Mississippi RV Park Owner Evicts Interracial Couple

With Mississippi poised to become one of the most anti-LGBT, hate-filled states in the Union, this story really comes as no surprise … I guess.

More than fifty years after the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 barred discrimination on the basis of race, Erica Flores Dunahoo, who is Hispanic and Native American and whose husband, Stanley Hoskins, a National Guardsman, is African-American, are being evicted from an RV park for being an interracial couple. And Gen Baker, the park owner, admits it was the color of their skin that forced him to ask them to leave because, as he said, “the neighbors were giving me such a problem.”

Earlier this year, Erica Dunahoo and Stanley Hoskins, along with their two children, were looking to rent an RV space when she contacted Gene Baker; Erica met with Baker and gave him a $275 check for the first month’s rent. She even recalled how nice he was, and that he’d invited her to attend services at his church; he even gave her a hug. But the next day Baker called her on the phone and said:

“Hey, you didn’t tell me you was married to no black man.”

Erica didn’t think it was a problem.

“Me and my husband, not ever in 10 years have we experienced any problem. Nobody’s given us dirty looks. This is our first time.”

But for Gene Baker it was a problem, and probably not the first time he’s had that “trouble”:

“Oh, it’s a big problem with the members of my church, my community and my mother-in-law. They don’t allow that black and white shacking.”

Erica Dunahoo told Baker that she and Hoskins weren’t “shacking” — as if that was any of his business anyway — and that the two were married. He told her it was the same thing and then added:

“You don’t talk like you wouldn’t be with no black man. If you would had come across like you were with a black man, we wouldn’t have this problem right now.”

She told him that he husband served in the military for thirteen years and he was now a sergeant in the National Guard—working to protect the freedoms of people like Gene Baker, I might add.

Erica and her husband, Stanley, then met with Gene Baker, hoping he’d change his mind, but he refused. He returned the $275 they had paid, and they moved to another, non-racist RV park where they are paying more money than they would have at Baker’s.

But Erica Dunahoo and Stanley Hoskins are not letting this go; she reported the matter to the NAACP because she believes Baker should not be allowed to turn away interracial couples:

“I just want it to be where everybody is treating everybody equally."

When Gene Baker was asked about this story and renting to interracial couples, he said he still wouldn’t do it, and that he was closing down his RV park.

Close it down, asshat, you’re still a racist and a bigot, and I’m imagining God won’t be so happy to see you in church next Sunday.

But, then again, this is Mississippi and they seem to love the idea that unless you’re white, and straight, you don’t matter, so ….

Clarion Ledger