HGoTW: Jane Walker
TL;DR Old white racist POS picks the wrong person to try go fuck over...
I am going very obscure today, so I apologize up front if this causes you to shake your head.
This morning, I was glancing at the NY Times before getting my shaggy ass out of bed, and I was taken aback by the picture they showed with a “real estate” story. I know this person1. Dr. Raven Baxter is a PhD Microbiologist, and one of a cadre of women science comms personalities I followed when I was there. People like Dr. Raven the Science Maven, and my jumping into this world Dr. Katie Mack2, who I found when she eviscerated some dude trying to mansplain to her about cosmology, where she is a kick-ass lecturer and researcher.
I have tremendous respect for the women of science who created a genre of effectively communicating science topics to the masses.
Of course, because it was twitter, the shitbirds came out of the woodwork to dismiss, mansplain, and in general denigrate them solely because they are women. And these killer SciComms folks have a thick skin and take the fight back to these wastes of skin.
But I digress. The important point here is that Dr. Baxter is well qualified in her field, and she has a large audience in the socials.
The article, titled “She Made an Offer on a Condo. Then the Seller Learned She Was Black” was something I would normally skip over, but, as I mentioned above, the pic that was on the front page of the NYT app made the connection to Dr. Baxter from when I was on twitter.
The back story: Dr. Baxter was looking for a home, she and her boyfriend wanted something on the beach with ocean views, and she had her agent do a Facetime walkthrough and made an offer at the asking price on the spot.
The seller, Jane Walker accepted the offer, and the usual real estate transaction dance began.
From the article:
… And then when she was in escrow earlier this month, her broker called her late at night on May 17, a Friday, with some bad news.
The seller wanted to pull out of the deal.
Why? “You could hear the fear and disbelief in his voice,” Dr. Baxter said, recalling what her broker told her next. “He said, ‘I don’t know how to tell you this, but she doesn’t want to sell the home to you, and it’s because you’re Black.’”
The seller, Jane Walker, 84, is white.
Are you FUCKING KIDDING ME!?!?!?!? In the year of our Lord, two thousand twenty four, we are having this level of fucked up racist bullshit?
Christ on a crouton.
(I need to back up. I am certain shit like this happens all the motherfucking3 time. That a fuck-ton of racist discrimination happens even in places you least expect it.)
But Dr. Baxter said nuh-uh, this fucking shit will not abide.
The situation spilled out into the open a few hours later, when Dr. Baxter, 35, a molecular biologist and science communicator who runs the website Dr. Raven the Science Maven, shared what happened in a post on X. Her public airing to 163,000 followers and others has drawn attention to bias that continues to plague the housing industry, and the laws that are supposed to prohibit discrimination, even as Dr. Baxter took steps to continue to ultimately buy the condo.
And you can guess what happened. A lotta of hmmana hmmana bullshit from the seller’s realtor, plenty of equivocation, and the deal is going forward.
Two federal laws — the Fair Housing Act of 1968 and the much older Civil Rights Act of 1866 — make it illegal for both home sellers and their real estate agents to discriminate during a home sale. But more than 50 years after redlining was outlawed, racial discrimination remains an issue, housing advocates say. A multiyear undercover investigation by the National Fair Housing Alliance, a Washington-based nonprofit coalition of housing organizations, found that 87 percent of real estate agents participated in racial steering, opting to show their clients homes only in neighborhoods where most of the neighbors were of their same race. Agents also refused to work with Black buyers and showed Black and Latino buyers fewer homes than white buyers.
Yeah, there are plenty of good ol’ boys (and gals) in Real Estate doing this, and agencies/networks of brokers are perpetuating this egregious situation.
So, for this Ms. Jane Walker, you are my Human Garbage of the Week. Welcome to the spotlight you racist trash crone.
Last word: Dr. Baxter, you are a magnificent human being, and I already loved your feed, but now you are even higher in my esteem. Keep on kicking ass!
Not literally, but from my time on Twitter
I HIGHLY recommend picking up a copy of her book, The End of Everything, where in easy-to-understand terms for the layman she explains the potential ways the universe may end. It is fascinating and approachable. She has a wry humor that turns a difficult subject into a joy.
I’d like to note that my spellchecker no longer flags “motherfucker” as a spelling error. Like a goddamn boss!
I have never seen the color of a persons skin to be in any way or reason to find fault with. It never makes a difference in character. That’s what I like in a person, character. I realized a long time ago (2nd grade) when I made friends with a new girl in our class at school. She was black and I had a new friend. She lasted three weeks and her family moved from a practically all white grade school, while the district itself had many black students. I have no idea what their circumstance financially were, but she told me liked her new house. Then she was gone. I still remember her braids and smile. This was 1962. I always wondered why. My parents never-ever made racist comments so her being black didn’t ring a bell until I was much older. I will never know if her family left voluntarily, or not. But I still think of my little friend.
I very much appreciate the obscure HGOTW bc I would have never heard about this piece of sludge. We already know how much of a trash bucket Sam Alito is,,, as well as the rest of maga world.