The seller told her agent she wouldn’t sell to a Black woman, The New York Times reported.
The usual outrage was followed by people who wondered how this could happen in 2024.
That’s easy. Look at history. We’re simply not far removed from America’s apex of racism, and you don’t change behaviors overnight — or, in this case, over a couple of centuries.
The seller, at 84, would have been born about 1940. Working backward, that means her grandfather was likely born when the South instituted the Black Codes, which limited where the former enslaved could work and live; the Plessey case, in which the Supreme Court codified racism; and when lynching was at its height. Between 1891 and 1901, more than 1,200 Black people and 459 Whites were lynched. (Many of the White lynchings occurred because they supported Black people).
Her father would have been born around the time the film Birth of the Nation, arguably the most racist movie ever made, was popular among moviegoers. In the 1920s, White Europeans became angered when darker-skinned Italians started emigrating to America, further chipping away at the Naturalization Bill of 1790. In the bill, Congress decreed that only “free, white persons” could immigrate. By 1936, her father would have seen the federal government tell banks not to lend money to families in Black neighborhoods.
By the time the seller reached her teenage years, she would be born into the biggest racial upheaval the country had yet seen. The Supreme Court, in Brown v. Board of Education, ordered that she go to school with Black children. By the 1960s, the Civil and Voting Rights Acts further pushed for Black equality while race riots roiled the streets. She saw a Black woman, Shirley Chisolm, run for President in 1972, the first pro basketball team with all Black players in 1979, and even a Black President elected in 2008.
There’s more. In 1964, roughly 6 in 10 Americans said they supported the Civil Rights Act, but by 1965, nearly 7 in 10 wanted the government to “moderate” the law’s enforcement because integration was moving too fast.
By 1990, one poll reported that 50% of respondents knew someone who used racial slurs. Even by 2016, a poll showed as many as 50% of Trump supporters and at least 25% of Hillary Clinton supporters believed Black people to be lazy, stupid, and violent — and those are just the people who would admit their prejudice.
When people ask how this could happen, it’s often a sincere question that perplexes them.
To get the answer, you have to know history. Who knows how the seller was raised? Maybe her parents were liberal for the time and didn’t mind interacting with other races.
If that’s the case, great. But something went wrong somewhere. We know that she didn’t want to sell to a Black person, and we know that her agent and his company acknowledged the racism and apologized profusely. (The buyer did purchase the condo and has filed a discrimination complaint.)
To understand racism in 2024, you have to understand that we’re just over one generation removed from the Brown decision, the Civil Rights Act, and other laws designed to spur equality. It’s remarkable that in that short time, America has made more strides in race relations than any country ever.
So, while we should be outraged by the condo seller’s attitude, history shows us we shouldn’t be surprised.
Ray Marcano’s column appears on these pages each Sunday.
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