Hateful Speech (racial ignorance in an affluent Little Rock suburb)

[ChoralScholar]

I have to say - I am disappointed in my fellow Arkansans.

From the Arkansas Times
http://www.arktimes.com/Articles/ArticleViewer.aspx?ArticleID=0f2bc5be-7043-478b-ab70-4597810bc8b0
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In the second week of February, Cassandra and Edward Terry, an African-American couple, moved with their two children to the Country Club of Arkansas neighborhood in Maumelle.

Cassandra, a mental health care professional, and Edward, a member of the Arkansas National Guard, were pleased with the decision — they felt they had found the right house, and they were impressed with local Maumelle Middle School.

But not everyone on the block was happy to have them there. On Feb. 26, less than two weeks after the family settled into their new home, Cassandra Terry opened her mailbox and found this letter:

Just a note from ALL your new neighbors in the new neighborhood. This is a white neighborhood and if you have to choose to live in a white neighborhood ACT white not like niggers. Keep your children contained in your house and not hanging out in the street like gangs. You really hurt the property value of the neighborhood. We so appreciate that.

Please keep yourselves to yourselves and not disturb anyone else. It’s embarrassing enough.

— Concerned people in the Country Club
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<snip>

http://www.arktimes.com/Articles/ArticleViewer.aspx?ArticleID=0f2bc5be-7043-478b-ab70-4597810bc8b0

[Botany]

1. That note could have come from one idiot ..... not everybody

I hope the neighbors welcome the Terrys into their community.

[ChoralScholar]

2. they know who it came from...

And, I think there are other black families in the community - so it certainly wasn't from everyone.

I think the focus on the story is acts like this letter vis-a-vis hate crimes legislation.

[deadmessengers]

4. And according to the indictment, it did n/t

[Richard Steele]

7. I assumed it did as soon as I saw the "this is from all your neighbors" line. nm

[Botany]

9. oh Lord ....

.... it was from the next door neighbor .....

The women called the chief of police .... he saw it as a civil rights crime
and called the F.B.I.

Welcome to the land of deep shit cracker :rofl:

[EFerrari]

3. 'Way to support the troops!

:sarcasm:

[DeSwiss]

5. And I loved this part of the article....

That Hardin is the author of the letter is not seriously in question. During an interview at her home, she was asked if she used a racial epithet in a note to the Terrys. She responded, without hesitation, “I told them to quit acting like niggers.” Then she qualified the comment by saying that she couldn’t remember writing the letter. She said that she suffered brain damage from a motorcycle accident that left her in a coma for 48 days and in the hospital for three months. (Friends have confirmed she suffered serious injuries in a motorcycle accident some years ago.)

In defense of the note, Hardin said that the Terry clan spilled over onto her lawn when they were outside. She was particularly put off by their 12-year-old son, whom she deemed a threat to her eighth-grade daughter. “He was coming over every friggin’ day,” she said. She said she didn’t consider it normal for the Terrys’ son to want to play with a neighbor. “No kid has ever come over here,” she said.

She also cited two recent incidents in explanation of her fear of the Terrys: a double rape case at Lake Willastein in Maumelle last year and a rape charge that was brought against a student at Maumelle Middle School in May, both of which involved African-American suspects. (The incident at Maumelle Middle occurred after Hardin was indicted, however.) “I shouldn’t have said that,” she said of the letter, “but I was just so scared for my daughter.”

Cassandra Terry has never met Hardin, but she confirmed that Hardin confronted her about her son in a second letter, which Hardin taped to the Terrys’ door after she was indicted. Although the Arkansas Times was unable to obtain a copy, a report Terry filed with the Maumelle police after the incident said that “the letter appeared to be ramblings about reasons for the first letter and reasons why the victim should not prosecute.” Terry characterized it further: “It was very manipulative. said she didn’t remember writing the letter and that she has a brain injury. She also said that she was afraid for her daughter and that she heard our family has a criminal past.”

Peachy. My damaged brain made me do it.

K&R

[Richard Steele]

6. Gee. Ya just gotta wonder why none of her kids friends have ever visited.

Looks like we've got another MYSTERY on our hands!

[JeffR]

8. "affluent Little Rock suburb" indeed

"I don't care too much for money, 'cause money won't buy me class..."

[KillCapitalism]

10. Ya gotta love those "affluent suburbs."

Hey, all they're trying to do is keep the riff-raff (brown people) out!:sarcasm:

[ChoralScholar]

11. 'affluent suburbs' were my words... I added them, because

most people wouldn't know where Maumelle is, or what kind of community it is.