Reparations and Obama
Category: POLITICS
The story that troubles me is what occurred under America's first African-American president, in our own time. I refer to the preventable catastrophe of the wipe-out of black home equity. Beginning in the 1970s, when the Federal government finally stopped colluding in racial redlining, black families at last got a reasonable shot at accumulating wealth via the dream of homeownership -- assets for one's old age and something to pass along to one's children. One of the most disgusting slanders by the right against low-income people and especially African Americans is the claim that the subprime collapse resulted from the government pressuring lenders to loan to unqualified borrowers. The vast majority of subprime loans were written by mortgage companies not even covered by federal law. Subprime was a scheme originated on Wall Street to profit from deceiving borrowers.
By Robert Kuttner, ContributorCo-founder and co-editor, 'The American Prospect', 2014-05-26