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| Liberty, Fraternity, Equality... and submission to BRA |
Let's quickly recap all that has changed in 2012 (no mention of George Zimmerman/Trayvon Martin, which is a tale that basically stipulates a white person can no longer defend themselves from an attack by a Black person):
The EEOC - using Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act as a legal compass - has decided that employers conducting background checks constitutes some form of racism against "protected classes," i.e. Black people:
By a vote of 4–1, the commission last week approved its new “Enforcement Guidance on the Consideration of Arrest and Conviction Records in Employment Decisions Under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.”
According to said document, individuals in “protected groups” (i.e., African Americans and Hispanics) are convicted of crimes at a rate disproportionately greater than their representation in the population. Consequently, background checks disproportionately screen out minority applicants. Such “adverse impact” is illegal unless an employer can prove a “business necessity.” The racial balance of a company’s workforce is no defense.If the EEOC initiates an investigation, the bureaucrats will examine company records to determine if it has attracted enough applications from protected groups. Because rumors of discrimination could discourage applications from African Americans and Hispanics, the commission would also gather evidence on a company’s “reputation in the community.”All of which is part of the EEOC’s strategic plan for 2012–2016, including the E-R-A-C-E (Eradicating Racism and Colorism from Employment) initiative.
Welfare reform has been completely gutted, the work requirement no longer a stipulation for being on TANF/welfare (which is disproportionately Black):
The Department and Health and Human Services announced the agency will issue waivers for the federal work requirement of the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program — considered a central facet of welfare reform in 1996 — Thursday.
“While the TANF work participation requirements are contained in section 407, section 402(a)(1)(A)(iii) requires that the state plan ‘[e]nsure that parents and caretakers receiving assistance under the program engage in work activities in accordance with section 407,’” the memo, signed by HHS Director of the Office of Family Assistance, Earl Johnson, explained. “Thus, HHS has authority to waive compliance with this 402 requirement and authorize a state to test approaches and methods other than those set forth in section 407, including definitions of work activities and engagement, specified limitations, verification procedures, and the calculation of participation rates.”Highland Park schools are almost 100 percent Black... the destiny of these children is nothing short of ensuring that the current state of Highland Park and 90 percent Black Detroit persists or continues in its devolution back to nature. This is how DWLs plan to close the racial gap in learning -- by dictating the state spends even more per Black pupil in creating an academic environment where they can finally learn to read "See Spot Run." That so few of these Black children can be classified as autodidacts, possessing the imagination, drive, determination and intellect to teach themselves, well, anything... is a crushing indictment on their general capacity for fulfilling any destiny that doesn't include a mop and a bucket for janitorial work.
But it's an under-reported story from Investors Business Daily (IBD) that shows the next target -- FICO ratings. Because credit scores - which even wealthy Black people have low credit ratings - are a clear indicator of racism:
It was bad enough the government pressured banks to rubberstamp home loans for folks with poor credit scores. Now there's a more dangerous push to attack the credit-scoring system itself.
The first shot across the bow was fired last week by the Washington Post. In a front-page story, it warned that "the country is headed toward a kind of financial segregation" from "long-lasting (credit) damage done to the black community."
The Post said civil-rights groups and federal regulators fear blacks will be denied credit for years to come due to subprime foreclosures that have left deep scars on their credit reports.
"Credit scores of black Americans have been systematically damaged, haunting their financial futures," said the Post, quoting the usual anti-bank suspects.
These same Post sources demonized as racist the neutral credit-scoring system banks have used for half a century to measure risk in loans for homes, cars, college tuition and businesses. And they demanded the government review it for fairness, while forcing banks to "repair" the damaged credit of blacks.
What the Post left out of its one-sided story is key history explaining how blacks were put in such jeopardy.
Starting in the 1990s, Washington declared traditional bank rules for approving mortgages racist, after a deeply flawed federal study showed a greater share of blacks were rejected for home loans than whites.
To close the "mortgage gap," regulators demanded Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, as well as primary lenders, do anything they could to get low-income, high-risk minority borrowers into home loans — including waiving down payments and offering them subprime mortgages and other fringe products.
Their affirmative-lending crusade backfired. African-Americans ended up holding a disproportionate share of subprime mortgages, which defaulted at alarming rates. If they had weak credit before the crisis, they have worse credit now.
The problem then, as now, has little, if anything, to do with racism. The higher loan rejection rates were due to lower credit scores, which are almost flawless in predicting a borrower's ability to pay back a loan.
Studies show blacks on average have the worst credit, even among the wealthiest, and default on loans at high rates. Another minority, Asians, typically have the best credit — better than whites — and the lowest default rates, even among the poorest. As a result, they tend to get the best deals on loans.
Banks get consumer credit scores from San Rafael, Calif.-based Fair, Isaac and Co. FICO, as it's known, calculates them based on a color-blind formula that takes into account a consumer's history of paying bills and other credit factors that, again, have nothing to do with race.
Borrowers with FICO scores above 660 are viewed by lenders as posing a relatively low risk of defaulting on a loan. They typically qualify for traditional or prime loans, though the higher the score — 750 or higher is considered excellent credit — the better the loan terms.
Applicants with sub-660 scores historically wouldn't qualify for a mortgage without bringing a lot of cash or collateral to the table. But that changed in the 1990s and 2000s, when the government downgraded underwriting standards and mainstreamed subprime mortgages.
Sinfully, the Post article is part of a new, post-crisis crusade to show how the credit scoring, not just underwriting, process is allegedly biased against minorities. It agitates for the ultimate round in a reckless cycle of easier and easier credit.
I first warned of the anti-FICO assault last year in my book, "The Great American Bank Robbery." Efforts already are under way by the Obama administration to undermine this bedrock indicator of financial risk, including:
• Ordering prosecuted "predatory lenders" who made subprime loans in minority neighborhoods to "repair damage to borrowers' credit scores."
• Crafting regulations to "prohibit mortgage originators from mischaracterizing the credit history" of underserved borrowers.
• Reviewing ways to "enhance the credit score" of immigrant borrowers — including those living in the U.S. illegally — by counting their remittance payments to Mexico.
• Studying whether credit scores are flawed and "disadvantage" minority borrowers.
• Collecting data on how the housing bust has impacted credit scores by race.
Stay tuned for study after study pounding away at the integrity of FICO credit scoring. Watch the White House and Congressional Black Caucus hold up the half-baked results as "proof" the system is discriminatory. Listen for cries of a "dual credit system."
But credit scores are not set in stone. Even foreclosed-on minorities can rebuild them in as little as two years if they stay current on their other bills.
Instead of attacking color-blind statistics vital to the health of our financial system, race zealots would better serve the minority community by pushing more effective programs to combat financial illiteracy — including educating borrowers about the importance of paying bills on time and maintaining good credit.Because of the attempt to put Black people in homes using sub-prime mortgages, your average American has watched stupefied as their net worth has plummeted 40 percent in a mere three years. So if you pay your bills on time, don't spend more than you make, and practice saving money -- well, you're the bad guy in Black-Run America (BRA). A good FICO score is the clearest indication of racism imaginable, and, worse, a clearer indicator that you were paying attention in not just reading comprehension (take that ACLU!), but also in basic economics back in school.
What's next, the government declaring that home insurance rates are somehow racist? Technically, that DWL tactic began in earnest 16 years ago, with the publication of Shelley Emling's article in the Atlanta Journal Constitution bemoaning insurance companies taking into consideration Black violence and Black crime in Black neighborhoods (losses) and a lack thereof in their white counterparts (Insurance companies create pricing zones that are mostly white or mostly black, and homeowners in the black zones are paying top dollar, Atlanta Journal Constitution, June 30, 1996):
State Rep. Bob Holmes (D-Atlanta) pays about $500 a year to insure his $100,000 home in the south Atlanta neighborhood of Adams Park. If the very same house was in the suburbs, he'd be likely to pay at least $100 less.
Georgia's largest insurance companies routinely charge from 40 to 90 percent more to insure homes in Atlanta's predominantly black neighborhoods than they charge for identical houses in the suburbs, according to an Atlanta Journal-Constitution/WSB-TV analysis of insurance pricing territories. The premium disparity holds true for poorer city neighborhoods and for the enclaves of the city's wealthy black elite.
Insurance companies say it is not race but higher losses in the city of Atlanta that account for the price differences. "Historically, there is more crime, theft, vandalism, fire and larceny in the city of Atlanta," said Rob Lowenthal, spokesman for State Farm, the state's largest insurer with nearly 30 percent of the market in metro Atlanta.
Holmes has a different view.
"I am frankly angry and very disappointed that insurance companies would continue to show this type of discrimination between the races," said the legislator, who has lived since 1971 in ZIP code 30311, which is 97 percent black. "I don't live in the inner city. I live in a stable, tree-lined neighborhood in which many residents have lived for more than 20 years."
Pricing by territory
For its analysis, the Journal-Constitution took price and territory information filed with the state by insurance companies, calculated rates, and determined what the premium would be if only the address changed.
The newspaper examined rate information for a 10-county area filed by five of Georgia's top home insurance companies: State Farm, Allstate, Cotton States, Cincinnati Insurance Co., and United Services Automobile Association (USAA).
From company to company, territories are different, and prices are all over the map. But one constant emerged from the data the newspaper examined: As the racial composition of a neighborhood becomes predominantly black, the price of homeowner's insurance rises dramatically.
The newspaper's hypothetical involved a $125,000 brick house, with standard homeowner's coverage and a $250 deductible.
> To insure that house with State Farm in black sections of the city of Atlanta would cost about $612 a year; in Buckhead, the rate falls to $459. In Cobb, Gwinnett and north Fulton, all more than 80 percent white, the price falls to $363 a year.
> Residents in Allstate's Zone 37, which is 75 percent black and lies mostly in south Fulton Coun-ty, would pay $671 to insure the $125,000 house. Residents in Allstate's Zone 18, which is 15 percent black and lies mostly in north Fulton County and northwest DeKalb, pay $349.
Insurers insist they are not discriminating against the city of Atlanta or against black homeowners in Atlanta.
"We divide areas into homogenous groupings, and areas that are priced higher are areas in which we have experienced higher losses," said Allstate spokeswoman Nancy Lemke.So, in conclusion: where's that blue pill? Life would be so much easier if what was written preceding these lines didn't bother me.
But it does. It does bother me. Quite significantly.
An unspeakable evil has white America gripped in a state of paralysis, incapable (perhaps, unwilling) to understand that each of the aforementioned stories are all connected, none their fault. Certainly, most white Americans are petrified of uttering even a syllable that could scarcely be classified as defending their interests.
That is the definition of totalitarianism. That is BRA.
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