Current Events > Interracial Family in Tennessee terrorized by neighborhood.

(+) Yeah! (+)

Best I could do for a topic title in concern with this CNN article I came across this morning.
Sundown towns still a thing I see....

https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/18/us/tennessee-interracial-family-fire-hate-crime-reaj/index.html

A year after his Tennessee home was burned down and a racial slur was spray-painted on his property, Alan Mays says hes still pleading with authorities for answers to what hes calling a hate crime.

Authorities are actively investigating the cause of the fire that destroyed the familys seven-bedroom home in Ripley last November, but Mays says hes growing disillusioned as his family is now facing homelessness. We were never given any kind of closure, the Iraq War veteran told CNN.

Mays, who is Black, claims that authorities are treating the fire as an accident despite a documented pattern of harassment against his multiracial family. From repeated break-ins to security camera footage of people shouting racial slurs around their house, Mays says his family has been targeted for years.

If he were a White man, this would have been settled in 2015 when he says the harassment originally began, Mays said. They did not go after anybody. They didnt try. They didnt want me out there, Mays said.

The fire occurred early in the morning on November 1, 2021, while the Mays family was away on vacation. Firefighters arrived at their home because their fire alarm was going off and a neighbor had called in saying she could see flames from the house, according to the incident report from the Ripley Fire Department.

The report also states there was no nearby water source, so water had to be shuttled from other county departments, though Mays says theres a fire hydrant at the end of his street.

The house was a total loss, the report states. It also notes graffiti had been painted on a wall above their pool.

Mays says that graffiti was a spray-painted racial slur: n***er lover. When the fire chief told him about the loss of his home and that slur, Mays said he could do nothing but cry.

The Ripley Police Department and Ripley Fire Department both did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Tennessee law prohibits an incident being called a hate crime until authorities have identified a suspect, which law enforcement has yet to do. As a result, the case is currently pending as a suspicious fire.

*snip*

Mays married his wife, who is White, in 2012 in Germany. They moved to Ripley, a small city nearly 60 miles from Memphis, in 2015.

Affectionately known as the city of hospitality, Mays initially appreciated the God-fearing nature of this community.

They have their Bibles; they go to church. It seemed like a place that youd want to have your family, Mays said.

Though Ripleys population is nearly 40% White and more than 54% Black, according to the US Census Bureau, Mays said he was the only Black man living in the predominantly White subdivision.

Mays said this reaffirmed the pattern of strange events that his family had experienced since moving to the neighborhood. Theyve had to deal with strangers parking at the bottom of their driveway at night and taking pictures of them, poisoning their dogs, breaking into their garage, flying drones over their house and other disturbing instances, Mays claims.

His burglar alarm went off 37 times between 2020 and 2021, and hes kept all 20 of the police reports hed filed concerning these puzzling incidents, he said.

*snip*

On top of his communitys apparent indifference and the authorities perceived inaction, Mays told CNN that hes also been having trouble with his insurance company.

He filed a homeowners insurance claim with Tennessee Farm Bureau Insurance immediately after his house burned down. He filed a complaint against them on September 21 for taking too long to give him a decision. They eventually sent him two similar denial letters on October 3 and October 13 nearly a year after Mays filed the claim.

The October 3 denial concluded that the Mays family may have conspired to start the fire themselves and that Mays did not inform them of a pending lawsuit against him for an unpaid credit card. The October 13 denial similarly asserts that Mays did not notify the company of a felony charge for passing a bad check in 2001 which a judge dismissed years ago, according to court records.

We gave the insurance company every piece of information they asked for, Mays said. We did every interview.

Whole article is a hell of a read. And good way to raise your blood pressure.

Reminder: 36 republican senators voted against the Respect for Marriage act (a bill protecting both same-sex and interracial marriages)

BombermanGold posted...

Mays initially appreciated the God-fearing nature of this community.

Yeah, I think I found your problem right here.

Honestly if youre not white you probably should move far away from small southern towns for your own safety

Those racist fucks will never change

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]


Why do people keep saying this?

I have never seen anyone ever say anything of the sort. Get out of your bubble and think for yourself.

Those townspeople need to be [redacted]

Fucking 2022. Wtf are these ppl

Tennessee is messed up. It's insane how people are still living this sort of hate in 2022

lennethsoki posted...

Why do people keep saying this?

I have never seen anyone ever say anything of the sort. Get out of your bubble and think for yourself.

youre seriously trapped in your own echo chamber if youve never heard anyone say that racism is dead or not something to worry about anymore

it was already a talking point from a lot of people on the right and they felt emboldened after Obama got elected

lennethsoki posted...

Why do people keep saying this?

I have never seen anyone ever say anything of the sort. Get out of your bubble and think for yourself.

Groups of people have been polled about whether racism is still an issue, and most of said respondents (who identify as white) do legit say it's not a problem.

Then you got US Supreme Court justices saying similar nonsense (part of the reasoning why the Voting Rights act got gutted the way it did).

If it's not super overt as hell "KKK burning crosses on lawns" racism, then for most people going about their day, it "doesn't exist."

But then you get stories like what I posted and slew of others that need to make bigger headlines that happen, with a shocking regularity, too.

lennethsoki posted...

Why do people keep saying this?

I have never seen anyone ever say anything of the sort. Get out of your bubble and think for yourself.

Thinking you need to take your own advice and crawl out from that rock you've been trolling under.

Poisoning their dogs?! Burning down their house?! WTF is wrong with people?!

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]

It took me decades to figure out that a lot of people thought that "civil rights law means there's no more racism"

Even the insurance company might be in on it. Fucking horrifying.

I hope those that were involved in all this [REDACTED]

lennethsoki posted...

Why do people keep saying this?

I have never seen anyone ever say anything of the sort. Get out of your bubble and think for yourself.

holy shit we found the guy that's heard everything that everyone has ever said

lennethsoki posted...

Why do people keep saying this?

I have never seen anyone ever say anything of the sort. Get out of your bubble and think for yourself.

"I've never seen it, so it doesn't happen"

lennethsoki posted...

Why do people keep saying this?

I have never seen anyone ever say anything of the sort. Get out of your bubble and think for yourself.

Take your own advice.

lennethsoki posted...

Why do people keep saying this?

I have never seen anyone ever say anything of the sort. Get out of your bubble and think for yourself.

The sheer lack of self awareness required to make this post.

Thats a racist enabling law. Not surprising its from the south.