Even in the 21st century, some neighborhoods and homeowners’ associations in Wichita and elsewhere in Kansas reportedly still have covenants barring blacks, Jews and other groups from moving in. A bill unanimously passed by both chambers of the Legislature and now before Gov. Kathleen Sebelius should push all groups to purge such language from their covenants at last, or invite legal action against them by the Kansas Human Rights Commission, local governments or individuals. Nearly 60 years after the U.S. Supreme Court deemed such covenants unenforceable, it is such racist language that is unwelcome in this state.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
Registered?
Commenting on WE Blog now requires you to be a Kansas.com member. Use the links above to register, if you haven't already, or to log in.Contact us
Follow us
Daily Archives
-
Recent Comments
- Monkeyhawk on Open thread 11/23
- cosmos_originally on Open thread 11/23
- cosmos_originally on Open thread 11/23
- outlander on Open thread 11/23
- Freebird1971 on Open thread 11/22
- Regular on Let immigrants run
- SolDevVB on Let immigrants run
- Monkeyhawk on Let immigrants run
- Regular on Open thread 11/23
- okobserver on Let immigrants run
17 Comments
Isn’t it amazing how a state that wants ID to be taught in schools still has racist language in some of the neighborhood by-laws. Makes one wonder whether the word “Intelligent” shouldn’t be stricken from the phrase.
Just how many neighborhoods have this and are their boards even active anymore?
Nathan has an excellent point. The initial comment says some convenants ‘reportedly’ have restrictions.
Who is reporting these? The same people who get stopped for speeding and claim racism?
Is our legislature falling all over itself to be politically correct without having all the facts?
Nathan and Raptor,It is not an attempt at being politically correct to ban racist language now in place in neighborhood covenants not only in Kansas, but many states. Many of these were written in the 30’s and 40’s and have never been corrected. But there are also many written since then whose only purpose was to bar anyone but white people from living in those neighborhoods.
That is racism. It exists and it needs to be stomped out. So I find it difficult to understand your posts concerning this issue. Are you saying it’s okay for the language to be in there? Are you saying that the problem is so small, it doesnt deserve a law to elimimate it?
You asked for facts. Here are some:http://www.senate.state.mo.us/05info/members/newsrel/d09/42105.pdf
http://academic.udayton.edu/Race/04needs/housing01.htm
http://neworleans.indymedia.org/news/2005/11/6415.php
http://time-proxy.yaga.com/time/archive/preview/0,10987,984466,00.html?internalid=ACA
http://wwwsoc.nii.ac.jp/jaas/periodicals/JJAS/PDF/2003/No.14-007.pdf
Nathan and raptor make legitimate points. These anachronisms are unenforceable anyway; is it worth the resources to try to ferret tham out? If there were any being written currently I would definitely want to go after them but the no-longer-valid ones are not really worth the effort.
No I don’t think that any of it is ok.
I am saying I think this thread is kind of blowing it out of proportion.
Kind of pointing at a problem that isn’t saying look here!
Settle down, JW. I was asking for facts, and yes, you provided several, dating back to 1906. As Ben astutely pointed out, they are unenforceable anyway.
As long as the legislature has so much time on their hands to avoid real issues like school finance, why not go after a few more old laws that are equally unenforceable? Like the following:
Kansas
It is illegal for restaurants to sell cherry pie a la mode on Sundays.In Wichita, it is illegal to carry a concealed bean snapper.In Lang, it is illegal to ride a mule down Main Street in August, unless the animal is wearing a straw hat.In Natoma, it is illegal to throw a knife at any one wearing a striped shirt.
Relevance, Walker. I am not endorsing state sponsored racism. I was just questioning the ‘reported’ aspect.
When I bought a house in Coffeyville about 15 years ago, there was such a covenent in my abstract, barring sale to anyone of African descent. It was an interesting historical anachronism, however, and little more. Such covenents are unenforceable in any case.
I’ll take the opposite tack – I’d leave the language in those covenents: not because I believe they should be enforced (they absolutely should not) but to remind us of where we’ve been. Like it or not, that past is part of our history; too quickly we forget about our racist past and the progress we still need to make.
Is this the most important thing the legislature has to do? Write bills to remove legally irrelevent language that most people don’t know exists anyway? That’s a feel-good bill; gives us a warm fuzzy but accomplishes nothing. The HRC won’t (and should’t) take action unless some idiot tries to enforce such a covenent.
In Wichita, it is illegal to carry a concealed beaner.In Lang, it is illegal to ride a mule down Main Street in August, unless your a#s is wearing a straw hat.
A friend of mine who was a child in the late 1970’s growing up in Oklahoma said that many places still had “Black Only” bathrooms and enterances.
Still some old things around like that.
Off Topic, but what is a Bean Snapper?
Joe, you are a youngster, aren’t you?
I gotta ask the same question as Joe – and I definitely ain’t a youngster!
Written into the neighborhood’s bylaws by Boeing founder William Boeing, restrictions prohibited the sale or lease of the homes to anyone who wasn’t white. Blacks and Asians, the restrictions said, could occupy the homes only as domestic servants.
Residents of Innis Arden, an upper-middle-class neighborhood overlooking Puget Sound,in Washington state have been trying to collect enough signatures to erase the embarrassing little secret from their record books.
Blacks and Asians represent 7 percent of residents at Innis Arden today among the 500-plus homes, north of Seattle.
Anyone who owns property should know the history of the deed, especially in old neighborhoods. Those covenants should be erased.
Getting it done quickly doesn’t happen since its a legislative process.
Nathan,Everything I wrote was relevant. Your bringing up archaic laws having nothing to do with the topic is irrevelant. The fact I included links to laws written as far back as 1906, and still on the books is relevant. The fact that it is still a problem makes it relevant. The fact that the legislature is doing something about it is relevant.
As Mrage stated in his post, it is something that needs to be taken care of. Fortunately, it is.
JM,
You might check the name under the post before you start debating…
So there are restrictions posted in a covenent. A covenent is not legally binding or enforcable. Many developers will try to tell you they are but any attorney will tell you that all they are is an attempt to keep conformance within a community but have are not enforceable.