Interracial family receives eviction threat from neighbors who assume they're renters

The internet is horrified by this letter a family received in their mailbox from a neighbor who assumed they couldn't afford to live in the area due to the fact that they were "interracial."

While everyone has unconscious biases about different cultural and ethnic groups, allowing those biases to influence your actions is when they become problematic.

There's countless videos on the internet of cashiers and convenience store workers following customers around and assuming they're going to steal just because they're black. I have to hand it to this guy for having a sense of humor about it, but I can't imagine what it must be like to live like that day in, day out.

I guess finding comedy in something so ugly and awful is one of the best ways to cope with it.

That's probably partly why Facebook user Marc Yu had the reaction he did to a letter he and his family received from an anonymous neighbor. The letter writer basically threatened them to leave their neighborhood within 60 days and assumed the family were renting from a (presumably white) homeowner. 

The letter's author clearly has a problem with Marc and his obviously adorable family. He and his wife, Sandy, have three gorgeous little kids together and live in Vacaville, California. They're die-hard Golden State Warriors fans (lucky them, but I'd imagine they took that Cavs comeback pretty hard) and appear to be generally cool, awesome, and hardworking people. 

But for some reason, whoever wrote the letter didn't see a college graduate who secures home mortgages for people, or a father who helps manage Girl Scout Troop 30477. They saw a non-white man married to a non-white woman of a different race — someone who couldn't possibly afford to live in the Meadowlands neighborhood, which I guess has been enjoying 20 years of cleanliness, quiet, and very little crime. 

And apparently all of that would change now Marc and his family had moved into the area. Just take a look at the letter he received in his mailbox — it's infuriating. 

There's one little problem, however: Marc actually owns his home. In fact, he makes his living helping others secure home financing. The fact that he was able to get a crib in a nice area indicates he's not only very good at his job but has attained a certain level of financial success with it. 

What's craziest about this entire situation is that, according to local news station KTVU, Marc said that on his block alone, 7 of 8 properties house interracial families.

One neighbor in the Meadowlands area, Kelly Natividad, couldn't believe the letter Marc received:

"As I kept reading it, it just got worse and worse and very offensive. It’s just frustrating to know that [there are] people [who] are obviously racist in our community," she said.

Vacaville Police are looking into the matter and Lt. Mark Donaldson said they're investigating the note and taking it very seriously, "It’s very disturbing. Very troubling. I think it’s always best to err on the side of caution, allow us to look into the matter to find out the history. At this point we don’t know if there’s any crimes."

As horrifying and gross as it is for Marc to receive a letter like this, at the very least he knows  he and his family are surrounded, for the most part, with neighbors who care  and are equally disgusted by the surprise notice he received. Generally, there's always more good than bad, which is a comforting though. 

This article was originally published on January 29, 2020. It has since been updated.