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Mortgage Crisis
Lesson
Ostentatious Display Ain't
Black Power
By
Glen Ford
There is no doubt that the U.S.
housing mortgage crisis is rooted in
much deeper contradictions of
present-day capitalism, a system
dominated by speculative
money-movers who create nothing, but
have harnessed the powers of the
state to keep churning out profits.
The entire, global edifice would
collapse were it not for the
coercive power of the United States
military to subjugate whole regions
of the planet—to rig the game.
Domestically, the money-changers are
insulated by the state from the
consequences of their wanton
thievery. The captains of capital
will be bailed out, rescued from
bankruptcy—to the extent possible—to
steal again.
There is another bankruptcy that has
been dramatically revealed by the
sub-prime mortgage catastrophe: the
bankruptcy of a Black politics that
is based on the trappings and
illusions of steady African American
upward mobility, despite the
objective facts of massive racial
wealth disparity. This central
defect in an ancient current in
African American thinking holds that
the appearance of prosperity trumps
reality; that Black folks will
surely climb up the social and
economic ladder if only they look
the part, even if their actual
economic status is a façade.
Predatory lenders of the store-front
kind have always profited from an
exaggerated "display" imperative
among African Americans. With
wholesale deregulation of the
finance industry, especially during
Bill Clinton's presidency, the big
boys jumped into the loan shark game
with all four feet, steering Blacks
into high-interest mortgages at a
rate far-disproportionate to the
home-buying public. Whole
neighborhoods, many of them
outwardly prosperous—with the
appearance of being solidly middle
and upper middle class—spread
through the formerly white suburbs,
creating the illusion of some
sea-change in Black economic
fortunes. Black suburbia was
heralded as proof that the legacies
of slavery and Jim Crow could be
overcome without inconvenience to
white privilege.
No matter that Black household
wealth is no more than one-sixth
that of the median white
household—and that it would take
centuries to catch up at the current
pace, that is, the pace before the
latest crisis. A section of
so-called Black leadership hailed
the new suburban settlements as
prima facie evidence of soaring
Black mobility. As gentrification
pushed growing numbers of Black
households out of cities and into
ghettoizing suburbs, that too was
viewed as, somehow, a sign of
"progress." We as a people were
moving on up - and out. But we now
know that a great chunk of this
mobility was not vertical, but a
horizontal journey into the shifting
sands of sub-prime lending. Consider
this: Prince George's County, a
Washington DC suburb, is the most
affluent majority-Black county in
the nation. It now registers the
highest home-foreclosure rate of any
county in the state of Maryland.
The trappings of wealth—purchased
with a signature—do not represent
Black progress, much less power.
Those Black politicians that have
encouraged so many of our people to
buy into a culture of ostentatious
display, rather than the hard work
of political struggle, have done
their most committed followers the
gravest disservice.
Black
Liberation will not be financed on
credit.
Glen Ford
Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com
Source:
BlackAgendaReport
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Greenback Planet: How the Dollar Conquered
the World and Threatened Civilization as We Know It
By H. W. Brands
In Greenback Planet, acclaimed historian H. W. Brands charts the dollar's astonishing rise to become the world's principal currency. Telling the story with the verve of a novelist, he recounts key episodes in U.S. monetary history, from the Civil War debate over fiat money (greenbacks) to the recent worldwide financial crisis. Brands explores the dollar's changing relations to gold and silver and to other currencies and cogently explains how America's economic might made the dollar the fundamental standard of value in world finance. He vividly describes the 1869 Black Friday attempt to corner the gold market, banker J. P. Morgan's bailout of the U.S. treasury, the creation of the Federal Reserve, and President Franklin Roosevelt's handling of the bank panic of 1933. Brands shows how lessons learned (and not learned) in the Great Depression have influenced subsequent U.S. monetary policy, and how the dollar's dominance helped transform economies in countries ranging from Germany and Japan after World War II to Russia and China today. He concludes with a sobering dissection of the 2008 world financial debacle, which exposed the power--and the enormous risks--of the dollar's worldwide reign. The Economy |
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Sex at the Margins
Migration, Labour Markets and the Rescue Industry
By Laura María Agustín
This book explodes several myths: that selling sex is completely different from any other kind of work, that migrants who sell sex are passive victims and that the multitude of people out to save them are without self-interest. Laura Agustín makes a passionate case against these stereotypes, arguing that the label 'trafficked' does not accurately describe migrants' lives and that the 'rescue industry' serves to disempower them. Based on extensive research amongst both migrants who sell sex and social helpers, Sex at the Margins provides a radically different analysis. Frequently, says Agustin, migrants make rational choices to travel and work in the sex industry, and although they are treated like a marginalised group they form part of the dynamic global economy. Both powerful and controversial, this book is essential reading for all those who want to understand the increasingly important relationship between sex markets, migration and the desire for social justice. "Sex at the Margins rips apart distinctions between migrants, service work and sexual labour and reveals the utter complexity of the contemporary sex industry. This book is set to be a trailblazer in the study of sexuality."—Lisa Adkins, University of London |
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The White Masters of the
World
From
The World and Africa, 1965
By W. E. B. Du Bois
W. E. B. Du Bois’
Arraignment and Indictment of White Civilization
(Fletcher)
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Ancient African Nations
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If you like this page consider making a donation
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Negro Digest /
Black World
Browse all issues
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Enjoy!
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The Death of Emmett Till by Bob Dylan
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The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll
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Only a Pawn in Their Game
Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson Thanks America for
Slavery /
George Jackson /
Hurricane Carter
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The Journal of Negro History issues at Project Gutenberg
The
Haitian Declaration of Independence 1804
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January 1, 1804 -- The Founding of
Haiti
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posted 14 November
2007
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