The
campaign video that put the face of an African-American nurse as the poster of Donald Trump's racist rental policies is helping bring more exposure to years of prejudice that started with his father, Fred Trump. And for LGBT people who can still be denied housing because of sexual orientation, especially those of color, this is scary foreshadowing.
NBC News told the
story of Annette Gandy Forte, a school teacher who was one of the people involved in a federal lawsuit against Trump, alleging racial discrimination in the rental practices in his properties. A New York City Human Rights Commission investigator found that after turning away African-Americans, a white renter was allowed to apply for an apartment.
Stanley Leibowitz, a former rental agent, says he once heard Fred Trump say, "You know I don't rent to the N-word. Leibowitz says a young Donald Trump was present and overheard his fathers remarks.
"There is absolutely no merit to the allegations," his spokeswoman, Hope Hicks, said in an email to NBC News. "This suit was brought as part of a nationwide inquiry against a number of companies, and the matter was ultimately settled without any finding of liability and without any admission of wrongdoing whatsoever."
The New York Timesreported in August about how Trump's father told a rental agent not to rent to Maxine Brown, an African-American woman, to "take the application and put it in a drawer and leave it there."
Mother Jonesreported a separate instance of another African-American woman denied housing because of her background.
That same report uncovered what it called a "long history of racial bias at his family's properties in New York and beyond."
As Trump and his campaign work to ineffectively attract African-American and Latino voters by
othering them, and attempting to drive a wedge between gay, whit republicans and LGBT minorities and other groups, such as M
uslims, the idea of someone who has such a history of poor housing practices seems illogical at best.
Specifically when African-Americans have a history of being denied and excluded housing due to historic practices of
redlining,
biased lending and prejudiced segregationist attitudes of white flighters.
And though it is illegal to deny housing because of race or ethnicity, 52 percent of LGBT people live in
states where there is no prohibition of housing discrimination because of sexual orientation and gender identity, according to the Movement Advancement Project. The protections that could prevent this, such as banning discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity in housing, would not come under a Trump administration. Mike Pence, Trump's vice presidential candidate, has a
deplorable anti-LGBT record.
Though Trump has denied the allegations, we don't know if the past will dictate the future. What we do know is that our communities cannot endure an administration that is not dedicated to eradicating biases and barriers to all attaining affordable housing and home ownership.
