This from the Saturday New York Times:
Beth Jacobson and her fellow loan officers at Wells Fargo Bank "rode the stagecoach from hell" for a decade, systematically singling out blacks in Baltimore and suburban Maryland for high-interest subprime mortgages.
The meme of irresponsible-low-income-Blacks-and-other-minorities-caused-the-mortgage-crisis has, thankfully, died down since it began building last fall through earlier this year.
But I am not grateful for or accepting of false and distracting and culturally damaging statements fading from the din. I want to memorialize that they were LIES - and that, in fact, employed-and-responsible-low-to-middle-income-Blacks-and-other-people-of-color-were-targeted-and-the
ir-applications-were-falsified-to-force-them-into-subprime-loans-when-they-qualified-for-primary-ter
ms.
More enraging testimony from the loan officers who perpetrated the fraud below the jump.
You may remember Ann Coulter, Michelle Malkin, Neil Cavuto and myriad comments on progressive blogs expressing rage that:
- purportedly loose lending standards led to the mortgage meltdown that broke our economy,
- that those standards were loosened at the federal level to encourage minority homeownership, and that banks were required to comply, and
- that the resulting bailouts were an outrage because they propped up allegedly irresponsible homeowners who took out loans that they allegedly knew they could not afford.
To go all Seth and Amy on this meme, "Really???"
Thanks to the latest testimony from two Wells Fargo loan officers, this wasn't all about unregulated, mandatory government policy shifts (by Clinton or by Bush, depending on which articles you believe) that let a whole lot of unqualified, big-livin', colored folk disco down in unearned McMansions. Instead, at least some of it was based on independent, intentional banking policy decisions that left a whole lot of qualified homeowners of colors foreclosed on because they were forced into a subprime loan by unscrupulous, slimy bank representatives.
Some more critical quotes from Saturday's NY Times, in what I suspect may be the first of a long series of disturbing testimony:
To establish that targeting of ethnic applicants was intentional by the bank and not something they were forced to do by changes in government policy:
"Wells Fargo mortgage had an emerging-markets unit that specifically targeted black churches, because it figured church leaders had a lot of influence and could convince congregants to take out subprime loans."
a bank office in Silver Spring, Md., had an "affinity group marketing" section, which hired blacks to call on African-American churches.
In 2001, [a former loan officer] states in his affidavit, Wells Fargo created a unit in the mid-Atlantic region to push expensive refinancing loans on black customers, particularly those living in Baltimore, southeast Washington and Prince George’s County, Md.
"They referred to subprime loans made in minority communities as ghetto loans and minority customers as ‘those people have bad credit’, ‘those people don’t pay their bills’ and ‘mud people,’" [former loan officer] Mr. Paschal said in his affidavit.
To establish that subprime mortgages were not necessary for or even based on the income levels and actual qualifications of those who borrowed:
Loan officers, [loan officer Beth Jacobson] said, pushed customers who could have qualified for prime loans into subprime mortgages.
The New York Times, in a recent analysis of mortgage lending in New York City, found that black households making more than $68,000 a year were nearly five times as likely to hold high-interest subprime mortgages as whites of similar or even lower incomes. (The disparity was greater for Wells Fargo borrowers, as 2 percent of whites in that income group hold subprime loans and 16.1 percent of blacks.)
"The company put ‘bounties’ on minority borrowers," Mr. Paschal said. "By this I mean that loan officers received cash incentives to aggressively market subprime loans in minority communities."
To make crystal clear that qualified applicants were misleadingly steered into or applications were falsified for subprime loans rather than primary ones:
Both loan officers said the bank had given bonuses to loan officers who referred borrowers who should have qualified for a prime loan to the subprime division. Ms. Jacobson said that she made $700,000 one year and that the company flew her and other subprime officers to resorts across the country.
Some officers told the underwriting department that their clients, even those with good credit scores, had not wanted to provide income documentation.
"By doing this, the loan flipped from prime to subprime," Ms. Jacobson said. "But there was no need for that; many of these clients had W2 forms."
Other times, she said, loan officers cut and pasted credit reports from one applicant onto the application of another customer.
To establish that Black homeowners and communities, rather than being the cause of the mortgage crisis, were the targets of institutionally racist policies and practices, at great cost to them and their communities:
These loans, Baltimore officials have claimed in a federal lawsuit against Wells Fargo, tipped hundreds of homeowners into foreclosure and cost the city tens of millions of dollars in taxes and city services.
Data released by the city as part of the suit last week show that more than half the properties subject to foreclosure on a Wells Fargo loan from 2005 to 2008 now stand vacant. And 71 percent of those are in predominantly black neighborhoods.
To establish that all of those yelling about irresponsible people of color bringing down the economy are not walking back their hate speech, lies and unresearched, unfounded, inflammatory accusations:
In response to this recent, horrific testimony, as well as ongoing investigations in Illinois and New York, lawsuits in Maryland and by the NAACP, vociferous advocates of the "blame-the-minorities-for-the-meltdown" meme have said:
I am open to (excited for) that empty box being updated by the way - has anyone heard anything, even from a friend who was vocal about not wanting to carry the weight for lazy over-reachers who did not deserve their home loan?
So here's why I write.
It is always so darn easy to "blame the Black guy" (these quotes may not apply to you. If they don't, please know that they apply to others).
I want to drown/murder/GO TO A DISNEY RESORT WITH a family member...but I do not want to take responsibility for my actions. I know! I'll say a scary Black guy did it! (oh, the remote controls I wear out, flipping channels for any pushback)
I am stunned by unjust election results after witnessing highly organized and insanely well-funded groups manipulate and lie to voters for months... I know! I'll blame discriminatory Black people! (oh, the cell phone minutes I burned debating numbers with my friends)
I'm about to make it bank policy that my loan reps illegally doctor the applications of qualified applicants so we can make more money off riskier rates - and I'm about to offer bonuses and vacations to those who look the other way, and I don't know if I might go to Hell, or at least jail, for this, and Heaven knows what my employees will say when I ask them to break the law and be immoral in their duties... I know! I'll say ‘those people have bad credit’, ‘those people don’t pay their bills’ and call them ‘mud people,’! (oh, the disgusting truth, based on the quotes from the testimony)
The economy is crumbling around me, I am losing my job and home, and wealthy white banking industry leaders appear not to know, care or change, continuing to decorate their offices, fly private jets to beg the government for money, dispense enormous bonuses to management and employees, double and triple credit card and variable mortgage rates on customers in good standing, and otherwise Marie Antoinette their way through an historic economic crisis that their practices disturbingly appear to have caused and continue to exacerbate... I know! I'll blame lazy, materialistic Black people! (oh, the reason I am writing in such a flurry right now)
(Let me point out here that "blame the Black guy" can be and often is played interchangeably with other people of color, including frequently suspiciously culpable Latino guys and women of color - many of whom default to being single moms in this meme. In the same way that "DWB" has become a universal term in some areas, "BBG" can be applied to all, at least for this diary.)
What's worse, is that "blame-the-Black-guy" traditionally works because it apparently is so darn easy to believe, with absolutely no evidence requested or required. The comments fly, the authorities descend on the neighborhood, the talking heads spittle up the camera lenses... And some of those gingerly on the fence, wondering if their emerging sense that Blacks or Latinos or other "others" may be safe and responsible and okay, may tilt a little back to one side, thinking, "I knew they couldn't be trusted" (this from personal conversations).
Incredibly, when stomach-curdling evidence emerges establishing that it absolutely was NOT AT ALL "the Black guy," we get crickets. Nada, zilch. It's on to the next meme, the next outrage, the next thing we're going to blame the Black guy for.
And you know what? We fall for it all over again.
I have a new game to play. It's called, "let's critically analyze the horrendous situation and the charges being made, consider the power structure, the flow of information and resources, and who has the most to gain from these wretched circumstances." And in the first pass of that analysis, maybe we try, "Who else could be behind this OTHER THAN THE BLACK GUY?" Maybe without that comfortable, familiar bogeyman to default to, case closed, problem solved, we can identify responsible parties even sooner. And maybe we can fix the problem rather than feed the same old messed up meme.