Milwaukee native Martin Jones learned about racial prejudice the hard way as he was forced to move out of his apartment due to a “complaint” from his roommate’s wife, according to The Daily Beast. The spouse of Michael Haller, Jones’ roomie, took issue with Jones' race, not really too fond of her husband rooming with a black male. An appeals court ruling found in favor of the wife, stating that the state’s fair housing legislation doesn’t exactly apply to this situation due to the unique circumstance of their living situation.

The court has given a statement on the emotionally-driven case. “When Haller informed Jones that he would have to move out, therefore, it constituted a decision by Haller as to the person with whom he wished to share his home. Such an act is not subject to the Wisconsin Open Housing Law.”

The race issue came up during a heated argument between Haller and his wife one night. Haller claims the only reason he pursued her wishes to remove Jones from their domicile was because her name was on the lease. Jones immediately took issue with this claim, noticing how bigoted the wife's tone and message were. Also not helping the situation is that Haller was also the landlord.

The couple believes Jones is simply playing the race card, and was nothing more than a bad living partner. Haller has been vocal about his opposition of the ruling but stands by the fact that his wife didn’t dislike Jones because of his race. “She was angry at me for being able to seemingly be getting along fine without her,” he said in a statement. “We had an argument, like so many that we'd had during our marriage, but it was nothing to do with my having a black roommate.”

Photo: PopKey

Michael Haller

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