Thursday, December 6, 2012

Sunnyside building screening out Blacks?


From the NY Times:

In February, according to a lawsuit, when Lisa Darden went to a building in Sunnyside, Queens, and inquired about a one-bedroom apartment, the superintendent told her there were none available, and that he did not know when one might be.

Just over an hour later, the lawsuit states, another woman made the same inquiry. This time, the superintendent showed her a vacant apartment, told her he’d knock $100 off the rent because she was “nice people,” and handed her a rental application, according to the suit.

Ms. Darden is African-American, the other woman is white. The race-dependent availability of apartments was a pattern at the 107-unit apartment building at 41-41 46th Street, according to the Fair Housing Justice Center, a nonprofit group that sent both women out as discrimination “testers.”

The justice center and three African-American testers filed a federal lawsuit on Wednesday against the building’s owner, the Nasa Real Estate Corporation, and the building’s superintendent, Irfan Bekdemir, who the suit said acted as Nasa’s agent.

According to the complaint, filed in federal court for the Eastern District in Brooklyn, the three African-American testers were prevented from viewing apartments on separate occasions in February.

Mr. Bekdemir also quoted higher rents to the African-American testers, the complaint states, telling Ms. Darden that rents were generally between $1,500 and $1,700, while telling the white tester who followed her that he could rent her the apartment for $1,400.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

In this city, in this country, they ought to be ashamed of themselves.

But a stiff fine will probably work better. Keep us posted...

Anonymous said...

Try sending out some "discrimination testers" in Flushing.
Asian race discrimination against African-Americans has been going on for decades in Asian owned buildings.

Anonymous said...

You can't test the Asian landlords. You get called racist for calling them out as being racist.

Whites though, have to sit and take it. We're always guilty, after all.

Anonymous said...

Wish we returned to the days of private property. That is, an owner could do with his property as he saw fit. With est. 1 year periods to evict someone....yes...est. 1 year periods in NY from notice, to warrant, to execution of the warrant.....let an owner use his owns internal mental faculties to select who he wants to rent to. When things go bad....[non-paying tenant]...the state isn't there for you at all!!!! The are only there to tell you who to rent to under the name of diversification. NY is a capitalists nightmare and I predict will soon be a full blown statist nightmare.

Anonymous said...

More like asian discrimination against any Americans.

Anonymous said...


Is not only outrageous but also obscene when people traet you differently due to race.
All differences should be vanished, whites preferences due to color of skin and affirmative action also due to color of skin.
This super should do court time and get fired from his job as well.

Anonymous said...

People treat different races differently because on a whole, they act differently. That doesn't mean everyone of a certain race acts a certain way, but patterns can be detected. Just ask anyone who waits tables for a living.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QsK1McEA9ds

Anonymous said...

"Blacks" are almost universally hated by most other races. LOL...especially the "upitty" types!

LOL!
Quiet Asian human traffickers are often preferred to hip hop music blasting Afro-Americans in good residential buildings.

Hypocrisy, hypocrisy, hypocrisy!

georgetheatheist said...

Asian landlords advertise vacancies in local Asian newspapers. Do blacks (or whites) read Chinese or Korean?

The Surge said...

It follows. The supplier is a foreign idiot. When is he being deported?