DebG
Pick a cause & stand up for it
Member since 5/05 18602 total posts
Name:
The cure IS worse!
|
Am I the only one shocked that things like this still happen?
Families' fears grow after latest cross burning
August 9, 2005
BY NIRAJ WARIKOO
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER
Tired of crime in Detroit, Sean Dean left for a home on a quiet suburban block. Like a growing number of African Americans, the 33-year-old sanitation worker saw his future outside the city where he was born and raised.
But Monday, he stood near what appeared to be evidence of another racially motivated attack directed against an African-American family in the suburbs. And he wondered: Am I welcome here?
That's a question several black suburbanites are asking after several attacks have raised concerns among prosecutors and civil rights activists. The latest attack was down the block from Dean's home. Early Sunday, someone burned a 6-foot cross on the Davis family's lawn in Dearborn Heights, police say.
"It's so archaic... someone is walking around with that mindset," said Gregory Davis, a construction worker who lives in the home with his wife, three kids and grandchildren. "I'm mad. ... I don't bother anybody."
Warren, Troy and Trenton have seen similar hate crimes over the past two months. On Monday, Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy charged two Taylor men with ethnic intimidation in the cross burnings outside the home of a biracial family who live on a mostly white block in Trenton.
Source
Honestly, I had no idea things like this still happened! Do I just live in a bubble?
|
Jax430
Hi!
Member since 5/05 18919 total posts
Name:
Jackie
|
Re: Am I the only one shocked that things like this still happen?
It absolutely disgusts me. Here's another related article:
No choice but to move
After months of hate mail, interracial Smithtown family relocates
Hate comes in the mailbox
Apr 2, 2005
BY THERESA VARGAS
STAFF WRITER
August 12, 2005
For months, Lois and Mitchell Fuchs put up with the hate mail flooding their mailbox -- slurs aimed at her because she's black and at him because he's Jewish. Then came a typed note, bearing the words, "Where's Hitler when you need him?"
"That did it for us," Lois Fuchs said.
The mother of seven decided that day two months ago that her family had no choice but to move. Thursday, before the sun even woke their sleepy Smithtown street, at 5 a.m., they left for North Carolina.
"We didn't know where else to go," Lois Fuchs said. "My parents just moved to North Carolina and they said, 'Please come, we don't have those crazy people here.'"
Fuchs isn't naive enough to believe it's a racial utopia there, but it is an escape.
Smithtown is considerably less diverse than not only neighboring towns, but the rest of the nation. According to the latest census figures, 95.5 percent of Smithtown's 115,715 residents are white versus 75 percent for the nation. Less than 1 percent of the town's population is black, like Lois Fuchs, or two or more races, like her children.
While Smithtown supervisor Patrick Vecchio acknowledged the demographics are changing at a rate slower than other places, he characterized the Fuchses situation as rare.
"Smithtown is not a racist community, but there will always be someone full of hate who will act in such a terrible way," Vecchio said.
Suffolk County police began investigating the mailings in March, after the couple received a half-dozen solicitations with their last name replaced by racial epithets for either African-Americans or Jews. At that time police suspected it was someone in the neighborhood.
Officers with the Hate Crime Bureau enlisted the help of the FBI and the postal service, but said Thursday they were unable to move on the case because no laws were violated.
"It fell in a gray area, unfortunately," Det. Sgt. Robert Reecks said, adding it would have been different if there had been an explicit threat. "Unfortunately, she is a victim of a crime that's not a crime."
At a garage sale before they left, the Fuchses said dozens of neighbors came with condolences, saying they hoped the mailings weren't the reason for the move.
But not everyone was sorry to see the family go.
Lynne Niebuhr, who lives across the street, said she was upset over the unkempt condition of their house. "That's the only thing I had against them -- just clean your house," she said, adding that it was never about race, as far as she knew.
"We had lovely Negro, um, African-American neighbors to the left and right," said Niebuhr, who is not suspected of sending the mailings. "I think all that was blown out of proportion."
The Fuchses, however, describe months of fear that eventually took a toll on their oldest daughter, 9.
At the beginning, the couple soothed her, telling her the mailings were addressed to the "Nasties." But after the child's fears intensified to the point where she didn't want to get on the school bus in the morning, she was placed in psychological counseling.
After the last note, Lois Fuchs gave up her teaching position at Hofstra University for a professor position at Gilford College in Greensboro, teaching criminal justice. Mitchell Fuchs left his accounting job.
"As a parent, I feel I am doing the right thing" by leaving, Lois Fuchs said. "If it was just us we would stay and fight it. With the kids, it's not worth it."
|
