Bigotry was displayed

I recently read that Martin Luther King once said something like, “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.” I was recently the witness to something that matters here in Hot Springs Village.

My mother’s house has been listed with a local realtor for several months as she has moved to an assistedliving facility. We were excited when we got an offer and expected to close in late April. The buyers were from out-of-state and here for a walk around the outside of the house preceding a viewing of the inside with the realtor later that day. The next-door neighbor has, in the past, displayed Confederate flags prominently in his front yard and a neo-Nazi flag with black swastikas off his back deck. He apparently noticed that the couple viewing the house were black. After the buyers left the original walk-around and before they returned with the realtor, the cretin next door re-deployed his Confederate flag in his front yard for all to see. Upon their return with the realtor, the couple and their two children saw the flag. It didn’t take them long to determine they didn’t want to live next door to a racist bigot, and they rescinded their offer.

I am sorry this happened and can understand why a black family would not want to live next door to this peabrained bigot. And I wonder why anyone with a sense of decency and tolerance would want to live next door to him. I wouldn’t.

FRANK ELLIOTT Hot Springs Village