People of Color Face Historic Wealth Loss

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford


"It could take more than 5,000 years before Blacks achieve homeowner parity with
whites!"

The core institutions of American capitalism have condemned Black and Brown
America to further centuries of wealth disparity. Now standing at about
ten-to-one, the wealth gap between African American and white median households
cannot but grow bigger in the wake of the subprime lending catastrophe. The
Boston-based United for a Fair Economy recently released a report, detailing
the carnage wreaked on people of color by predatory lenders - and it is
mind-boggling.

The report, titled "Foreclosed: State of the Dream 2008," shows definitively
that banks and other lending institutions trapped Blacks and Latinos in
predatory lending schemes as a matter of policy. "Even a surface check of the
demographics shows," the report says, "that, in city after city, a solid
majority of subprime loan recipients were people of color." The very scope of
the crime proves that the lending crisis is not the product of Black "culture,"
but the result of calculated policies, near-uniformly carried out by virtually
all of the nation's mortgage lending institutions. This is institutional racism
writ large, and indisputable.

The money-lenders have already sucked the value out of whole communities, urban
and suburban. The wealth loss is staggering: People of color have collectively
lost between "$164 billion to $213 billion over the past eight years," with
Latinos losing slightly more than African Americans. For the average American,
wealth is passed on through the value of homes. That dream, as the report
concludes, has been largely foreclosed.

Before the crisis hit, it was estimated that it would take 594 years - more than
half a millennium! - for Blacks to catch up with whites in household wealth.
Now, in the aftermath of the home mortgage massacre, it could take ten times as
long - more than 5,000 years! - before Blacks achieve homeowner parity with
whites. Looking backward, that stretches from now to when the great pyramids
were built.

"People of color have collectively lost between $164 billion to $213 billion
over the past eight years."If Black wealth creation through home-owning is central to the drive for
equality, then the private sector cannot be allowed free reign; they have
already proven themselves criminally culpable in the death of dreams. And the
crisis is by no means over. The rot extends to the non-mortgage practices of
global financial institutions, that bundle worthless paper and trade it like
real money. So deeply corrupt are the mega-banks, brokerage houses and finance
capitalists of all kinds, the entire planetary house of cards is in danger of
collapse.

Domestically, cities are already feeling the crunch of diminishing home property
taxes - having long ago given away much of their tax base to attract many of the
same corporations that created the current crisis. Boarded up houses destroy
property values in the surrounding neighborhood, but there are at present no
reliable private mechanisms to reverse the devastation. The banks aren't even
taking each other's paper - knowing it is as worthless as their own.
Forget the sales sloganeering, that owning a home is the "American Dream."
Affordable housing is what the people need, whether rental or family-owned -
many millions of new units. The private sector cannot - will not - provide
affordable housing, since it is more concerned with creating artificially high
sale values than with meeting the public's crying needs. Now that the bubble
has burst, it should never be allowed to be re-inflated. There is only one
alternative, and that is massive public spending on housing that fits the
actual needs and budgets of the citizens. That's the very least one can demand
from one's government.

For Black Agenda Radio, I'm Glen Ford.