We are nearing the middle of the year 2024, and Black people are still getting treated like it’s 1924 when it comes to the simplest, most commonplace things—like buying a home.
Meet Dr. Raven Baxter, who recently found out the hard way that housing discrimination is still a very real thing in America.
Source: Jackyenjoyphotography / Getty
All Baxter, a 30-year-old molecular biologist and science communicator who runs the website Dr. Raven the Science Maven, wanted to do was purchase a nice condo in Virginia Beach with a beautiful view of the Atlantic Ocean, a marble fireplace, a private foyer and other amenities that make for the perfect home for a young professional who simply wants to live in the luxury that she has earned. White people call it “the American dream,” but far too many of them seek to make it Black people’s nightmare whenever we strive for literally anything. That’s why the seller of the condo tried to pull out of the deal, which was already in escrow, once she found out that she was selling her home to a Black woman.
Dr. Raven Baxter was in escrow on a new condo when she learned the seller wanted to pull out. Why? Because she is Black.
My story for @nytimes (gift link!) https://t.co/Ny1DbYqtcn
Grateful to @kitastew for brilliant edits, and @ravenscimaven for coming forward.
— Debra Kamin (@debra_kamin) May 31, 2024
From the New York Times:
At $749,000, it was within her budget, too. She offered the asking price, which was accepted, and sent over a down payment. 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.
Baxter discovered the condo early this month on Zillow and she contacted the agent, Wayne Miller, who guided her on a virtual tour of the property. Baxter had her camera off during the tour, which is why the racist owner didn’t know she was Black until she and her boyfriend, theoretical astrophysicist Dr. Ronald Gamble Jr., drove to Virginia Beach to see the condo in person. Walker reportedly informed her real estate agent that she wouldn’t sell to Black people as Baxter and Gamble drove away.
Perhaps Walker should’ve done the bare minimum research to know that the Fair Housing Act of 1968 and the Civil Rights Act of 1866 both make it illegal for home sellers or their real estate agents to discriminate based on race during a home sale. Of course, the reason for Walker’s comfort with explicit and illegal racial discrimination is that those laws have not really prevented explicit and illegal racial discrimination.
More from the Times:
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.
Baxter wasn’t quite sure what to do about the seller who allegedly wanted to make America keep Black people homeless again, so she took to social media to see if anyone was out there who could tell her what her options were.
That’s illegal. You should report the broker immediately to the Department of Professional Regulation. We are bound by ethics to refuse to represent a client who express racial discrimination.
— satcheluk ☮️ (@satcheluk) May 18, 2024
Baxter ended up filing a claim of discrimination with the Virginia Fair Housing Office and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and reached out to a civil rights attorney.
“Had I not gone to Twitter and received help from people who knew what they were doing, I would have been panicking the entire weekend,” Dr. Baxter said. “It was my first time buying a house. I knew my civil rights were being violated. I knew that something illegal was happening, but no one knew what to do.”
To make a long and infuriating story short (but still infuriating), a lot of angry, frustrated, nervous and probably racist phone calls and emails were exchanged between Baxter, the involved agents, including Miller, and Bill Loftis, the supervising broker for 757 Realty, Miller’s employer. Loftis is the one who reportedly called Baxter to inform her of the seller’s racist change of heart, but he also assured her that the home sale would still go through (because, again, anything else would be illegal AF).
“It was unfortunate that the seller took her position to bring race into the process,” Loftis wrote to Baxter. “It sounds like the seller’s kids were able to turn her around. While it was an unfortunate issue, hopefully, your purchase is back on track.”
When Loftis had previously called Baxter to tell her what was going on, she put the call on speaker so Gamble could hear.
“I kind of fell back in my chair,” Gamble told the Times. “I could not believe what I was hearing. Well after the Civil Rights Movement, after Covid, after George Floyd, you would think society isn’t still thinking this way. But in 2024, they still are.”
Barbara Wolcott, the chief executive of Berkshire Hathaway RW Towne Realty, Walker’s realtor, also contacted Baxter to apologize for the debacle and assured her their client’s racism would not stand.
“In light of the actions of our horribly misguided seller, I feel compelled to send you this email,” Wolcott wrote. “Please be assured that the attitude of this individual is not something that is tolerated by Berkshire Hathaway RW Towne Realty, Susan Pender, or anyone within our organization or area.”
So, now Baxter is back on track to close on her new home later this summer, but Brenda Castañeda, deputy director of advocacy for HOME of VA, a nonprofit that helps protect Virginians from housing discrimination, noted that the deal going through doesn’t change the fact that Baxter’s civil rights were violated.
“I don’t know that you can cure discrimination just by changing your mind and going through with the deal,” Castañeda said. “There may be damages experienced by that person because they’ve experienced a loss of their civil rights and the distress of having a discriminatory statement said to them.”
“Dr. Baxter has experienced harm whether the transaction goes through or not,” she continued. “We just want this to be a wake-up call to people.”
Exactly.