Michael Baisden’s Cohost Victim of Racism By Boyce Watkins, PhD on Aug 16th 2010 9:14AM Filed under: News, Politics, Race and Civil Rights
Print Serious charges of racial discrimination have been laid out against a Chicago couple for refusing to sell their home to a black comedian and his family.
Apparently, the family’s real estate agent informed government officials that the couple chose not to sell their home to the comedian because he is black. George Wilborn is not only the victim of the couple’s discrimination, he is also a co-host of The Michael Baisden Show.
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development announced on August 10 that they will charge Daniel and Adrienne Sabbia, as well as their real estate agent Jeffrey Lowe with violation of fair housing laws. According to HUD, the family and their agent stalled negotiations with Wilborn and even took the home off the market in order to avoid selling it to him. Wilborn and his wife Peytyn offered $1.7 million for the house, which was the highest offer the couple had received in two years.
Lowe, the real estate agent, admitted that the couple did not want to sell the home to the Wilborn family because they are black. “Racial fairness is important at all income levels.
Civil rights enforcement must be the effective shield against housing discrimination that in this case wealth was not,” said John Trasviña, HUD Assistant Secretary for Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity. “We went and saw the house one more time and as we left, something occurred,” Willborn said. “My family and I felt strange. Let’s just say it was a really quiet ride home after this happened.” Wilborn filed a complaint in January about the Sabbia’s behavior. After finding out that the complaint had been filed, they offered to sell the home, fully furnished, for $1.8 million.
The Wilborns declined to take the second offer. Wilborn plans to take the issue as far as he can, including speaking about it in public. Good for George Wilborn. For every case of discrimination that goes reported, there are hundreds that are swept under the rug. By using the courts to remedy such discrimination, Wilborn has put others on notice that this kind of behavior will simply not be tolerated.
I am also happy to see that Wilborn didn’t reward the alleged racists in this situation by taking their second offer. If they did indeed discriminate against Wilborn because of his race, they should learn very quickly that racism is just not profitable.
He is just famous and it got out there…TRACK
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August 20, 2010
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How funny....i only very recently (within last week) read the coconut oil articles on the web. (100 uses, 80 uses etc.) so i bouht some and ordered some from amazon. (Im a stockpiler.)
Have started trying some of the uses. I tried using it a
If your going to be financially secure enough to venture out and see whats available in the B & B field...take your time and check it out. If you have to jump into a job..just to have one..you will not be happy. Hope you get the time to find wh
Thanks for posting this, TRACK. I agree that is good that Wilburn declined their snively toady yellow-bellied lame second offer. The whole situation is unexcuasable and dispicable and deplorable and….well just
F them!
Namaste, Just love your genteel way, l.o.l…TRACK
back acha! and just WHERE have you been, Missy?
Minnasota, Wisconsin, Maryland, Washington, D.C., great time and fun…TRACK
DC!!!??? and you didn’t call me!!!!!!
Sorry didn’t remember or know you were there, next time, o,k, :-/…TRACK
YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Hey, you were here in MD? Sure have missed you guys around here…It’s been a little dull, I must say!!
So nice of you to say
)…TRACK
Thanks for this detail post kind of shows that some people will cut off their nose to smite their face…
I hope they lose big and I would not want to live in their home I would hope they will do one or two things don’t buy it or buy it and get enough to tear it down and build a new one.!! that would speak volumes.
The time is over for this kind of stupid behavior… and even though I don’t use the F word I can agree there is a time and a place for every thing….you go Namaste!!
“Off with their heads!”
Fay, Wouldn’t want anyone to think I make it up as I go along…TRACK
Unbelievable!!
Amazing….simply amazing. Thanks for sharing TRACK.
Wow. My mouth is still hanging open, TRACK. In this kind of housing market, they felt it was more important to not sell their damn house to a black couple than to make more money than they could ever have expected to get?
Ohhhh, I’m SO glad he’s suing them. There are plenty of other houses out there he can buy. Thank God he picked up on some “odd vibes” and wouldn’t let them suddenly have a mysterious change of heart and allow him to pay them an extra million at the last minute after they realized they might be in trouble. Hooray for George Wilborn.
Michael Jackson said it best, “They don’t care nothing about us”. We hear it all the time in the news, we live it and experience it everyday. It is a hurtful thing to be a race that is unwanted when we did not create ourselves. God created us all in his image. I attempted to post a question months ago on VN and the question was why do they hate us. Of course the moderator chose not to publish it. But it is a fact. Racism/discrimination has not gone anywhere. Yes we are intergrated in many ways but everyday someone has been discriminated against because of their race not only in the housing industry but employment and other ways as well. Will it ever end? No is the answer! Hopefully is a dream!
There is this appliance/electronic store here in Houston named Conn’s whose director of personnel came straight out and told me that she could not consider me for employment because of my hair. I have dread locks. Now what pissed me off about this besides the fact of what she said was that I met this woman at a job fiar the day before. She shook my head, took my resume, gave me her business card and scehduled the appointment. But the moment I walked into her office to sit down the first thing came out of her mouth was that she could not consider me for employment because of my hair. She went on to say, I am sorry you had to drive over here because I did not think to tell you this at the job fair on yesterday. But she did not say anything about hair to the other applicants that was there before me and after me, none of which were afro americans. The mindset is that dreads are dirty, well anybody’s hair can be dirty if they don’t maintain it. I shampoo my hair at least twice a week which is out of the norm for our hair type, many people only go to the beauty salon once a week. So that means my hair is cleaner than most. Attractive she said it was but she could not consider me for employment, never looking at my resume. Seh then continued to insult me by saying would I consider changing my hair, I said to her you can consider this interview over. She couldnt’ consider me for employment because of a hairstyle but she had this young white female with her tits showing working the front desk where all the male associates could come in and get their grove on by looking at her exposed tits.
What was most odd was that EEOC determined that it was not discrimination. It is a hairstyle so what was the point. I am not the only person that this has been made a condition of obtaining employment or keeping a job. Here in Texas it is common, I have heard people say I have to cut my dreads because I am looking for work. When looking for work I once wore a wig and then blew their minds when I showed up for work with my natural hair. I did not persue it this time because I was blessed with a better job.
The man that I was involved with at that time, he and I went to that company’s store and he purchased several items from them totaling approximately 4000.00 nobody cared what color my skin was or what hairstyle I had, the only thing they cared about was making a sell.
With all the struggles we have had to overcome you would think that the day would be here that we all could live as one nation, under God.
Alma, This is the second time I have seen you post your dreadlock employment story. I can tell you why the EEOC determined it wasn’t discrimination. The law says that employers can make up any rule whatsoever they want to in their workplace — any rule — as long as 1) they enforce the rule consistently on everyone and 2) the rule does not discriminate on the basis of age, sex, race, religion or national origin. So if an employer chooses not to hire people who wear their hair in dreadlocks, they can. As long as they enforce that rule with everyone–regardless of their race. The fact that she asked you if you would consider changing your hair demonstrated that she wasnt NOT hiring you because of your race, but because of your hair. Yes I recognize that most dreadlock wearers are black. But not all are ……I’ve seen dreadlocks on white people too. But if their rule is no dreadlocks, then its no dreadlocks. Black, white, brown or green.
And they can also say they wont hire anyone who ever wears purple to work either if they want to. As long as they enforce this rule consistently on everyone, they can do it. Its the law. As long as the rules are consistently enforced and do not discriminate based on those protected classes I mentioned (age, race, sex et al)…..they get to do it.
DL, I didn’t know that, thanks for the information…TRACK
Thanks for your response. But you know what I failed to mention that she included braids but when I went to their store to shop there was a woman working there with braids. Hmmmm! There have been other employers that I heard of via the news that pulled this same stunt and they were made to rewrite their personnel policies. I could have persued this but why bother, I had other things to do and like I said I got a bettter job anyway. Texas is an “AT Will” state so like slavery this state is the last to do a lot of things.
This was a few years ago and now since Katrina and dreads are very popular with our neighbors from Louisianna so I think a lot of employers have had to rethink and rewrite their so-called personnal policies.
Anyway the bottom line is somebody, somewhere is always looking for reasons to discriminate againt us be it our hair, skin, something; housing, employment, relationships, etc. They Don’t Care Nothing About Us – quote – Mr. Michael J. Jackson.
Alma, Dr. King told me what to do years ago, “don’t purchase or use your money there!” yet we act like we must have everything they are offering.
I was invited to breakfast in another state (Conn.) and my friends wanted to go to Denny’s Rest., I let them know I would not be going with them, explain an FBI agent was ignored by staff and serviced his Anglo-Saxon counterparts. He sued and won, but I still will not eat there, my choice.
No one can change a wicked/hate full/prejudice heart but GOD. Another reason I didn’t bother with “I have a brown/black friend” folk, cause many are still just playing the game and some for profit!! And that goes for people I have befriended already when I find out the truth, don’t need your friendship, I’m hard but fair…TRACK…
P.S. Please, let them speak with “THE CREATOR GOD” about all created you have a problem with Skin,Hue,Tone,Size,Height,Nations, People, Tribes and Tongues I believe “THE CREATOR” can straighten you out…JOB 38-39..this should put you in your place…
rack you are an awesome individual and I noticed that you always back up your posts with references from the Bible. That is good and I am surprised at how many people don’t want to talk religion. But it is good that someone in this world believes in living according to what the Bible states and treating their fellowman as such. Indeed we are a unique people and so is each and every one else. If we would embrace each other we would learn that there is nothing different about the opposite. I think that for those of us who want to do right all want to live in peace, we all want equal opportunities and to be treated fairly and respected. If we would embrace each other we would learn that we have similar likes and dislikes, similar joys and disappointments, struggles and accomplishments. Take for instance something very simple, they say we as afro amercians love red, Chinese, Japanese people and so on love the color red. There are people who have made negative comments about afro americans and watermelon but look at how many people love watermelon, an item that is in every Chinese restaurant I have ever been in. In college I participated on a panel that addressed the multi-cultural environment on college campuses. This one professor had did a study and determined that afro americans learn slower than other races. He compared us with the Japanese race. I said to him as a student we all have obstacles that hindered us from learning. My fellow classmates from other countries taught me how to cheat. For instance if one of their friends took English 101 at 11:00 and the other at another time then the one who was in the earlier class would give that person the answers to the test, or they would have the answers written in their translation dictionaries which they were allowed to use in class. I asked why should education be discriminatory it is always this way someone is comparing blacks with other races. If a study is done we are always compared with the next race. Why? People are people, there is good and bad in every race. When will it end?
Also while in college one of my instructors came to me one day and said I hope it does not bother you that there is a woman in the class from South Africa. Show you how country I was each class I looked for this individual who had characteristics like me but I never saw her, I assume she had dropped the class. She came up to me in another class and introduced herself and said she hoped that her presense did not make me uncomfortable. I asked her why, she said because she was from South Africa. I was no dumb, I did know that there were white people anywhere in Africa and certainly I could not hold that against her. I said to her if I held everybody responsible for what someone else did I would live in this world alone. I have been abused by more black men than anybody. We became the very best of friends. I was welcomed in her home and I was able to travel to South Africa via her photographs, food, memories and other things she shared with me. If we would only open our minds.
You made the point about spending our monies in places where we are not respected and appreciated. We wonder about that also. We don’t have the control over the black hair care products it is monoplized by the asian culture but yet they don’t offer us jobs. The nails salons are packed with th business of afro american women but I have yet to see an afro american woman working in one. Chris Rock did a documentary called Good Hair. We buy their hair (well not me) but anyway the hair is bought from them, they control the industry and yet none of the hair is from a black woman’s head and they make it difficult for the blacks that are in the business to be a part of the buying process. Its ans eye opening documentary. This is not hate talk it is reality, they put their businesses in the predominantly black neighborhoods, put the cheap beer at the front door but yet they don’t want us to hire us or for us to live in their neighborhoods. Why? ONe thing for sure though they all want our men! Hmmmm
Some how I left the T off Track, sorry about that. my mind moves faster than my fingers sometime. Have an awesome day.