling of a bullying situation, that removes the race element from the equation. If the attack was racially motivated, it's a hate crime under Wisconsin law.

 

Wendell Pierce just finished as a lead character on a major TV series (Jack Ryan). He has worked consistently for decades. He is currently a main character on a CBS TV series (Elsbeth) that has been renewed, and he is a recurring character on a Starz TV series (Raising Kanaan). Did I mention that he's also a character in the new Superman movie?

I highly doubt that he has bad credit, that he can't prove future income, or that he doesn't have a lot of past income from recent years. I have no reason to doubt Wendell Pierce's version of events. Racism is alive and well in this country.

P.S. He wasn't renting for himself. He was co-signing for a relative who just graduated college.

 

Believe what you want, I’m just saying I’ve seen it a thousand times (literally), many of them comparatively wealthy.
And of course racism is alive and well, but that doesn’t mean that everything bad that happens in a black/white interaction should automatically ascribed to it because we don’t like an outcome. That’s the whole point.
The owner can’t speak for himself legally, so we get one side of the story only, which should never be taken as the final truth (even if it might turn out to be eventually). You as a lawyer probably know that better than anyone.

 

And I'm saying that folks like Wendell Pierce have been around the block enough times that I have no reason to disbelieve their experiences.

 

I actually enjoy our back and forths because they are interesting and respectful. I usually bail out at some point because we’ve both made our points and I’m not here to type people into submission. But I will say one last thing before bailing, I think we agree more than you allow for.

I don’t know whether you take on discrimination cases as part of your larger first amendment umbrella or not, but I would bet big money that if you did, after you got a statement from him, thought he was earnest, believable and wanted to take the case, one of the very first things you would do would be to pull his rental app and have an expert on NY rental housing look at it to make sure it was as great as he said. And then get a deposition from the owner to see if there was something you or he weren’t accounting for in their decision to deny. And that’s literally all I’m saying, without the other side of the story, simply claiming racism doesn’t make it a fact, even if it eventually turns out to be. There are other possibilities.
One other point, if it was his niece that adds another layer, if it was a building of largely older professionals there may have been concern about renting to a 22 year old living on someone else’s money (responsibility concerns). NY boards are notoriously finicky. Again, that’s snobby, maybe ageist, but not necessarily racist.

But feel free to tell me all the ways I’m wrong, I’ll step out .

 

To answer the question at heart of your post:
1. I generally don't handle discrimination cases. When I do, they are large in scale, so it's a different sort of situation. In those cases, we are often pretty confident that discrimination happened, but it's extraordinarily hard to prove (for many reasons, all related to structural barriers courts have created).

2. That said, you are correct in how to approach the issue if I handled that sort of case. Of course, there is a difference between proving something in a court of law and putting something out in the court of public opinion. In the court of law, the system is set up in such a way that it presumes discrimination didn't happen and puts the onus on the person alleging it did to eliminate other explanations. And bluntly, the law has been crafted in such a way to make that (overcoming the presumption of no discrimination) difficult to do, both on the macro level (in the sort of cases I occasionally handle) and on the micro level (in individual cases).

3. I'm not saying it should be easy to prove discrimination in court. Rather, I'm saying this is an area of law where the courts have really stacked the deck against the person trying to prove it.

4. You're not wrong that people can make false or mistaken allegations. False or mistaken allegations of racism and discrimination happen plenty often. It's a question of which side of the equation you err towards. I tend to err towards one side of the equation because of my personal experiences, absent evidence to doubt the person. You may err the other way for your own reasons or based on your own experiences. Or you don't, and it's just this case where you're skeptical.

 

No, I meant whether the school's actions were 100 percent the doing of the superintendent with no involvement or support from the principal.

 

I'm sorry, I don't mean to be dense, but I'm still not following. I'm certain bullying situations involve several tiers of administrators before it gets to the superintendent.

My point was, if this tool was blaming the superintendent (and not for racial reasons) for the bullying issue and that's why he acted as he did, that takes the case out of the hate crime statute, even if he should have been upset with other administrators as well.

 

Not surprised that it continues to happen.


Black molecular biologist is banned from buying $749,000 Virginia Beach condo 'because of her race' by white owner, 84

A molecular biologist says she was prevented from buying the Virginia Beach condo of her dreams after the white owner learned that she was black, it is alleged. Dr. Raven Baxter, 30, was prepared to buy the home after a virtual tour of the property. It had everything she wanted: a private foyer, wainscoting, exquisite crown molding, and a marble fireplace.

Baxter offered the asking price, $749,000, which was promptly accepted by the seller. The molecular biologist, who works remotely for Mt. Sinai hospital, then sent over a down payment and the condo went into escrow.

But then she received a call late at night from her broker, who told her that the seller, Jane Walker, 84, now wanted to back out of the deal.

'He said, "I don’t know how to tell you this, but she doesn’t want to sell the home to you, and it’s because you’re black,"' Baxter recalled.

Black molecular biologist is banned from buying $749,000 Virginia Beach condo 'because of her race' by white owner, 84 | Daily Mail Online

 

But having everyone jump to the conclusion that this was about racism makes for a far better story (and thread)