It has been said one way to get a mule's attention is to hit him on his head with a two-by-four. But, committing an egregious offense to attract attention to whatever one is protesting is not a good idea. A man in Arizona recently learned that the hard way. Upset with neighbors, he decided to erect a sign saying his home was for sale. Not a problem. For sale by owner signs are allowed in his community. But, the sign did not stop there. It said "4 Whites only." The sign engendered consternation among observers, including officials from the state attorney general's office. The few neighbors willing to speak were blase, though. No private citizens filed a complaint about the sign, though it clearly violates laws against racial discrimination. Meanwhile, the homeowner kept a low profile. But, eventually, a reporter discovered his identity and he consented to an interview. The man's reason for posting the sign is not what you would expect. The West Valley View has the details.
John Miranda swears he is not a racist. In fact, he believes that he is a victim of racial discrimination.
And that, the 68-year-old former Marine says, is why he attached a sign reading “4 Whites Only” to the “For Sale by Owner” sign that stands in front of his Waddell home.
“All my life, I’ve seen bigotry,” said Miranda, who is of Hispanic heritage. “That’s why I did this — because I’m seeing bigotry again. I knew the sign was going to draw the attention of the media, and I would be able to explain my side.”
The local property owners association allegedly ignored Miranda's request that a ditch dug behind his home be filled. He ended up paying the cost of the task himself. Miranda believes he was treated shabbily by the POA because he is Hispanic.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Tom
I agree, he went over the board. Even if was demonstrating absurdity by being absurd, it was wrong.
Though I do wonder one thing. Many black people think it's okay to call each other "nigger", but get angry when a white guy says it. Why the double standard?
I think to erase these bigotries is to do so on both sides. Both sides must erase the ingrained bigotries, customs, words and phrases which lead to racism.
2 - Chris Kent
Miranda was pissed and he wanted the neighborhood/city to know it. What better way than to put up a "4 Whites Only" sign? And he knew he could get away with it since he was Hispanic. A white man puts up a similar sign for similar reasons and hundreds of people are protesting in front of his house. As is, the story has already gained national exposure. It was a dumb thing to do. But when a dumb man is pissed, a man does dumb things. The obsessively politically correct times we live in turns such stupid acts into attractive powder kegs to be lit by any dork wishing to rattle the cage. Thus, it will happen again and again because of the tightly-wound atmosphere our society resides in.
I will say this. A black man puts up a sign in his front yard saying "4 Blacks Only" and it will not get half the coverage. Oh, some unlucky reporter will get the assignment, and he/she will timidly ask the poor sod a few questions, and then the story will be buried at the bottom of Page 8 in the Metro section, beneath the obit of a former school teacher.
This is not an example of on-going racism in our society. It is an example of the obsessively politically correct society we live in, causing one stupid act to receive unwarranted publicity.
3 - Mac Diva
I want to clarify that I'm not saying Miranda had a legitimate discrimination complaint. Chances are that the neighbor who had the ditch dug should have filled it in. But, with no ability to enforce that, he ended up footing the bill. I gather he believes a white person would have been backed by the POA. However, unless the guidelines cover the problem at issue, I don't think so.
4 - Al Barger
This post makes a perfect example of the kind of ugly left wing authoritarianism so common today. Saying that posting this sign constitutes "illegal" activity ("he broke the law")constitutes clear ignorance and/or willful disregard for the First Amendment.
Whether he had a good argument or not, this guy was obviously making a political protest - indeed a protest against racial discrimination, as he understands it. The First Amendment says nothing about having a right to free speech - unless someone decides that it hurts their itty bitty feelings.
It would be illegal to refuse to offer property for sale and then refuse to sell it to someone based on their race. However, Miranda was clearly not doing this, nor intending anything even similar. Nor was he merely "jesting."
You might decide that you think Mr Miranda is a big jerk and an evil man, or some such. At least, however, he is not advocating thug behavior from the government to silence other people's free speech.
5 - Phillip Winn
Those who defend this sign tend to overlook the impact that America's past has had on people. Leaving aside the legal question, certain types of speech are clearly more free than others. In many parts of this country, people are free to burn trash or leaves on their own property, but burning a cross is a completely different matter. Certain symbols and statements are so intrinsically linked with decades of hatred and mistreatment that their use must be considered primarily as echoing that hatred and mistreatment. That in this particular case the person posting the sign felt he was making a statement about his own treatment is interesting, but it doesn't change the fact that people driving by that sign faced a symbol of hatred and oppression.
Incidentally, his complaint seems silly and his apparent claim that he would have been treated better if white seems silly too, but the method in which he expressed his frustration was ill-advised.
6 - Douglas Mays
How about "No Assholes Allowed". That is what is really desired. Then again, maybe "No Pollacks". How about "No Mouthbreathers OR Gumchewers"
peaceloveguidance
7 - Chris Kent
Those who defend this sign tend to overlook the impact that
America's past has had on people.
Maybe Phillip, but I'm going to take a wild guess and say you are
probably - hmmmmm - 25? 26? You weren't even born in the 1960s. In
fact, just about all of us were either in diapers or just a twinkle when the
Civil Rights Revolution took place. America's past is so, so distant
today that we really do not have a remote clue. There are very few in
this room who know the "impact of America's past." It's a good crutch
and a good excuse to hate. But most people today weren't even alive
when such signs as "4 Whites Only" even existed.
The "past" has nothing to do with why this sign offends. It is our
obsessively politically correct society offended by this dumb sign.
Most people just laugh and shake their heads.
If I see a sign that says "4 Blacks Only" I would laugh, shake my head and
quietly whisper "What an idiot," then go on to work, run errands, or
whatever it is that needs to be accomplished that day.....
8 - Phillip Winn
Actually, Chris, I'm a bit older than your estimate, but thanks -- I feel a little younger now!
Believe me, I do understand your perspective. It does at time seem as if race problems are in America's past, and that we all need to move on and let go of past hurts. After all, we can all eat at the same restaurants (er, unless they belong to a "private club," at least), and we can all use the same drinking fountains, and we can all go to the same colleges (er, unless the slots are all filled with "legacy admissions," at least), and so on.
And yet, despite the fact that your estimate of my age was inaccurate, I'm willing to make a guess about you: Your skin is probably pretty white. Maybe pink, maybe tan, but some color in the "causcasian" range. And so you, like many "white" people, estimate that the race problems ended with the Civil Rights Act, or shortly thereafter. Now that 9/11 has silenced a lot of the complaining about "racial profiling" during traffic stops, a "white" person can easily get away with thinking that the problems are truly in the past. And yet. And yet.
I remember the past so that it doesn't happen again. I remember the past so that I know that what people did then, we could do again. I remember how the people of Germany elected Adolf Hitler and generally did little or nothing to stop his awful plans, and millions died. I remember how we all looked the other way while Stalin killed even more people. I remember how even the "good" people in the 1960s were happy to sit at home and avoid the whole fuss, despite the fact that human beings were being killed over foolish pseudo-scientific ideas that formed a basis for hatred.
I look around and I see that American voters aren't interested in genocide in Sudan, or the Congo, while we rush to send troops into several different European ("white") countries to intervene there. Maybe we should stay out of all of them, or maybe we should get involved in all of them -- that's a political question. My question is, Why are we involved only in the "white" countries?
America's race problems will only stay in the past (as much as they are in the past) for as long as we remember them and ensure that they never happen again. This is widely accepted as truth when it comes to "other people," like Germans (about Hitler), but for some reason when it comes to "us," we feel differently.
P.S. If you see such a sign, you can be confident that you're missing out on nothing really important. Now imagine that you've got to walk ten miles to find a drinking fountain because of that sign. Or imagine that you can't go to work, because you can't get a job, because you grew up in a neighborhood with hideous schools.
9 - Chris Kent
*rolls eyes*
Ok Phillip, you're 27, and I doubt seriously you were around to even remotely see the first Super Bowl, much less Hitler's murder of millions and Stalin's rape of trillions.
I am well aware of the old saying "remember the past or you will be destined to repeat it," and frankly wish you had just written that rather than force me to read your hour-long sermon.
The sign was dumb and of little consequence. The fact it has become a big deal has nothing to do with members of the Jewish faith being lined up for concentration camps. I say those living in fear of such terrors today are the very people most likely to commit them. Those jumping on the obsessive politically correct bandwagon are MORE likely to lynch than not......
10 - Mac Diva
I go out in the world looking different from Chris Kent on a daily basis. Since I live in a 'white neighborhood,' traffic stops without a reasonable basis are not a recurring problem. But, if I were to live in Northeast Portland or the Central District of Seattle, they would be. I do get followed in department stores. Rude service, including white people being waited on first sometimes and having my bags checked when I leave the store. (I draw the line at looking in my purse. They can just go on and arrest me at that point.) I have been told to leave stores when I refused to hand over my computer backpack. Another chronic issue is housing discrimination. Steering and suddenly unavailability of apartments and houses still happens often. I usually send someone white to check out housing I'm interested in. My ex and longterm significant other knew that when it came to housing or getting taxis, that was their role A white bank robber stands a better chance of flagging down a taxi in most cities than a black college professor.
I don't remember whites only signs, but my older siblings do. (Though we say '60s for the civil rights movement, much of the discrimination continued into the '70s because of the massive resistance counter-movement.) I do remember a cross-burning and the some radical Lumbees fighting back when the Klan came around. I also recall several people being killed in Greensboro during a civil rights rally. (Not the sit-ins. That was a much earlier.)
Another of those things that don't happen anymore that are always happening is the use of racial slurs. I have been called things hundreds of times that I am sure Chris Kent has not been called even once.
It seems to me that wishful thinking is dominating realistic thinking on someone's part.
11 - Mac Diva
A link to coverage of the 1979 civil rights protest when people were killed. I have relatives throughout the golden triangle (High Point, Greensboro and Winston-Salem) and spent a lot of time there growing up.
12 - Phillip Winn
Chris, for someone "well aware" of the saying, you seem to understand it not at all.
I am afraid that my "sermon" was indeed wasted on those who most needed to read and understand it, but I think your statements (especially "those living in fear of such terrors today are the very people most likely to commit them") speak for themselves.
13 - Chris Kent
Actually Phillip, your sermon made me laugh as it was so obvious as to be yawn-inducing. You're preaching to the choir, and none too effectively.
MD's stuff is relevant and gives me pause. I still stand by much of what I say, but I can see MD's point.
14 - Shark
Two points:
1) I do remember seeing "whites only" and "colored only" drinking fountains when I was a young child, but then -- as everyone on BC assumes -- I'm like 100 years old.
2) The people who put out signs, sport confederate flags, etc. aren't near as dangerous as the ones who DON'T PUT OUT SIGNS.
Carry on.
15 - Eric Olsen
Thanks MD, a very fine post and I agree with your conclusions explicitly
16 - Dan
"The people who put out signs, sport confederate flags, etc. aren't near as dangerous as the ones who DON'T PUT OUT SIGNS"
I agree with shark here. Recently, June 14, in the lower section of downtown Denver, Colorado (known as LoDo), about a dozen men (all black) went on a rampage, smashing car windows and dragging innocent people from their vehicles for savage beatings, all the while video taping themselves (presumably for a few laughs later on).
Although not as horrific as the specter of white racism induced by a Hispanic placing a sign, or as harrowing as being passed over by a cab driver, I'd bet those white victims could have benefited from a sign of some sort.
17 - Phillip Winn
Gee, what was I thinking? I guess that as long as there are violent people in this world, we should bother people who just put out racist signs. It's all a matter of priorities, see, and cluttering the front yards of suburbia with racists signs doesn't cut it.
What's that? Suburbs aren't the same as downtown? Hey, come on, man. Don't harsh on my mellow. I'm just saying that if there is violence in a downtown near you, you should leave the people with racist signs alone, okay?
It all makes so much sense now.
Not.
18 - Dan
"It all makes so much sense now.
Not"
I agree, I can't even tell what you're saying here.
19 - Phillip Winn
I'll make it simple for you: What does the behavior of thugs in downtown Denver have to do with the racist behavior of Miranda in suburban Arizona? Nothing at all. Zip, zilch, zero.
So, uh, why bring it up, unless to distract from the original story?
20 - boomcrashbaby
Recently, June 14, in the lower section of downtown Denver, Colorado (known as LoDo), about a dozen men (all black) went on a rampage, smashing car windows and dragging innocent people from their vehicles for savage beatings, all the while video taping themselves (presumably for a few laughs later on).
When I first read this, my initial thought wasn't that the assailants were racists. Is there more to this story, or do you have proof that it was racially motivated?
When I first read it, I saw 'downtown' and then a mention of a dozen men committing a crime on camera for laughs, which made me think of frat hazing or gang initiation. Since it was 'downtown', I guess gang initiation sounded more plausible. Also, because it sounds more violent then something a frat house would do.
I mean, it's possible their actions could be driven by racism, but I don't see how you can tell that, based on what you just presented. Do you know if they shouted racial epithets or was it eventually proven that there was racism behind it? Did they 'pass over' African Americans sitting in fear in their cars?
I thought Phillip's point that you couldn't get, was that all racism is bad, advertised or not.
21 - Dan
Oh, Ok thanks. My point is: I didn't say I agreed with the sign, but it seems to me that fretting over a sign while ignoring much more serious racial violence is like re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.
22 - Al Barger
Phil- How exactly was Miranda's behavior "racist"? Did Miranda's sign somehow show that he thinks on race inferior to others?
His gesture with this sign was ill-conceived, and generated some grief unnecessary and irrelevant to his point. It was a poor idea.
Nonetheless, he apparently had no idea or intention of elevating one race over another in any way. Again, therefore, how was it racist.
Eric, you "explicitly" agree with the author's conclusions. You mean you think that Miranda broke the law?
23 - Eric Olsen
putting up a for sale sign on a house that says "4 whites only"? I would say that was pretty explicitly against fair housing laws.
24 - Al Barger
It would be not only illegal but wrong to refuse to sell your house to someone on the basis of race, but Miranda did nothing of the sort. Unless I'm misunderstanding, he was not in fact trying to sell the house at all.
It was purely a political protest, not an attempt at a real estate transaction. Again, not at all a tactic that I would endorse, but nonetheless protected free speech.
25 - Mac Diva
I did find a news story about an altercation in downtown Denver. However, the account given by Dan Precht above is false. One small group of men attacked some people in one car. "A dozen men." "Dragging people out of vehicles." Exaggerations. "Innocent"? There is no way of knowing what previous contact occurred between assailants and victims because the victims have refused to come forward.
I also found Dan Precht's source for the material he posted above. It is National Vanguard, a site run by the Aryan Nations. It is typical of such sites to claim racial animus where none is established. And, to describe nonwhites as 'savages' and whites as 'innocent' regardlessly, is par for the course for AN. [edited]
Here's the copy-and-paste citation for the news story:
http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1413,36~53~2236227,00.html