PRETENSIONS

AMERICAN LEGAL PRETENSIONS Denying people the power to dispose of their property as they wished and to whom they wished is a denial property rights . Such was the case with whites. Despite pretense of life, liberty, pursuit of happiness, American law once forbade a white person from gifting, or deeding property to a black person or from leaving it in a will to them, even if they were their own children. It is small wonder therefore that blacks' wealth lags behind that of the whites. Usual modes of conveyance: gift , deed, will were all barred by federal and state laws. So, American law is designed to proscribe property rights of the whites as well as blacks. It also proscribed a white or black person's ability to marry.