Posted on 04/16/2008 8:44:09 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
The subject of race is all over the media headlines. Reverend Jeremiah Wright told it like it is and conservative America could not take the strong medicine. Sen. Barack Obama had to prepare his greatest speech to address the frenzy that was and is taking place about it. Imagine, Black people having to explain to White America that there is a racial problem in this nation. That alone signifies the degree of importance this issue has. Denial can be the worst enemy and biggest problem.
Most recently, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had to weigh in on the issue. She endorsed Senator Obama’s speech and confirmed that indeed race is still a major problem in the nation. She referred to the matter as a “birth defect” that our nation must deal with.
It was there at the formation of this great nation and it lingers today—big time. Yes, racism in the United States is institutional and somehow, someway we must all come to terms with it if we are to truly become a most perfect Christian nation.
One of the biggest indicators that racism is still alive and well in America is the experience of the subprime mortgage fiasco. President Bush proclaimed with all sincerity that he would like to see a major increase in home ownership amongst minorities in this nation.
That was a noble goal. However, the racist minds listening to that announcement began to construct a very sinister plot. With the logic of the Ku Klux Klan, many mortgage houses began to set up a process targeted for Black perspective homeowners. Not just those looking for home ownership, but those who were already comfortable with it. They came up with the plan of “Reverse Redlining.”
Conventional “redlining” has long been used against Black neighborhoods victimizing homeowners, renters and businesses. Insurance companies, banks, investors, etc. would take a red pen and encircle a geographical territory. Nothing within that red circle would receive investment, coverage or business interaction. It was cold hard racism usually intended for Blacks and based solely on the color of their skin. It made no business sense as it is based solely on racial animus.
“Reverse Redlining” is somewhat different. You encircle that same geographical territory, but instead of starving the community from business interaction you flood it with activity —detrimental, fleecing activity. This activity will certainly not be economically enhancing. It actually will be predatory and designed to cheat the residents of those communities from fair financial practices. The activity is designed to economically destroy the people and the very land they live on. It is based solely on the color of the victims’ skin and the goal of quick, fast money.
The subprime mortgage hustle is indeed Reverse Redlining and the economic impact it is having on Black Americans is historical and extremely devastating. It is the biggest negative shift in assets and wealth ever put on a group of people in this nation. It is setting back the wealth of Black America by two generations. Is it racist? Certainly! Is it evil? Yes indeed.
The big question is: Is it illegal? Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan thinks so. He says, “It was an accident waiting to happen. Irrational robust exuberance over a scheme that was, in fact, serious criminal fraud.”
Serious criminal fraud is a crime. What we have here is a crime directed at a certain group of people based on race. That meets the parameters of a racial hate crime, which attaches harsher punishment at the end of the prosecution of such. So, when is the U.S. Attorney General going to start prosecuting the culprits for this historical hate crime?
What has happened so far is that the perpetrators of this very large conspiracy have gotten away with it. CEO’s have all received “golden parachutes” in retirement packages that will set them for life. $40 million, $50 million packages and more is what they are receiving for destroying the futures of hardworking Black families.
You can go down to the individual mortgage brokers who pursued people in these redlined zones and started them down the road to ruin. Most of them are getting off the hook. Why even the CEO of Ameriquest, one of the biggest perpetrators, subsequently served as U.S. Ambassador to the Netherlands for two years. It’s as if he received meritorious distinction for his sinister work against Black neighborhoods.
In essence, a major hate crime has just been committed against Black America and the question becomes:
“What are the U.S. Attorney General, state attorney generals and local prosecutors going to do?”
If the answer is nothing, then the “Birth Defect” that America has continues on.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(Harry Alford is the co-founder, president/CEO of the National Black Chamber of Commerce, www.nationalbcc.org. This column distributed by NNPA.)
I’m sorry but unless their names were being forged on the documents then it was the homeowners fault if they borrowed too much money or got too big of a loan with bad trms they didn’t bother to read.
Some men, under the notion of weeding out prejudices,
eradicate virtue, honesty, and religion.
— Thoughts on Various Subjects
Jonathan Swift
Mr. Alford most certainly believes what he writes here is what is most amazing to me.
It’s the Fairies in your tree Mr. Alford.
Lenders caved, found creative ways to put credit-unworthy people into homes.
Those people, not the lenders, failed miserably, yet it's the lenders that take it in the neck ?
work history....income...savings...marriage....etc etc....all seemed to matter when we were in the house buying time...
all that was thrown out so some undeserving, and ill prepared poor blacks could take part in the American "dream" of home ownership.....
I like the old fashioned way...."Earn it"...
With all due sympathy to those who have put themselves into a pickle (we are all only human) -
If things had gone the other way, and the value of their home had jumped 30%, and they had been able to get 2nds and pay their mortgage and have money left over and do really well -
would they be sharing their largesse with me?
No.
So why do I have to bail them out?
They took a risk and lost. I am truly sorry, having done something similar 15 year ago. But to expect the country to bail you out is unreasonable, particularly when we don’t get to share in your winnings if you end up doing well.
The mentality of perpetual failure, a failure so richly deserved by those of such a social disposition.
"..The Final Call is a newspaper published in Chicago. It was founded in 1979 by Louis Farrakhan and serves as the official newspaper of the Nation of Islam..."
“Wright told it like it is and conservative America could not take the strong medicine.”
The Reverend Wright showed American what a hate mongering, bigoted nut case he is. Whenever I hear anyone going on about how we bombed Japan, without one word about what the Japanese had been doing for ten or more years before that bombing, then I know I’m listening to a serious ignoramus, or a bald faced liar, or maybe just a plain fool. And that’s just one line of Wright’s ridiculous rant.
There was no medicine from the Reverend Wright, just the hysterical ranting of a buffoon.
And this writer is Founder/CEO of the National Black Chamber of Commerce?
Who is this assclown?
Mr. Wright said that the Government created AIDS to kill black people specifically and yet the subprime lending "scandal" is the "largest hate crime in history"?
Whatever. Bigoted black people already call me the white devil and the results of a black science experiment gone wrong deep inside Africa. They blame me for the black man no longer having WINGS. Cuckoo. Bigots. Hate mongers. BARF.
Is Pastro Wright a Christian or a muslim? Or was he a muslim who converted? He seems to have long held ties to the Nation Of Islam for a “Christian”.
I only read “The Final Call” for the Bean Pie recipes.
Another black, dumbass liberal trying to weasel out of responsibility.
I fail to see what the banks objectives were if they did this. Was it to make loans on property that weren't worth anything close to was being claimed, only to pull the rug out from the blacks who owned the property and foreclose? To what end? To now own property themeselves that they can't sell for anything close to what they lost when the financed these sub-primes. Oh, I get it. They probably just ran out of AIDS to dump into the water so they figured they'd get the blacks another way. Riiiiiight.
IMO loan companies chose to give out some very shakey loans.
IMO customers agreed to some very shakey terms.
Each got exactly what I thought they would when these types of loans were first offered.
The loan companies wound up with a lot of defaults.
A lot of borrowers wound up losing their homes.
With interest rates at a very low point, with some interest only loans and balloon payments, with adjustable mortgages and interest rates that had no where to go but up, who in their right mind didn’t see this coming?
If the Congresscritters would have been doing their job, watching out for the best interests of this nation, at least of few of those “PUBLIC SERVANTS” (LMAO), would have started to ask questions when the loans first surfaced.
Well, here we are. Two parties basically participated in a business transaction that was doomed to failure, to the power of 10. And now here Mr. Taxpayer is, coming to the rescue.
He didn’t volunteer though. The U.S. government grabbed him by the intresticals and squeezed.
Well, at least they haven’t taken tens of billions of dollars for Africa again this year. Oh... nevermind.
It’s worse than that: The Feds FORCED these companies to do many of these risky, crappy loans in the name of diversity, multiculturalism and all that! Now the government is acting surprised and shouting “we’ll get to the bottom of this and punish these greedy mortgage companies!” when they brought on the mess. The mortgage industry is so tightly regulated that almost nothing gets done unless the Feds and states want it to.
Isn’t he the guy whose church is building him a multi-million dollar house?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.