Some neighbors told us tonight they are selling their house

[Moonbeam_Starlight]

because of the OTHER neighbors on this street. They specified which houses they were talking about.

Apparently the street is a bit too "ethnic" for them. Specifically too black and Hispanic.

#$&%($*$#(&#@(%#$(%*@#($&@#($&@(%*#%)!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

They are FUCKING ridiculous. They think if they move somewhere else, they'll live in La-La Whitey Land. Why would you want to live somewhere where everyone is JUST like you, anyway? I LOVE the diversity on my street and in this city...it was one of the appealing factors for Mr. Moonbeam and I.

I was so disgusted while she was talking to me, I told her I LOVED this street and I don't CARE what color people are, and that I'm not racist. I turned around to go inside and she sputtered out, "Of course, you're a Democrat!" and I laughed and turned around and said, "Yes, thank you."

She realized what she said and looked pissed off so I turned back to go inside and she called out "enjoy your neighborhood with n___s and wetbacks!" GOD. Well at least THAT faux-friendship was blown to pieces and I got to see her true self.

Hateful bee-otch.

[Lindacooks]

1. Any way you could reduce the value of her house???

Maybe park some junker cars in your yard, or make lots of noise when it's being shown??

[Renew Deal]

5. Yes, tell potential buyers

that there are blacks and hispanics living near by. Oh the irony. This isn't isolated. I have seen the same thing here in NY. Tell the white folk that there are "ethnics" in the hood and they will not buy.

[EnfantTerrible]

14. I bought in an ethnic neighborhood in NYC

but I realize that the exception is not the rule. We, also, found the ethnic diversity to be a positive. We're raising our daughter here, sending her to racially diverse schools where she will have to learn spanish as her secondary courses will all be taught in spanish. I'm envious of her.

The Moonbeams neighbors are typical, in my experience, of those who believe that property value is more important than life values... an outlook prescribed to by every Repugnican I've ever met.

[Pithlet]

9. I'd do the opposite.

I'd want a neighbor like that gone.

[gmoney]

2. I'm thinking of selling...

...too many rednecks moving in. Way too much auto maintenance going on... I'm waiting for the first front porch refrigerator or lawn sofa any day now.

[Moonbeam_Starlight]

17. LMAO

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

3. There's a neighbor you don't need.

Good riddance.

[liberalmuse]

4. Congratulations!

Now your street will be that much nicer without that bit of white trash polluting the air with her foul, ugly yap. You and all your neighbors should throw a block party as they're loading their funiture in the moving van.

[Moonbeam_Starlight]

18. I think we should....good idea!!!

[4morewars]

24. Parade up an down the street singing....

NA-na-na-na,
Na-na-na-na,
Hey-hey-hey,
GOODBYE!

everybody

NA-na-na-na,
Na-na-na-na,
Hey-hey-hey,
GOODBYE!

one more time,

NA-NA-NA-NA,
NA-NA-NA-NA,
HEY-HEY-HEY,
GOODBYE!

THAT would be sweet !!!

[mahina]

6. That's so sad!

Ignorance like that is just hearbreaking.
A giant step backwards for everybody.

ps Moonbeam, Mahina= Moon too; isn't it pretty tonight?

[Moonbeam_Starlight]

13. How cool!!

Yes it is!!!

[faithnotgreed]

7. wow. that sounds harsh! you make us all proud

i put myself in your place and i dont know what i would have done. awful awful

it sounds like you didnt have a real sense of this racism from them before
you gave a good response when she said, of course, youre a democrat...

i sure am sorry for that though. to hear people use those slurs, even secondhand, makes me turn all shades
and then to say "youre a democrat", as if only certain people are expected to treat people with love and decency....

[BlackVelvetElvis]

8. That woman is in for some baaad karma.

She's a loser.
You were quite the lady when dealing with her. I would've told her to kiss my ass.

[sundog]

10. Better to have illusions dispelled than...

believe a facade.

I'll take the ugly truth over a candy-coated lie any day.

I usually find it's only a matter of time before individuals reveal their true face.

It's all about learning where people are coming from. In the future, you can prevent wasting time & energy on the wrong people.

Chalk it up to learning experience. Each experience teaches you a little more about how to judge character.

It also makes your own convictions & truths stronger, which is a good thing.

[madrchsod]

11. tell the neighbors

to have a bbq on the front lawn with as many family members they can find and the others to have a big mexican celebration. of course you have to find an old camaro or firebird,a dog, and a big ol`e sofa for the front lawn...

[bluestateguy]

12. Republicans want to live where everyone is white

and if there must be minorities in the neighborhood, they should "know their place".

[smiley_glad_hands]

19. Exactly.

It is so sad that in this day and age this still goes on. I live in the south and see this all the time. I'm renting in a nice middle class neighborhood, and when a minority family moved in, for sale signs started to pop up. Even at work, some of my coworkers say there moving so their kids don't have to go to school with so many minorities---making comments like "I don't want my daughter dating those kind of people". So sad and so stupid. Have we really made any progress in this country?

[Moonbeam_Starlight]

21. I asked Mr. Moonbeam once

how he would feel if our daughter dated someone of another race or ethnicity or even wanted to marry a person of another race or ethnicity. He said "Here's how I'd feel about it: do they love each other? Do they treat each other well? If the answer is yes to both questions, then I'm happy."

He and I both really don't care what color skin the person is she dates or marries. More important is WHO they are.

[Moonbeam_Starlight]

15. There's another neighbor

who is nice to the faces of minorities but makes mild jokes behind their backs (calls them "Canadians" to get away with talking about them in mixed company) and so one day I told them when we sell this house, we are ONLY selling to an African-American lesbian single mother with five kids.

Oh and three more of her family members have to live here with her, too. Maybe we'll really piss them off and win the lottery so we can just rent her the house for little to nothing.

My neighbor got a weird look on her face (remember this is a different neighbor) and said "Why would you DO that to us?"

OH MY GOD.

That clinched it. I went inside and told Mr. Moonbeam if and when we sell this house, it's ONLY to a racial and/or ethnic minority.

[Moonbeam_Starlight]

16. Something someone up above reminded me of this

there is a person I only know over the internet, but she said something one day that stayed with me permanently. She said "The day I care more about my property value than whether people have a place to live is the day I consider my soul to be dead."

We were discussing the big dust up my city went through when they wanted to build some low income housing near a fancier subdivision. The homeowners in the subdivision went freaking BALLISTIC. It was even a very well-planned, well-designed low-income housing development. Only TEN units. That's all. Not a huge complex like it was the projects or something. Studies show low-income housing spread out more in smaller numbers tend to do better, the property is kept up better and the residents tend to better their lives more quickly than when they live in big projects.

Anyway I love that quote, it is exactly how I feel.

[Momgonepostal]

23. Great quote and ITA about low income housing

This comes up in our city a lot. The city has tried to build small subsidized apartment complexes in a newer section of town and neighbors in the single family houses act like it's toxic waste.

To be eligible to live in one of the complexes, a family of four could have an income of something like $43K a year. Neighbors were in arms saying "those kind of people" would ruin the neighborhood. I wonder if any of them had any idea what entry level teachers at the fancy new neighborhood schools make a year?

[EnfantTerrible]

26. Have you heard about what they're doing in Chicago?

I saw a program on this months ago so my details are fuzzy, but the city has torn down one of the worst projects in the country, Cabrini Green, and is in the process of placing those families into integrated communities with brand new homes. What I remember being so wonderful about it all was that their neighbors to be, who were all upper-middle-class professional folks, had bought into this program with full knowledge of who would be living next door and embraced the opportunity.

Found a link to the story.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/12/11/60II/main532704.shtml

[ronnykmarshall]

48. What a great story.

This a great chance for these folks to have a brighter future.

[jonnyblitz]

20. all white is BORING!

YAWN.

[Moonbeam_Starlight]

22. No kidding I mean

I've got nothing against my own peeps, but we intentionally moved from a VERY white suburb to this one partially BECAUSE we would actually be friends with all different kinds of people.

I don't get the whole "oh my God minorities are moving in!" mindset. I mean, what is there to fear????

[Momgonepostal]

25. some of the scariest neighbors I've ever had have been white

I liked your response to your neighbor. Her's to you wasn't exactly a ringing endorsement of the Republican party, was it? LOL

We've had some terrible white neighbors. A guy who beat his girlfriend and shot their dog, a bizarro extended family with a meth. lab in the house. I'd take a nice minority family over any of those whack jobs any day.

[WindRavenX]

27. wow

"enjoy your neighborhood with n___s and wetbacks!"

I would've told her to piss off.
And then do everything I can to make sure the neighbors know she's a racist piece of shit.

[LoZoccolo]

28. Tell her you told on her!

Say that you went to your black and hispanic neighbors and told them what she said. She'll freak the fuck out I bet! She won't leave the house until it's sold!

[Name removed]

29. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[MercutioATC]

30. Wish her the best in her new neighborhood...

She may not have "n-----s" and "wetbacks", but I'm sure there'll be no shortage of "white trash".

Off topic, why do we use symbols for the "N-word" and yet still type out "wetback"? Both are obviously offensive and while I don't use either term myself, I typed them that way responding to your post. Just something that struck me...

[Moonbeam_Starlight]

36. I thought about that AS I typed it, too

I don't know. But the N word is just HORRIBLY offensive to me and I guess the other word just doesn't quite have the......history the N word does?

Plus I thought if I only typed w_____k, some people would say "huh? What was that second thing she said???"

[a kennedy]

31. Reminds me of something a casual friend said today.....

about 8 couples were watching our city's big Oktoberfest parade, and I mentioned that it was great to see some black kids finally participating in one of the marching bands. She said oh yeah, it's great, (sarcastically) and said, "you should have seen all the chinks in", (some city) I didn't really catch the name of city she said because I was so shocked she'd use the chink term. Our community is about 50,000 with the surrounding area adding about 15,000 and mostly white. I feel bad we're not more racially diverse, not like Madison Wisconsin where I was born and raised. I still can't believe that racism is alive and well in the "North". :-(

[UdoKier]

32. I've lived in very "ethnic" neighborhoods...

Some people may flee "ethnic" neighborhoods for reasons you may not think of (though your racist neighbors sound evil). I left my last neighborhood in Miami, which was mostly Hispanic, because of noisy parties until 2~4 am being the norm.

I simply have a low tolerance for noise - especially booming bass. I wouldn't like an all-white neighborhood, either, though...

[ET Awful]

33. I would have paraphrased Steve Martin in "The Jerk" and told her

Hey! I AM a N****R and really shocked the crap out of her :).

[The Backlash Cometh]

34. I might accept a swap! Does he live in Florida?

He deserves my white neighbors.

[GOPisEvil]

35. Too many white people scare me.

My neighborhood is very racially mixed, and I like it. This is a quiet neighborhood and seems very safe.

Let her be with her fellow racists. Your neighborhood deserves better than her.

[Moonbeam_Starlight]

37. Ya know the ironic thing?

This is TEXAS. She is NOT going to be able to find many completely ALL white neighborhoods. They are looking at a street about seven blocks from here that is NOT exclusive or gated or anything but just HAPPENS to have mostly white families living on it now. So what happens when a few minority families move in? Gotta move again!

Ridiculous. Like my aunt and uncle who moved from Dallas to Waxahachie in the 70s because Dallas was "too black" and THEN, in 1991, they moved WAY out into the country, because Waxahachie had become "too Mexican."

Geez. I love telling that story to racist whites, though, as a way of demonstrating how inane it is to "run" from diversity.

[GOPisEvil]

38. In a few years, they will be the minority in this state.

Run from THAT! Hahahahaha!!! Losers!

Good neighbors come in all colors as do bad neighbors. I'm pretty lucky, I have pretty good neighbors. At least they're quiet and keep their houses looking OK.

[The Backlash Cometh]

39. She needs to come to Florida. LOTS of white neighborhoods.

Gated communities, Christian white flight academies and she even gets a complimentary get-out-of-jail card if she can prove her ethnic purity.

Okay, that last part isn't true. She can get the card if she votes Republican and only has to act white.

[BiggJawn]

40. And then there's me, who doesn't know what colour his 'hood is...

I got white people on both sides of me, and old folks across the street, but that's all I know about them. That's just because I've seen them, not because I know who they are...

I don't care. People used to ask me how I could live in a neighbourhood with (gasp!) GAY people! I'd reply "What? Gay people? I never KNEW! I don't even CARE!" Of course I knew. Of COURSE I didn't care.

I was a little more concerned about the drug and pussy trade going on 5 blocks to the East of me...

[Burma Jones]

41. The funny thing is............

Folks like this really have nobody that is going to do what they want. The Democrats will not reduce hispanic immigration or mobility because we just don't do that sort of thing. The Republicans won't because their core constituency, money guys, want to keep labor rates down.

As far as your neighbor's hatred of African-Americans is concerned, well, all sorts of people are everywhere these days, and to get away from "ethnic" areas they're going to have to live in Vermont or New Hampshire, where THEY will probably be seen as someone from whom people must move away.

[Lady Effingbroke]

42. I live in a mostly Hispanic "neighborhood" (trailer park, actually)

southeast of Houston. Everyone here, Hispanic and white alike, coexists amicably, as we all share the universal human necessity of working to "put food on our family".

It will become increasingly more difficult for your neighbor to "escape" living in a multi-ethnic neighborhood, as shifting demographics (more Hispanics especially here in TX) and greater affluence give racial minorities access to better housing.

As mentioned by an earlier poster, she may well be a minority and not yet realize it. I think, at least here in Houston, the populations of whites and Hispanics are about evenly matched, with the Hispanic population rapidly increasing. This trend is expected to hold true throughout Texas for the foreseeable future, so it looks like your neighbor, with her narrow-minded views, will be keeping the moving companies in business!

Good riddance to her - send me an invitation to the block party when the moving vans roll up to cart her racist a** on out of the neighborhood.

[The Backlash Cometh]

52. There is far more community bonding in "poor communities" than

in middle to upper middle class communities. Just my observation. Probably has to do with finally being financially self-reliant and not wanting to spend any money they may need to offset a potential crisis that would put them in the poor house. I'm being kind.

[skygazer]

43. I live in California

Where whites are officially a minority. One of the things I love about it is the diversity - just in the store where I work we have whites, blacks, Mexicans, Italians, Vietnamese, an Israeli, a Russian, and we used to have a kid from Ethiopia. Our customers are of every ethnic type you can imagine. I truly enjoy it - I'm from Vermont which is not very ethnically diverse (though quite tolerant, I must say). I enjoy the languages I hear and the cultural tidbits I learn and the music I'm unfamiliar with. What a boring world it would be if we were all alike!

I like the way you handled it and I cannot believe that someone would openly make such a nasty comment (the "n" word and the "w" word, I mean). And she says "Democrat" like its a bad word - how can anyone be proud of being a racist?

[ronnykmarshall]

44. Send her coupons for U-Haul trucks

and write on them "don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out".

Then throw a big block party when they leave.

[liberalitch]

47. And a change of address kit....

hell... buy her some bubble wrap

[shrdlu]

45. The neighbor revealed more than intended...

Republican equals Racist in a lot of communities. LBJ acknowledged that passage of the civil rights act would kill Democrats in the south for generations. Elsewhere too, it seems.

[RollergirlVT]

46. I'm selling my house

For the very opposite reason. Too many repukes in the neighborhood. The other day my daughter said she decided not to join the chorus because it was "gay". That was it for me. I explained to her that her use of the term gay was derogatory and unacceptable. We are outta here.

[gollygee]

49. That is just sick

We have racist neighbors. I wish our neighborhood was more diverse. Our house was one of the first built here and we didn't know who would move in around us. It sucks.

[yellowcanine]

50. Mutter "good riddance" quietly and then throw a block party to welcome the

newcomers.

[Elginoid]

51. one thing that has bothered me about the Hispanics on our block...

Since hey moved in two years ago, my ability to enjoy my own home has been greatly diminished.
Latin music is like the proverbial fingernails-on-the-blackboard to me, and they insist and persist in playing it outside ALL DAY LONG, each and every weekend-long, all spring and summer long.
and next spring, we're selling our two-flat, taking our equity and buying a place where this won't be a problem.