The Bush Administration Turned a blind eye on shady Subprime loans

[Ndgo]

Yes discrimination did become illegal, however in the south, just because laws were passed to legally end discrimination, it didn't mean the practice of it abruptly ended and everything was fine and dandy and blacks could easily enjoy the rights that were now legally theirs.  Maybe this occurred up north, but not in the south.

Nope... didn't quite happen in the north either, devineone. You nailed it - Some whites just can't help it... racism is a hard thing to just give up ... legal or illegal, doesn't matter... you can't legislate morals or common sense...until we have true racial equality in this country, there will always be those who, bless their little hearts, no matter how cute and well-meaning they are, they just can't help it... it's ingrained in them to discriminate.

Your post reminded me of an editorial I read earlier in the NYTimes this week...

October 5, 2008
Op-Ed Columnist
Racism Without Racists
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
One of the fallacies this election season is that if Barack Obama is paying an electoral price for his skin tone, it must be because of racists.

On the contrary, the evidence is that Senator Obama is facing what scholars have dubbed “racism without racists.”

The racism is difficult to measure, but a careful survey completed last month by Stanford University, with The Associated Press and Yahoo, suggested that Mr. Obama’s support would be about six percentage points higher if he were white. That’s significant but surmountable.

Most of the lost votes aren’t those of dyed-in-the-wool racists. Such racists account for perhaps 10 percent of the electorate and, polling suggests, are mostly conservatives who would not vote for any Democratic presidential candidate.

Rather, most of the votes that Mr. Obama actually loses belong to well-meaning whites who believe in racial equality and have no objection to electing a black person as president — yet who discriminate unconsciously.

“When we fixate on the racist individual, we’re focused on the least interesting way that race works,” said Phillip Goff, a social psychologist at U.C.L.A. who focuses his research on “racism without racists.” “Most of the way race functions is without the need for racial animus.”

For decades, experiments have shown that even many whites who earnestly believe in equal rights will recommend hiring a white job candidate more often than a person with identical credentials who is black. In the experiments, the applicant’s folder sometimes presents the person as white, sometimes as black, but everything else is the same. The white person thinks that he or she is selecting on the basis of nonracial factors like experience.

Research suggests that whites are particularly likely to discriminate against blacks when choices are not clear-cut and competing arguments are flying about — in other words, in ambiguous circumstances rather like an electoral campaign.

For example, when the black job candidate is highly qualified, there is no discrimination. Yet in a more muddled gray area where reasonable people could disagree, unconscious discrimination plays a major role.

White participants recommend hiring a white applicant with borderline qualifications 76 percent of the time, while recommending an identically qualified black applicant only 45 percent of the time.

John Dovidio, a psychologist at Yale University who has conducted this study over many years, noted that conscious prejudice as measured in surveys has declined over time. But unconscious discrimination — what psychologists call aversive racism — has stayed fairly constant.

“In the U.S., there’s a small percentage of people who in nationwide surveys say they won’t vote for a qualified black presidential candidate,” Professor Dovidio said. “But a bigger factor is the aversive racists, those who don’t think that they’re racist.”

Faced with a complex decision, he said, aversive racists feel doubts about a black person that they don’t feel about an identical white. “These doubts tend to be attributed not to the person’s race — because that would be racism — but deflected to other areas that can be talked about, such as lack of experience,” he added.

Of course, there are perfectly legitimate reasons to be against a particular black candidate, Mr. Obama included. Opposition to Mr. Obama is no more evidence of racism than opposition to Mr. McCain is evidence of discrimination against the elderly or against war veterans. And at times, Mr. Obama’s race helps him: it underscores his message of change, it appeals to some whites as a demonstration of their open-mindedness, and it wins him overwhelming black votes and turnout.

Still, a huge array of research suggests that 50 percent or more of whites have unconscious biases that sometimes lead to racial discrimination. (Blacks have their own unconscious biases, surprisingly often against blacks as well.)

One set of experiments conducted since the 1970s involves subjects who believe that they are witnessing an emergency (like an epileptic seizure). When there is no other witness, a white bystander will call for help whether the victim is white or black, and there is very little discrimination.

But when there are other bystanders, so the individual responsibility to summon help may feel less obvious, whites will still summon help 75 percent of the time if the victim is white but only 38 percent of the time if the victim is black.

One lesson from this research is that racial biases are deeply embedded within us, more so than many whites believe. But another lesson, a historical one, is that we can overcome unconscious bias. That’s what happened with the decline in prejudice against Catholics after the candidacy of John F. Kennedy in 1960.

It just might happen again, this time with race.

[devineone]

However, discrimination was illegal & it was ended & even tho the country isn't perfect we have to acknowledge that.

Some whites just can't help it... racism is a hard thing to just give up ... legal or illegal, doesn't matter... you can't legislate morals or common sense...until we have true racial equality in this country, there will always be those who, bless their little hearts, no matter how cute and well-meaning they are, they just can't help it... it's ingrained in them to discriminate.

In the mid to late 70’s early 80’s in the area where I grew up, black folks tried to buy property in this resort area situated around a lake.  This place hired blacks to cook, clean and work the resort but none could own property.

My father ran for city councilman and lost, but one of his platforms was the open discrimination against blacks prohibiting them from owning property in that area that whites in our southern town could own. Many blacks were afraid to stand up and go to town hall meetings and speak up.  They still had vivid memories of what happened to their parents and grandparents. This was in the deep south.

By the time blacks were finally allowed to own lakefront property (the price of land had skyrocketed and no blacks could really afford to buy, this was in the mid 80’s.  Even now, there are hardly any blacks who own lakefront property in this resort.  Now property starts at 300k all the way up to 2 million. (That's a lot for the south!)

Back in the 70’s they were selling property starting at 15k and up.
When I go home to visit and I drive by that area, I just sadly shake my head.  The banks would not make loans to qualified blacks in my town and if they did, they would offer different rates.  We had a relative, (at the time the only black to work first as a teller at the bank, then later as a junior loan officer),  she had the inside scoop and knew what was going on, but fearing for her job she didn’t do anything.  Black people felt as though their hands were tied.

So I’m with DP here, I don’t have to acknowledge anything.  I mostly remember missed opportunities and my community being shut out of the ability to purchase a piece of the pie. Phone calls and threats made against my father telling him to stop causing a ruckus and to back down.  Yes I remember!  That’s just one story... far too many to go into in depth but it is sad.  Yes black people are still standing, but they stand ‘in spite of’, not because of’.  And let’s not forget that those laws did not just come about out of the goodness of white folks heart.  White people just didn’t wake up one day and grow a conscience and decide to grant minorities equal rights under the law.  Black people had to shed blood before the laws were grudgingly passed.  And even after they were passed, "on paper", whites went to great lengths to keep the status quo and as long as there was no outcry, these practices went on for quite some time even to this day.  For every discrimination headline that makes the news, there are probably 100's that occur every single day that don't.  People just go on and live through it.

[Ndgo]

And, we have to acknowledge that the creation of Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac is a government program which did in fact allow undeserved communities who otherwise wouldn't qualify for loans to get the loans they needed to become homeowners.

"...undeserved communities..."  Who are you talking about??  I can tell you who was undeserving... It was the CEO's and other executives who helped themselves to hundreds of millions of dollars while running these banks and financial companies into the red... We can get into who's more undeserving later though... one thing is for sure... these banks didn't go broke giving loans to poor people...  "Lending money to poor people doesn't make you poor. Lending money poorly to rich people does."

From Slate...

Subprime Suspects

The right blames the credit crisis on poor minority homeowners. This is not merely offensive, but entirely wrong.
By Daniel Gross
Posted Tuesday, Oct. 7, 2008, at 2:08 PM ET
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

We've now entered a new stage of the financial crisis: the ritual assigning of blame. It began in earnest with Monday's congressional roasting of Lehman Bros. CEO Richard Fuld and continued on Tuesday with Capitol Hill solons delving into the failure of AIG. On the Republican side of Congress, in the right-wing financial media (which is to say the financial media), and in certain parts of the op-ed-o-sphere, there's a consensus emerging that the whole mess should be laid at the feet of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the failed mortgage giants, and the Community Reinvestment Act, a law passed during the Carter administration. The CRA, which was amended in the 1990s and this decade, requires banks—which had a long, distinguished history of not making loans to minorities—to make more efforts to do so.

The thesis is laid out almost daily on the Wall Street Journal editorial page, in the National Review, and on the campaign trail. John McCain said yesterday, "Bad mortgages were being backed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and it was only a matter of time before a contagion of unsustainable debt began to spread." Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer provides an excellent example, writing that "much of this crisis was brought upon us by the good intentions of good people." He continues: "For decades, starting with Jimmy Carter's Community Reinvestment Act of 1977, there has been bipartisan agreement to use government power to expand homeownership to people who had been shut out for economic reasons or, sometimes, because of racial and ethnic discrimination. What could be a more worthy cause? But it led to tremendous pressure on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac—which in turn pressured banks and other lenders—to extend mortgages to people who were borrowing over their heads. That's called subprime lending. It lies at the root of our current calamity." The subtext: If only Congress didn't force banks to lend money to poor minorities, the Dow would be well on its way to 36,000. Or, as Fox Business Channel's Neil Cavuto put it, "I don't remember a clarion call that said: Fannie and Freddie are a disaster. Loaning to minorities and risky folks is a disaster."

Let me get this straight. Investment banks and insurance companies run by centimillionaires blow up, and it's the fault of Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, and poor minorities?

These arguments are generally made by people who read the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal and ignore the rest of the paper—economic know-nothings whose opinions are informed mostly by ideology and, occasionally, by prejudice. Let's be honest. Fannie and Freddie, which didn't make subprime loans but did buy subprime loans made by others, were part of the problem. Poor Congressional oversight was part of the problem. Banks that sought to meet CRA requirements by indiscriminately doling out loans to minorities may have been part of the problem. But none of these issues is the cause of the problem. Not by a long shot. From the beginning, subprime has been a symptom, not a cause. And the notion that the Community Reinvestment Act is somehow responsible for poor lending decisions is absurd.

Here's why.

The Community Reinvestment Act applies to depository banks. But many of the institutions that spurred the massive growth of the subprime market weren't regulated banks. They were outfits such as Argent and American Home Mortgage, which were generally not regulated by the Federal Reserve or other entities that monitored compliance with CRA. These institutions worked hand in glove with Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers, entities to which the CRA likewise didn't apply. There's much more. As Barry Ritholtz notes in this fine rant, the CRA didn't force mortgage companies to offer loans for no money down, or to throw underwriting standards out the window, or to encourage mortgage brokers to aggressively seek out new markets. Nor did the CRA force the credit-rating agencies to slap high-grade ratings on packages of subprime debt.

Second, many of the biggest flameouts in real estate have had nothing to do with subprime lending. WCI Communities, builder of highly amenitized condos in Florida (no subprime purchasers welcome there), filed for bankruptcy in August. Very few of the tens of thousands of now-surplus condominiums in Miami were conceived to be marketed to subprime borrowers, or minorities—unless you count rich Venezuelans and Colombians as minorities. The multiyear plague that has been documented in brilliant detail at IrvineHousingBlog is playing out in one of the least-subprime housing markets in the nation.

Third, lending money to poor people and minorities isn't inherently risky. There's plenty of evidence that in fact it's not that risky at all. That's what we've learned from several decades of microlending programs, at home and abroad, with their very high repayment rates. And as the New York Times recently reported, Nehemiah Homes, a long-running initiative to build homes and sell them to the working poor in subprime areas of New York's outer boroughs, has a repayment rate that lenders in Greenwich, Conn., would envy. In 27 years, there have been fewer than 10 defaults on the project's 3,900 homes. That's a rate of 0.25 percent.

On the other hand, lending money recklessly to obscenely rich white guys, such as Richard Fuld of Lehman Bros. or Jimmy Cayne of Bear Stearns, can be really risky. In fact, it's even more risky, since they have a lot more borrowing capacity. And here, again, it's difficult to imagine how Jimmy Carter could be responsible for the supremely poor decision-making seen in the financial system. I await the Krauthammer column in which he points out the specific provision of the Community Reinvestment Act that forced Bear Stearns to run with an absurd leverage ratio of 33 to 1, which instructed Bear Stearns hedge-fund managers to blow up hundreds of millions of their clients' money, and that required its septuagenarian CEO to play bridge while his company ran into trouble. Perhaps Neil Cavuto knows which CRA clause required Lehman Bros. to borrow hundreds of billions of dollars in short-term debt in the capital markets and then buy tens of billions of dollars of commercial real estate at the top of the market. I can't find it. Did AIG plunge into the credit-default-swaps business with abandon because Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now members picketed its offices? Please. How about the hundreds of billions of dollars of leveraged loans—loans banks committed to private-equity firms that wanted to conduct leveraged buyouts of retailers, restaurant companies, and industrial firms? Many of those are going bad now, too. Is that Bill Clinton's fault?

Look: There was a culture of stupid, reckless lending, of which Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and the subprime lenders were an integral part. But the dumb-lending virus originated in Greenwich, Conn., midtown Manhattan, and Southern California, not Eastchester, Brownsville, and Washington, D.C. Investment banks created a demand for subprime loans because they saw it as a new asset class that they could dominate. They made subprime loans for the same reason they made other loans: They could get paid for making the loans, for turning them into securities, and for trading them—frequently using borrowed capital.

At Monday's hearing, Rep. John Mica, R-Fla., gamely tried to pin Lehman's demise on Fannie and Freddie. After comparing Lehman's small political contributions with Fannie and Freddie's much larger ones, Mica asked Fuld what role Fannie and Freddie's failure played in Lehman's demise. Fuld's response: "De minimis."

Lending money to poor people doesn't make you poor. Lending money poorly to rich people does.

[Ndgo]

For every discrimination headline that makes the news, there are probably 100's that occur every single day that don't.  People just go on and live through it.

Well stated!!! Thanks for sharing that inspiring personal story, devineone...

[Legacy]

...undeserved communities..."  Who are you talking about??

 

That's a spell check error. That should have been under served.


 

[Ndgo]

   okay if you say so... but I wouldn't have noticed since it goes right in line with your previous statements... okey doke 

[Legacy]

  okay if you say so... but I wouldn't have noticed since it goes right in line with your previous statements... okey doke 

cmon.... 

http://www.freddiemac.com/governance/pdf/charter.pdf

SHORT TITLE AND STATEMENT OF PURPOSE
Sec. 301.

(a) This title may be cited as the “Federal Home
Loan Mortgage Corporation Act.”
(
b) It is the purpose of the Federal Home Loan Mortgage
Corporation—

(1) to provide stability in the secondary market for residential
mortgages;

(2) to respond appropriately to the private capital market;

(3) to provide ongoing assistance to the secondary market for
residential mortgages (including activities relating to mortgages
on housing for low- and moderate-income families involving a
reasonable economic return that may be less than the return
earned on other activities) by increasing the liquidity of mortgage
investments and improving the distribution of investment capital
available for residential mortgage financing; and

(4) to promote access to mortgage credit throughout the
Nation (including central cities, rural areas, and underserved
areas) by increasing the liquidity of mortgage investments and
improving the distribution of investment capital available for
residential mortgage financing.

[devineone]

  okay if you say so... but I wouldn't have noticed since it goes right in line with your previous statements... okey doke 

Ndgo, perhaps that word was a "freudian slip".  LOL 

[Vance87]

LOL

This is a government created crisis, specifically congress. All the evidence points to that. None of those companies were willing make risky investments by lending to individuals, be they white, black, asian, latino, or alien that they could not profit from. Once the government gave companies a "license to ill" by backing any & all investments via Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac, companies gave out money to everyone be they white, black, asian, latino & yes even aliens.

However, keep believing that the evil predatory lenders are the problem when we have a congress that has us 10 TRILLION dollars in debt & just spend $700 BILLION of our tax dollars on a bailout because they're a bunch of financially illiterate retards who TOLD those very evil predatory lending corporations that they'll back any bad loan they want to write.

If congress doesn't deregulate the industry & give them free reign to write any loans they want, no financial crisis happens, PERIOD.

Legacy I agree that Congress was totally irresponsible in "GRANTING" these  opportunist "EXACTLY" what they asked , begged, and oftentimes demanded:

A FREE MARKET NOT RESTRICTED BY GOVERNMENT RULES AND REGULATIONS.

When this deregulation push was going on every talking head with a economics degree hanging out his azz was screaming how great this was for the economy. "No gov't is good gov't", "The private sector can do a better job", "Gov't regulations only tie the hands of the private experts who really know what their doing", blah ...blah...blah.

Somebody made these bad loans to these "undeserving" people. These homeowners sure as hell did make the own loans.  I personally know several people who ain't well "flipping" homes on folks whose only crime was being stupid and gullible. Being such doesn't lesson their slice in the responsibility pie, but there is a reason that laws were on the books for generations with consumer protections built in. to stop the very exploitation that has gotten us into the mess were in now.

last I checked these various financial institutions were suppose to be the "experts".


So yes I am pissed that the jack-azzes in Congress sold the guns and ammo, but I'll always blame the mofos who choose to use them to commit crimes (financial institutions). And definitely not their victims (undeserved homeowners) who knowingly entered into a crime-ridden neighborhood.

Yeah so my analogy is a little far-fetched...lol, but you get the point.

[Vance87]

 
 

 

But back to the housing mess...I keep hearing from neocons  that its mainly mortgage defaults by minorities that is at the root of the mess, but I have yet to see actual quantitative data.  I want to see the actual NUMBERS...ALL the MATH!  Banks tend to give larger loans to White folks, so 5 YT families each defaulting on a $300G would be more economically damaging than 7 Black families each defaulting on a $200G.   I also want to know WHO got the money?  Didn't anyone actually get actual $$ in their hands?  When a Black person tok out a $200G loan, didn't he/she (or their bank) cut an actually CHECK and gave it to (probably some white person or builder) from who they were buying the house?  Who got the freaking money?...and what did they do with it?                   

Good luck waiting for that to happen. DP the type of disclosure you're demanding might just point to a disparity that these frauds don't want exposed. I mean God forbid that the public actually finds out that the real number behind these bad mortgages (foreclosed homeowners) is far below what this "experts" are demanding. Don't hold me to it, but I hear the number is somewhere between 80-90 billion. I admit to no source, but still that's a far cry from 800 billion and climbing. I mean with a big enough disparity they'll have to work harder blaming minorities and poor folks. 

[Legacy]

Not at all saying that companies shouldn't have to lay in the bed they made. However, when the congress deregulates & promises to bail out your bad loans, they didn't have much of a choice but to pick up the tab once the shyt hit the fan.

 

[devineone]

Actually, it would be unfair to pin this on the executive branch when the legislative branch is responsible for deregulation. Also, it's amazing how we call it "predatory lending" when loans are given to "underserved" communities but the facts are that the reason this was done was to prevent "redlining".

We can't have it both ways. You can't claim that it's "racism" when blacks/latinos or other "underserved groups" get denied loans moreso than whites yet when the laws are changed to address this, you call it predatory lending. We really need to understand how we got where we are regarding this crisis.

The dems in the house pushed this. However, since we're talking about the congress, it had to have significant republican support so there's enough blame to go around. The creation of Fannie Mae & Freddic Mac by the congress essentially privatized profits & socialized risks. Sowell is an economist unlike most people who are writing about the sub-prime lending crisis..
Bankrupt ‘exploiters’
http://jewishworldreview.com/cols/sowell072208.php3

Interesting how you took the stance of Thomas Sowell, whom I've heard was a conservative republican who was a big influence on Clarence Thomas.  Sowell, an economist and a fellow, like most academia live in the cerebral word where everything is based on his research and empirical data.  However sometimes in the "real" world one must consider many factors that influence the outcome of things that happen. 

Heck, even McCain disassociated himself from his chief economic advisor who said that "Americans are a bunch of whiners and we're not heading for a recession it's only "mental".  Try telling that to people struggling to make ends meet and watching their retirement funds shrivel away to nothing. 

Yes the government got involved and passed laws, but without those laws in place, there would be many so called "un-deserved"  groups who would not have gotten homes.  My grandparents being one of them.  Without laws in place, many "undeserved" groups would not have been able to get better jobs.  In the 70's my grandmother had to fight just to get a job at a sewing factory so she could make a little more change to pay for her FHA home. (Which she paid in full 5 years before the 25 year mortgage). White women threatened to walk off the job because they didn't want to work alongside black women.  Most blacks in my area worked in menial jobs as domestics, custodians and other unskilled or low skilled labor jobs.

I'm puzzled.  Why are you supporting Obama?  It's obvious from your post here that your thinking is more in line with the idealolgy of the conservative republicans.  You seem to have a disdain for  poor minorities and you dismiss anyone's history of their racial struggles by saying they're just playing "the victim" or "stories aside".  In your opinion, racism doesn't exist and if it did exist, it only put blacks at a "disadvantage".  What a gross understatement.   Your posts have proven this time and time again even in other threads.

[Legacy]

LOL - OK, I know.. I didn't pay you any attention... my bad..

Uh, for the last time,... "undeserved" should have been underserved. It was a spell check error. Can you guys read? Did you see the actual link & charter info I posted from Freddie Mac which confirms their use of the word underserved. That was the only reason I was using that phraseology to begin with. I got it straight from the charter.

N-E-WAY, Thomas Sowell LIVES in the real world. It's called FACTS. Him being a conservative has nothing to do with being able to detail the impact of government improperly imposing themselves in the free market. And while you're at it, tell me what expertise you have to make *ANY* critical analysis of Sowell about his subject matter which is economics. 

I'll wait.....( 3, 2, 1...)  Ok, that was short..

Bottom line:

FACT #1 - Before deregulation & the backing of Fannie Mae/Freddic Mac for lenders who wish to engage in risky investments, there was no sub-prime mortgage crisis.

FACT #2 - The Govt deregulated the industry & used government companies to back the risky investments of the lenders.

FACT #3 - Then & only then did the lenders start handing out mortgages like halloween candy & KABOOM.

VERDICT - The "gubment", specifically the congress, did this shyt. In fact, I find it hard to understand WHY y'all can't see that when it's clear that their spending & policies
have created the 10 trillion dollar debt we're in to begin with. Those mafuckas are economically illiterate man. They're like that one dumb dude who hits the lotto for $127 million & turns up either broke (or worse, like $15 million in debt or some ish) 3 years from now.

On a more general note:

I support Obama because he's the best candidate for president, period. And for my position on "poor minorities", just stop. First off, you haven't been on this site long enough to know my views. I have whoo-rode for black folx ALL THE TIME on this site. I *still* stay in the hood. How bout you? - 

*throw it up, throw it up!* - LOL

However, black people have stop projecting the past into the present. What was the case in the 1850s, 1920s or 1960s is not the case for 2008. If you listen to what Donna Brazile said in a recent panel discussion...

"As a child who grew up in the segregated deep south, de facto & de jure, this country has come so far....."

She went on to say....

"We have changed.. we've become a more tolerant, a more open, a more progressive society..."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-__IdzH1b8

Or like Obama said in his speech in Pennsylvania...

"The profound mistake of Rev. Wright's sermons is not that he spoke about racism in our society. It's that he spoke as if our society was STATIC. As if no progress has been made. As if this country, a country that has made it possible for one of his own members to run for the highest office in the land & build a coalition of white & black, latino, asian, rich, poor, young & old is still irrevocably bound to a tragic past."

See, we wanna talk about JUST the problems (past or present) & never the progress which has created greater opportunity for this generation of black folx than probably most of our previous generations combined prior to 1964.

The point is we know the past was f#@$ed up. However, while acknowledging that we gotta be able to live in the present. In 2008, even with the racism that still exists (check some of them youtube of McCain/Palin supporters in Ohio or Hillary supporters in W. Virginia -  ), a black man is *still* leading in the polls to become the president of the United States. I've always been a big critic of the country & it's treatment of us but you can't watch what's happening with Obama & act like this is still the 1940s. Hell, we're even far removed from the 1960s when the civil rights laws were passed.

So yeah, we were at a gross disadvantage for much of our experience in this country & things aren't totally level now. However, when a black man is weeks away from potentially becoming PRESIDENT, do not tell me that everyday folx can't work enough to carve out a decent existence for themselves when our parents, grandparents, & great-grandparents did it against MUCH greater odds. We gotta stop the bullshyt.

People who want to advance have opportunity to do so even if the conditions are perfect & others potentially have more chances. We gotta stop making excuses, stop pointing the finger, and start DOING what's necessary to make it.

You've done it, I've done it. Most of the black folx on this site have done it. Why don't we stop talking about how outsiders are stopping us from reaching our goals & start talking about the DIFFERENCE between the behaviors, activities, & attitudes of those of us who are making it versus those of us who are not.

And to be honest, I don't see qualified black people being denied opportunity on a regular basis. The fact is that a lot of us are denying ourselves the opportunity to become qualified long before we'd could even be considered. I see young people having children out of wedlock which severely limits your already nominal financial resources & ability to pursue further education. This perpetuates further poverty & future single parent homes in a lot of cases. I see disturbing amounts of HS dropouts and even "dropins" meaning kids who are at school to socialize rather than use school & education as a tool for advancement. (maybe that's because "College ain't for everybody?" -  ) I see kids committing crimes at young ages because of their anti-authority, exception to the rule mentality which lands them in the system & almost guarantees they'll be on the outside the sphere of opportunity looking in with criminal records.


That's not disdain, that's the truth. And we'd be better off telling folx to do what we did to become successful IN SPITE of the obstacles than to keep making excuses for them simply because some obstacles exist.

That's the conversation in 2008, period.

[devineone]

LOL - OK, I know.. I didn't pay you any attention... my bad..

Uh, for the last time,... "undeserved" should have been underserved. It was a spell check error. Can you guys read? Did you see the actual link & charter info I posted from Freddie Mac which confirms their use of the word underserved. That was the only reason I was using that phraseology to begin with. I got it straight from the charter.

N-E-WAY, Thomas Sowell LIVES in the real world. It's called FACTS. Him being a conservative has nothing to do with being able to detail the impact of government improperly imposing themselves in the free market. And while you're at it, tell me what expertise you have to make *ANY* critical analysis of Sowell about his subject matter which is economics. 

I'll wait.....( 3, 2, 1...)  Ok, that was short..

 And for my position on "poor minorities", just stop. First off, you haven't been on this site long enough to know my views. I have whoo-rode for black folx ALL THE TIME on this site. I *still* stay in the hood. How bout you? - 

*throw it up, throw it up!* - LOL

However, black people have stop projecting the past into the present. What was the case in the 1850s, 1920s or 1960s is not the case for 2008. If you listen to what Donna Brazile said in a recent panel discussion...

"As a child who grew up in the segregated deep south, de facto & de jure, this country has come so far....."

She went on to say....

"We have changed.. we've become a more tolerant, a more open, a more progressive society..."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-__IdzH1b8

Or like Obama said in his speech in Pennsylvania...

"The profound mistake of Rev. Wright's sermons is not that he spoke about racism in our society. It's that he spoke as if our society was STATIC. As if no progress has been made. As if this country, a country that has made it possible for one of his own members to run for the highest office in the land & build a coalition of white & black, latino, asian, rich, poor, young & old is still irrevocably bound to a tragic past."

See, we wanna talk about JUST the problems (past or present) & never the progress which has created greater opportunity for this generation of black folx than probably most of our previous generations combined prior to 1964.

People who want to advance have opportunity to do so even if the conditions are perfect & others potentially have more chances. We gotta stop making excuses, stop pointing the finger, and start DOING what's necessary to make it.

Why don't we stop talking about how outsiders are stopping us from reaching our goals & start talking about the DIFFERENCE between the behaviors, activities, & attitudes of those of us who are making it versus those of us who are not.

And to be honest, I don't see qualified black people being denied opportunity on a regular basis.

That's not disdain, that's the truth. And we'd be better off telling folx to do what we did to become successful IN SPITE of the obstacles than to keep making excuses for them simply because some obstacles exist.

Well Legacy, I'm no economist,  but then neither are you.   What expertise do you have that qualifies you to know anything other than the ability to read and pull up research and quote others, something that anyone who has gone to college and learned any researching skills can do? 
It's not bull shyt to look at history and look at everything in discussing the current mortgage crisis.  That's what people do in a discussion board.  Everything doesn't have to be looked at in isolation. 
And while you're talking about college I'm sure you have great communication skills, do you really have to come off as smug and supercilious and antagonistic to express yourself?  Does that make you feel the big man on the boards to act superior and to try to sway everyone to your way of thinking? In looking back over the threads and reading your posts in this topic, I had some further questions and comments.  Now if you choose to give yourself a pat on the back thinking I want attention from you (and if that makes you feel good then go ahead). 

I don't need to be on this site forever to 'know your views".  Just as you can meet someone and inside of 10 minutes know where they're coming from, that is the case with you.  I've been on here long enough to see how you communicate, and how you act.  It's called observation of patterns of behavior. 

And all the quotes you have from what people "say" won't have as much of an impact on me than what I've personally lived through and witnessed so you can just "Stop" (as you say) with throwing around all this verbiage.  I don't need a quote from some stranger to validate my own experiences and those of people whom I know personally.  Just because they carry a degree behind their name, they haven't lived my life or walked in my shoes.  Makes no difference who they are.  Maybe what "they say" impresses you, but not me so much.  I hear it and read it, but it's not going to sway me to discount my own reality and the reality that I've lived through and  those of others in my personal life.

Just because you've been here longer, doesn't mean your thoughts are more valid than anyone else's.  You get no brownie points on seniority.
 
Yes I can read and I noticed you changed it to "underserved".  I saw that, but I refer to what you orignally wrote and "subconsciously meant' whether you admit or not.  And just because "you" Legacy don't see blacks being denied opportunities doesn't mean it's not happening and that it doesn't exist.  Incidents that occur do not have to pass the Legacy litmus test in order to be validated by what "you think qualifies as "disadvantages".  Even though you throw a lot of verbiage around, you do twist facts here and there, and when all is said and done, it's just your opinion and everyone has one. 

You can't tell people that they need to "stop talking about "outsiders etc..".  If people feel that is something they want to mention, then that's their right to mention it.  In your view everything is so simplistic.  Again, I think there is a generation gap here.  Maybe you're a child of the 80's.  I'm a child of the 70's.  So in your experience in life" maybe you haven't experienced what I've experienced, therefore it's easy for you to dismiss it racism.

Nobody is saying that we can't make it happen for ourselves because we can make it and we have made it.  But that doesn't mean we choose to forget, or we choose to "stop talking about the struggles or we close our eyes to the struggles."  I don't choose to do that.  You can do that, that's your right, but don't tell me what I can and can't talk about as relates to the struggles of the people who are important to me.  You can choose to delete that from your memory banks if you want, but I'm not going to do that. 

You needn't compare me to Rev. Wright.  My mentioning what occurred in my hometown was to show what personally happened as relates to certain comments made about lending practices. You are attempting to compare apples and oranges here by throwing up Rev Wrights outrageous comments. (Again drown us in news articles and relentless verbiage).

I realize the country isn't static.  But I also realize that it's that way because black people fought for it to move forward.  Just because I'm on this site talking about it doesn't mean I'm out there living it.  I do put my money where my mouth is.  "Do you do that?  What do you actually do in your neighborhood to promote forward thinking and to help the "undeserving' youths.  You say you see them getting pregnant all of the time and dropping out of high school, do you do something about it?  Do you host seminars?  Do you give information sessions? 

My grandmother had a saying, "An empty wagon will squeak the loudest".  So while you're telling us what we should and shouldn't focus on, I'd like to know what exactly do you do in your area to help minorities do better. 
You had an interesting thread topic "College ain't for everyone".  Now what are you doing in your area to promote that "College IS for everyone" which is a more positive way to put it, since you're up in here telling us to stop talking negative and focusing on the "past" as if the "past was 60 years ago. LOL

My testament of what my parents went through is not making excuses about the state of things, it is relating FACTS too.  They are my FACTS!  And I don't need an economic degree to relate these facts and events that occurred in my life.  (See how you choose to skew and interpret things?)  You assume when people mention the historical discrmination which you DO disdain and dismiss because you don't want to hear about it, that must automatically mean they aren't talking about anything else.  That must automatically mean, they are being a victiim. The logic of your thinking is flawed.  To you everything is cut and dried simplistic, either or.  If you talk about this, then that's the only thing you must be talking about.  This isn't always the case, but it shows in your thinking.

[Legacy]

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