Apartheid. USA 1988

February 20, 1987:

Racism Ku Klux Klan style is easy to spot when it is dressed in a white robe and pointy hat. But the racism that keeps one suburb lily-white, while a neighboring suburb quietly grows more and more black, is a trickier, more elusive racism. In most ways, Franklin Square and Elmont are identical middle-class Long Island towns. But Franklin Square is less than 0.1 percent black, while its neighbor Elmont is 17 percent black. Elmont schools have changed in ten years from 88 percent white to 68 percent. White flight spread in Elmont. In 1985 New York's Secretary of State, Gail Shaffer, prohibited Elmont real-estate brokers from soliciting business. The non-solicitation order - aimed at stopping them from stirring white flight - was the first issued in New York's suburbs. Nowadays, discrimination by real-estate brokers is very subtle. Black house-hunters are not told to go away. They are made to feel unwelcome instead. Therefore New York State arranged hearings on Franklin Square Reality business. The state charged, for instance, that white house-testers, carrying an ad for a 178 000 dollars home, were shown the house around, while black testers of the same economic means were not. At one point, the state attorney asked: ‘During the time that you were at Franklin Square Reality, were you offered any refreshments?’

[p. 35]

‘Yes, twice,’ said a white tester. Question: ‘What were you offered?’ Answer: ‘Coffee’. The black tester couple who arrived the same day, said they were waited on by a woman named ‘Yo’, who wouldn't give her full name. Yo told them they probably would not like the house anyway, since it was in poor condition, and later she picked up a phone, and they heard Yo say ‘Oh, the house is old?’ The black couple asked for suggestions for another house, but Yo said she had nothing. Needless to say, the black testers were not offered a refreshment.^52.

A revolt broke out in a predominantly black neighborhood of Tampa, Florida. The melee was touched off by the death of a black man subdued by a white police officer using a choke hold. Stores were looted, car and trash fires were set and stones were hurled at police. Four men were arrested for looting. ‘It is a war zone down there,’ said Bob Gilder, former president of the Tampa chapter of the NAACP. It was reported that the dead man, black Melvine Eugene (23) had threatened four people with a knife and had attacked a police officer. Officer David D 'Agresta (25) was placed on administrative leave with pay pending an investigation. The choke-hold is designed to cut off the blood supply to the brain by applying pressure to the carotid artery in the neck, which causes unconsciousness.^53.

52. The New York Times, from a report by Michael Winerip

53. The New York Times, as reported by the Associated Press