Misconceptions & Misdirections: Affirmative Action Part Two
Another area of concern is automobile purchases and financing. A 2003 Vanderbilt University study showed that Blacks were almost as three times as likely as Whites to be charged markups or loans financed by General Motors Acceptance Corp. When charged a markup, Black borrowers paid an average of $1229 in extra interest over the life of the loans, compared with the average of $867 paid by Whites---the study covered more than 1.5 million GMAC loans made between 1999 and April of 2003. The report found the differences to be nationwide, although they varied greatly among states.
The biggest difference was in Wisconsin with Blacks paying 5 times more than Whites, and California with Blacks paying 1.3 times more. The report further showed that this discrimination was across the board regardless of the profession and credit rating of the buyer or the model of the car purchased. Another analysis of the Federal Reserve Board's Survey of Consumer Finances data, completed on behalf of the Consumer Federation of America, found that in 2004, African-American car buyers paid much higher loan rates on new and used autos than white Americans.
On 2004 loans for new car purchases, blacks paid a median interest rate of 7 percent — compared with 5 percent for white borrowers and 5.5 percent for Hispanic borrowers. On used car loans, African-Americans and Hispanics both received considerably higher interest rates. The median rates for African-Americans and Hispanics were 9.5 and 9 percent respectively, compared with 7.5 percent for whites.
For new car loans, 6 percent of African-American borrowers paid 15 percent or more, compared with just 1.7 percent for whites and 1.8 percent for Hispanics.
Additionally, CFA found that more African-Americans paid auto loan rates of at least 15 percent. For new car loans, 6 percent of African-American borrowers paid 15 percent or more, compared with just 1.7 percent for whites and 1.8 percent for Hispanics. On used car loans, 27 percent of black borrowers and 18.5 percent of Hispanic borrowers paid 15 percent or more, compared with only 9.2 percent of white borrowers, the analysis found.
Now let us turn our attention to another “racial preference,” mortgage rates. A new report from the Federal Reserve finds black and Hispanic home buyers pay more for their mortgages than do whites. The analysis of 2005 home lending data found that nearly 55 percent of black borrowers paid a higher interest rate on home mortgages up sharply from 32 percent the year before. More than 46 percent of Hispanics paid more for their mortgages last year more than double the number reported in 2004.
In contrast, only 17 percent of whites paid higher interest on their home mortgages last year. Still, that was nearly double the number reported for 2004. Moreover, The Center for Responsible Lending said either loan sellers are charging higher rates to the minority customers or those borrowers are being steered to loan sellers that specialize in higher rates.
Using an industry database, the Durham-based nonprofit center compared credit scores, down payments and other financial information on about 177,000 loans made in 2004 by "subprime" lenders — companies that charge higher interest rates than banks. The lenders provided the borrowers' income and race. The study found that blacks were 29 percent more likely to pay a high interest rate on a fixed-rate home purchase loan. A Hispanic borrower also was more likely to pay a high rate, it found. So when these findings are coupled with the practice of redlining and predatory lending it means economic devastation to many Blacks and people of color---additionally, properties in predominantly Black neighborhoods appreciate at a much lower value than those in predominantly White neighborhoods.
The practice of redlining and predatory lending means economic devastation to many Blacks and people of color
Robert Westley in his essay Many Billions Gone wrote: “The practice of government-enforced and private ‘redlining’ in the home mortgage industry continued after 1950 through less blatant means than the restrictive covenant, leading to the current urbanization and ghettoization of Blacks, and the suburbanization and relative economic privileging of whites.
Based on discrimination in home mortgage approval rates, the projected number of creditworthy Black home buyers, and the median white housing-appreciation rate, it is estimated that the current generation of Blacks will lose about $82 billion in equity due to institutional discrimination. All things being equal, the next generation of Black homeowners will lose $93 billion.” Contrast Westley’s hypothesis with the realization that the current baby-boomer generation of whites is currently in the process of inheriting between $7-10 trillion in assets from their parents and grandparents--property handed down by those who were able to accumulate assets at a time when Blacks and other people of color by and large couldn't. This detailed account of actual or real racial preferences should make clear to those who both believe that the days of racial discrimination are over and that past discriminations don’t have any bearing on this country in the here-and-now, that nothing could be farther from the truth.
Sadly, the voices of those who benefit the most from affirmative action are by-and-large silent---white women. The unadulterated fact is that affirmative action has helped whites more than people of color. Consider that gender is a major component of affirmative action. As a result, no group has benefited more than white women. And given that white women are more likely to be associated with white families, one could reasonably argue that whites (as they are, for the most part, the daughters, sisters and mothers of white men) have been the main beneficiaries of affirmative action. Nevertheless, in 1996 when Proposition 209 came before the people of California, 57% of White women voted in favor of it---even though just the year before, the United States Labor Department confirmed that the primary beneficiaries of affirmative action were indeed white women ("Reverse Discrimination," 1995).
No group has benefited more than white women.
It seems to me a betrayal of epic proportions that after accumulating advantages as result of these programs, they now appear to be at best ambivalent or at worst hostile towards them. Tim Wise, anti-racist author and activist, in his essay Is Sisterhood Conditional? White Women and the Rollback of Affirmative Action wondered:
“Why would white women increasingly come to view affirmative action in largely the same negative terms as the ‘angry white men’ about whom the media has made such an issue in recent years? Are white women thinking and voting more like white men on this issue because they identify their interests as being largely tied to those of white men--perhaps their fathers, husbands, or sons--and as such, are afraid affirmative action might restrict opportunities for loved ones and family members (Ladowsky 1995)? Is their ambivalence due to a false sense of efficacy and opportunity? Since white women have made some impressive gains over the past 30 years, do they now feel affirmative action is, now, no longer needed (Burkett 1998)?”
“Are white women essentially identifying more with their perceived racial interest, than gender or individual interest, and thus responding predictably to the ‘racialization’ of affirmative action in mainstream discourse? In other words, are white women hostile to affirmative action largely because of their own racial prejudice (Frankenberg 1993)? Or, was the failure to convince a majority of white women to vote against 209 simply a failure of resource mobilization? Not enough money? Not enough time? In other words, the message was right, the strategy sound-to target white women and emphasize the gender aspect of affirmative action--but the "good guys" were simply outgunned and outspent?”
The following statistics, to a great degree, can be traced back to affirmative action initiatives. From 1972-1993:
•The percentage of women architects increased from 3% to nearly 19% of the total;
•The percentage of women doctors more than doubled from 10% to 22% of all doctors;
•The percentage of women lawyers grew from 4% to 23% of the national total;
•The percentage of female engineers went from less than 1% to nearly 9%;
•The percentage of female chemists grew from 10% to 30% of all chemists; and,
•The percentage of female college faculty went from 28% to 42% of all faculty.
The majority of the women represented in these statistics are white. The Department of Labor’s (2004) statistics also estimated that 6 million women workers are in higher occupational classifications today than they would have been without affirmative action policies --- I believe that it is also important to note that Black and Hispanic men, on average, trail White women in earnings. So once again, why do most white women oppose affirmative action? I believe, as Wise alluded to, it is because it has been racialized in the public discourse. The critics of affirmative action characterize it as a Black issue because this enables them to use the negative racial stereotypes associated with Blacks to portray these policies as undeserved hand-outs to an “underqualified and unmotivated” group of people.
The media is often complicit in these portrayals. In this respect, the heavy participation of white women in these programs is obscured by media portrayals which, for the most part, completely ignore the role of affirmative action in promoting equality for women. Furthermore, because affirmative action explicitly states that race can be one consideration (among many others, most whites (and some people of color as well) ignore or reject the more pervasive implicit truth that whiteness plays an integral role in the acquisition of jobs, scholarships, promotions, cars, houses and so on---more so than any group of people. The absence of the word “white” does not connote an absence of its presence, privilege or power.
Wise, in his aforementioned piece, also goes on to show that “ultimately, white women's views on affirmative action are hardly different from their male counterparts, particularly when the issue is framed as one of preferences. According to National Election Studies since 1986, white women are not substantially different from white men when it comes to their feelings on this issue. Opposition to ‘preferential hiring and promotion’ … [grew] from 86% for white men and 79% for white women in 1986, to 90% for white men and 88% for white women in 1994. Similarly, opposition to admissions preferences in colleges [stood] at around 76% for white men and 70% for white women (Citrin 1996, 43).”
This reality played out in Washington (1998) with 51% of white women voting against affirmative action and in the defeat of affirmative action programs in Michigan with 59 percent of white women voting to approve Proposal 2 (82 percent of non-white women voted against it) ---the measure was approved 58 to 42 percent. A consequence of this dynamic, that I believe bears mentioning, is that women of color (especially Black & Hispanic women) are not able to work with White women on other issues of concern (sexism, misogyny etc.) when they perceive that the vast majority of them are indifferent or antagonistic to the realities of racial discrimination in their lives and to the mechanisms that they believe would be instrumental in redressing those realities.
So let us recap the issues of affirmative action and racial preferences: Blacks and other people of color are the face of a program that benefits white women more than any other group of people. Society ultimately ignores the actual racial preferences that create more job and career opportunities for whites---even to the point of white ex-cons having the same shot at employment as Blacks who don’t have a criminal record; the white privilege that still allows white students (more than any other group) to get into their college of first choice---while loading up on admission evaluation points made possible by past discrimination and current educational and economic inequities; as well as the racial and class preferences that got a President Bush into Yale and kept him out of Vietnam. Additionally, while Blacks ultimately will receive less pay than their white counterparts (even with similar or better credentials and experience) and inherit less (based largely on past and current discriminatory practices), they will still pay more for automobiles and houses---houses which will accrue less equity than those owned by whites.
Now, in what world or society does this scenario make the case for the end of affirmative action?
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