Browsing around, I've discovered that others in the black upper middle class, though we categorically distrust the leadership and capacity of the NAACP for change, are apt to comment on its latest venture - a lawsuit against banks for lending to black people.
Long ago, I kid you not, a bunch of us anti-racist activists got infuriated about hearing that one of the board members of Texaco made a comment that 'the black jelly beans fall to the bottom of the bag'. This is the sort of attitude that bolsters the popularity of NAACP's quest to make a federal case of common sense. But all that alarmism aside, I chuckle when I think that somewhere, probably in NPR's archive but certainly in the memories of such railroaded execs are transcripts of people from the same or similar organizations complaining about redlining and looking for the appropriate boots to lick in order to get access to capital.
You cannot live in Los Angeles, for example, without knowing how loudly representative Maxine Waters exclaimed that she went around the world looking to get her district recognized as an enterprise zone. And although I've probably covered things like this a little closer than most bloggers, there have got to be any number of gross ironies in this area such as the fact that activists chose to sue Bank of America for black capitalism.
What is the opposite of red-lining? It's what Bank of America is getting sued for, nothing more or less than blackface capitalism. Well here's an ass-biter right on cue. Michel Martin gives us the following news:
The issue: a group of black professional employees -- personal bankers, financial advisers -- say they were steered to offer their services only in majority black neighborhoods. And when they complained, their employer, industry behemoth Bank of America, told them that's the way customers would want it to be. Now, B of A didn't want to talk to us -- they said they weren't ready and they issued a statement about how they don't discriminate (you can read it here).
But we were interested in the issue of customer preference. Can an institution do that, if it believes that's what customers want?
We heard from the lawyer for the plaintiffs, and a lawyer for the EEOC (NOT a party to the suit, we just wanted the big picture). We still hope to hear rfom B of A. It's an interesting dilemma.
Like I said, it's an ass-biter. Be careful what you ask for, a big, responsive well-managed corporation might actually deliver it to you, and then what will you do? Why you'll sue them for not understanding what you really mean of course. So with any luck, we'll get a Supreme Court decision defining black community service once and for all. Comfy? I didn't think so.
So there it is. A perfect example of a racial double standard applied by the political activists claiming to speak in the racial interests of black people. If a bank refuses to loan to blacks, it's called redlining. If they do loan to blacks, it's called predatory lending.
Now certainly there is a marginal case to be made, assuming the zealots at the NAACP are not complete idiots, that controlling for FICO score or other more objective criteria that some racial discrimination was made. But really that is beside the point. Why? Because the only people the NAACP has any business representing are those who are, in fact, in default. Which is to say, the primary determination of who they have decided to defend are not merely black people, but black people who defaulted on loans. So no matter what the outcome, the NAACP has decided to make a racial case - that is a black representation case all about the minority fraction of black Americans who failed in their obligations. In short, not black people, just black losers.
This should come as no surprise to anyone with two neurons to rub together. There is an industry to be made painting blacks as helpless fools with micron thin skins who can't keep their self-esteem together in the presence of jelly bean insults. Says a lot about the self-selection criteria of those who volunteer their time and effort for the NAACP.
I don't get any particular jollies from bashing the old org, what with 68 executive board members is it? But I do often wonder why it never managed to make the transition from the old politics of black civil rights to the newer fashion of multiculturalism. I mean 'colored people' should mean 'people of color'. But could the NAACP capitalize on that? Naw. They'd have to dilute their influence with MALDEF and give Image Awards to Carlos Santana. Unthinkable. I'm not the gravedigger here.
It turns out that Bank of America is not a respondant in the lawsuit. I'm sure that blackfolks at B of A were numerous enough and had transcripts enough to deflect that broken arrow. I suspect more Americans will recall these arrogant moves as well.
In the meantime, that leaves ordinary middle class folks with a dilemma of sorts. That is to say, to the extent that they too are leveraged beyond their means, consuming relatively worthless stuff with other people's money. What do you do when somebody offers you a complicated leg up, be they Bank of America or the NAACP?
Beware of strangers bearing gifts.
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