The Day the President Turned Black
(But has he turned back?)
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
By Greg Palast
For the The Huffington Post
He's in hot water now. For a moment, on national television, the President of the United States turned black!
Last week, when his buddy "Skip" Gates got busted for being Black in Boston, Barack Obama forgot his official role: to soothe America's conscience with the happy fairy tale that his election marked the end of racism in the USA.
Instead, Obama, the excruciatingly middle-of-the-road President, was seized by Barack the militant State Senator from the South Side of Chicago, who reminded us that cops bust Black guys for no goddamn good reason all the goddamn time.
I'm reminded that it was not so long ago that we watched the vicious gang-beating by Los Angeles cops of a defenseless, handcuffed, Rodney King, an African-American. King's beating was unusual only in that it was caught on videotape.
Yeah, I know: we've come a hell of a long way. Obama won, Jessie cried, Beyoncé has her own line of perfume and Tiger Woods plays where 30 years ago he couldn't eat lunch.
Good on them.
But what about Robert Pratt, Mr. President?
Pratt, a United Auto Workers member, has five kids and a mortgage payment of $1,100 a month on a house in Detroit worth no more than $40,000. The payment's astronomical because he pays 11% on his mortgage balance, double the national average interest rate. Now, on those crazy terms, he's sure to lose his house.
How did that happen? Pratt, whose story we've been tracking, was "steered" into a sub-prime loan by Countrywide Financial. "Steering" is the polite term for forcing folk into crappy loan terms. And not just any folk: Black folk, like Pratt. Over 60% of African-American mortgage applicants were (and ARE) steered into "sub-prime" predatory loans.
According to exhaustive studies by the Federal Reserve Board and the Center for Responsible Lending (CRL), African Americans are 250% more likely to get a loan with an "exploding interest" clause than white borrowers - and notably, the higher the income and the better the credit rating of a Black borrower, the more likely the discrimination.
As an economist, I can tell you it's not a stretch to say that Obama's failure to deal with endemic racism in the finance system is killing off hope of the nation's economic recovery. The "exploding rate" attack centered on Black and Hispanic communities has, according to the CLR, caused 40.2 million homes to lose value due to their proximity to foreclosed properties.
Yet, not a peep from the Obama Administration about ending this Ku Klux lending practice which has laid waste Black neighborhoods and taken a hunk of White America's housing values with it.
Instead, Obama's Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel is the honored guest of the Board of Directors of JP Morgan, owner of one of the most outrageous of the financial predators, Washington Mutual. Morgan/WaMu, with its racially-poisoned mortgage trickery, makes the Cambridge Police Department look like the NAACP.
(Indeed, Emanuel's host JP Morgan was sued last week by the NAACP for "systematic, institutionalized racism in making home mortgage loans.")
The cold truth is, financial attacks on the Black community continue as freely under Obama as under Bush, despite Obama's power to halt it instantly by banning loan-sharking as a condition of continued bail-outs for these banks. Obama has directed the FDIC to guarantee JP Morgan loans, saving the bank $3.1 billion this year. Obama has directed the FDIC to guarantee Mr. Pratt, uh, "hope."
And what about Thomas Johnson, Mr. President?
Johnson's a minister in Florida who lost his vote in 2000, alongside at least 94,000 others falsely accused of being felons without the right to vote. Most of the innocents accused and abused were Black, the minister included. I know, because I saw those state records with the carefully recorded "BLA" next to the voters' names.
I had an editor on the story, won't say his name because he was so typical, who asked me why Johnson, an African-American, didn't pound the table and DEMAND his ballot. Johnson's no Harvard professor in Boston with the President's phone number on his speed dial.
My extremely white editor, a Yale graduate, sitting in San Francisco, could not imagine what would happen if a dark-skinned Rev. Johnson had started making a scene in Alachua County, in the Deep Deep South. The Reverend was smart not to pull a "Skippy Gates" and lip-off at authority: just a couple months ago, Alachua cops 'Tased' an angry, but unarmed, Black man, then shot him dead with seven bullets.
Johnson's vote loss, you might say, was "so 2000." This is post-racial 2009. Bullshit. In last year's election, Florida went right back into the racially biased block-and-purge of Black voters, barring thousands from the ballot through new ID laws that would have made Jim Crow segregationists of the Fifties proud. (See the investigative report, "Block the Vote," by myself and Bobby Kennedy, from the October 2008 Rolling Stone).
Yet, the Obama Administration appears quite squeamish about taking down the nouvelle ballot-box Bull Connors.
Venom
What I'm saying is that the venom of structural racism in America continues to sicken us all, in our economy, in our voting stations, in our schools (don't get me started), our health care system, our ... well, you name it.
Yes, I joined the Hope Parade and voted for Obama, expecting just this one change: a direct attack on the remaining areas of official sanction of racist policies and practices. I'm still waiting.
It was quite inspiring, last Thursday, to the see a Black man appear, if momentarily, behind the Presidential seal. Unfortunately, Obama's swift demand for equal justice under the law was provoked only when the whip came down on someone, like himself, whose professional and class status had, they presumed, made them exempt from the daily insults and assaults visited on their less privileged brothers.
So much was made of Gates' Harvard post that the issue seemed to be "It's not right to cuff a dark-skinned man who's a HARVARD PROFESSOR." The race-neutral rules of class privilege had been violated.
What's missing in America - and in the Oval Office – is any hint of outrage at the systemic cruelties visited on Black Americans, like Pratt and Johnson, who lack a key to the Harvard Alumni Club.
******
Greg Palast, an expert in finance and regulation, is the author of Armed Madhouse: Strange Tales and Sordid Secrets of a White House Gone Wild. His investigative reports for BBC Television and Democracy Now were recently released as a film on DVD: Palast Investigates: From 8-Mile to the Amazon, on the Trail of the Financial Marauders.
Sign up for his reports at www.GregPalast.com.
Print This Post
excellent 'back in the real world' take. i'd like to also add 'skip' gates has been championing post-racial stances on america's serious racial divides. i think obama has been guilty of the same. although, during the last few moments of his presser he came out of his shell. i cheered.
keep up the courageous work!
cheers,
peter
p.s. i'd like to attach a cranky piece ishmael reed wrote on gates:
http://counterpunch.com/reed07272009.html
Greg,
I agree with your sentiment, but not your analysis. I wrote a Huffpost piece titled, "Gates Forgot to Pay His Skin Tax" that makes some of the points you make here.
But, and this is a BIG BUT, I don't expect a man who's been in office about 6 months to change the course of a raging American river that's been flowing in the wrong direction for 400 years. His name is Barack Obama, not Super Obama.
Don't get me wrong. I worry about Barack's "Clintonitis" like you. (Clintonitis is a term I just made up. It means the debilitating disease that keeps a great politician from ever becoming a great leader).
But I suspect Obama didn't get to where he is by being stupid...or emotional. I thought his comment about Gates was a rare display of his true "black" self. But it was also a rare display of stupidity. He has to bide his time in "turning black". As a "white" man, you - of all people - should understand.
Greg, the racism charge gets old very fast. Anyone who cries racism needs to first look in the mirror. I'll mention just two themes from your piece.
First, variable rate mortgages. Get over yourself. White folk as well as black folk took out these toxic mortgages; both hurt themselves. Sadly in your view, the banks did not hold a gun to the head of the foolish people who signed these mortgages. Their own ignorance of the fact that we were at a time in the economy of historically-low interest rates and that rates had nowhere to go but UP should not be blamed on anybody but themselves. Your attempt to place the blame on anybody BUT the willing participants in the scam is just more "passing the responsibility" that we all rightly decry in the financial institutions.
Ignorance can be cured without regulations, community organizers and Congressional oversight. It consists of reading financial books, listening to Dave Ramsey and the like, or other means of consumer financial education that is readily available to all who do not want to play the victim card.
Yes, the banks have every interest in extracting as much money from all of us as possible, and they are using the power of government to bail out their sorry asses with our money when their risk goes bad. We should not be bailing out banks, paying bankers bonuses, or allowing the Fed to lend the banks money at .25% so the banks can charge users upwards of 30% on credit cards. That's just insane. So put your efforts where it's appropriate; reform the banks and don't allow them to get cozy with government. Goldman Sachs is running the government with the help of the Fed, and that needs to stop.
Your example of the man who is paying a $1100 mortgage on a property is just insane. Why not advise that man to stop paying that ridiculous mortgage, live mortgage-free until the bank either mods his mortgage or forecloses on him, and then go rent at a much cheaper rate. You are part of the problem by not helping this man get a financial education that will benefit his family instead of the banks. Read this - http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2009/07/many-chime-in-on-housing-hypocrites.html
Secondly, you bring up voting disenfranchisement. Democrats have been fighting for YEARS the very simple requirement of proving citizenship/residence to vote. Why ? Who has something to hide ? Just how hard or expensive is it to go to the DMV and get a no-cost ID that you simply put in your wallet and carry around with you to prove who you are and where you live ? Illegal aliens get IDs all the time. You need to produce ID to board an airplane, rent a video, cash a check, enroll in school, drink beer at the bar, and so on. Why do Democrats fight this very simple requirement for voting ? After all, nullifying valid votes with the votes of those who are truly ineligible to vote because of citizenship or residency issues is just as bad as not being allowed to vote at all.
There's a lot to dislike about American institutions - government, financial firms, pharma companies, defense contractors - let's concentrate on fixing problems, not blaming white folk for every issue.
Absolutely spot on.
What utter non sense. Thousand of Americans lose homes. Thousands lose jobs. Thousand and more have no health coverage...and you write this nonsense?
Fact: Obama smart enough to get the contending sides together to reach an understanding, more than you do here, as you try to make things worse, to carry on the nonsense of this trivia.
Obama is mixed race. So friggin what? He has a friend who is a black scholar...so what? There are whites who get screwed over. True. Blame it all on Obama? Fact: the Bush years were very instrumental in getting constraints pulled down so we got into this mess. Yes. The Dems helped too. We need then to learn from the madness and not hang in with silly stuff like this post.
The teachable moment is this: the majority of whites and the mostly white male media mainstream and
progressive- except for Tim Wise- will always
take the word of a white cop over that of a black professor and a white woman, who made the
911 call. Both Gates and Ms.Whalen contradicted the cop.
Cranky Ishmael Reed ps O, I see, even when present numerous facts we're cranky
Greg, love the article but I couldn't help but notice a problem with this portion of your story:
"The Reverend was smart not to pull a "Skippy Gates" and lip-off at authority: just a couple months ago, Alachua cops 'Tased' an angry, but unarmed, Black man, then shot him dead with seven bullets."
The incident did in fact involve a black man, but what this had to do with the incident is beyond me. He was an aggressive individual who attacked a policeman; black, white, gay or the president, doesn't make a difference - that behaviour will either get you arrested or, as in this case, shot.
A man, Weeks, is seen by a policeman, Hansen, at an intersection throwing a girl in front of a moving car. Hansen approaches Weeks and Weeks attacks him. Hansen 'tases' Weeks, twice, but he continues to attack Hansen, stranglling and biting him. Hansen shoots Weeks.
This account of the incident was backed by other motorists, some of which had in fact called 911 to report that Weeks tried to pull a woman out of her car.
This is a quote from the story of the Grand Jury enquiry into this incident:
"Weeks was not armed at the time, but investigators said he kept coming at the lieutenant. Hanson said that after deploying a Taser twice on Weeks, the man began fighting Hanson, choking him and biting him on the cheek, and continuing to advance on him even after Hanson shot Weeks several times."
Source: http://www.gainesville.com/article/20090722/ARTICLES/907221002
I agree with your point and I think it's a point that requires the utmost vigilance in both discovery and assessment of facts. The way you mention the Alachua case as a throwaway example of 'when a black man confronts police' is just sloppy and only serves to cloud the discussion.
Greg, I'd like to add two minor corrections to your story. First, the Rodney King incident...while he was being beaten by the LAPD, he was not yet handcuffed; once they got the cuffs on him, they stopped. He kept getting back up when they kept telling him to stay down. That's why the officers were convicted of violating King's civil rights, rather than the original state charge of excessive force.
Second, you mention that Tiger Woods plays golf where, 30 years ago, he couldn't even eat lunch. Unfortunately, Tiger's wife would not be allowed to play there, since they still don't allow women on the course. Even the examples you give of why Americans might think that racism is over don't hold up under close scrutiny; if only Americans would bother with the scrutiny!
As Chris Rock said, "Shaquille O'Neill is rich. The white guy who signs Shaq's checks is wealthy."
Gates is such a complete and total jerk, all the time black people have to deal with this type of dumb@ss who loves to write about black people and issues but really he wishes he were white, he is head of the W.E.B Dubois whatever at his school, a man who worked closely with margeret sanger to help sterilize black women, the other work of this "gates" is obsessed with bloodlines and other eugenic type stuff, he is Phyllis wheatly done modern, he hates himself and then has the nerve to pull his black credit card! its like some girl who cries rape when she knows it isnt true, it brings less credibility to the claim when it actually happens.
the cop was probably a jerk, ive been grilled by a jerk cop, he could have been racist or just a jerk how can anybody tell, the cops are so arrogant they arent black or white they are blue, they all are their own tribe, but gates, GATES IS A FREELANCE JERK. Then obama who is black by marriage prances out there and backs up his black on paper friend, how sweet.
Thank you Greg for saying what a lot of others wont say, gates cried racism but really he is just an elitist jerk who profits off the suffering of people who happen to share his natural tan.
as for the liberal apologists, dont lecture me,
im black, female and live on the south side of chicago
and no i did not vote for obama even though he gave us buttons and stickers because i knew he was a scam, he didnt come from the chicago machine which is CORRUPT AS H3LL! he came from some other monster that the machine was afraid of, i didnt want my fingerprints on that at all, im not right wing, i know bush lost, im out of the dialectic
~thanks
Greg...
There are people praying for the death of Obama, and the huge surge in gun sales proves that some may be doing more than praying. President Obama is more like that man in Florida who was too scared to protest that his vote was stolen in 2000; he did say something, but then he wanted to calm it all down. The President's own life is something that is of concern. The mortgage situation is dire, but the banks have been given about 35 years (since Nixon) worth of give-aways, including under Carter and Clinton (southern Democrats); I am just glad that little things, such as executive compensation, are now being reviewed. Much more must be done: little bills that eat away at the assumptions of privilege. Yes, everybody needs to emphasize again and again that there are racist policies; remember all the black farms that were foreclosed by Reagan's policy of using local lenders, not government lending, for farms? The local lenders simply would not lend to black farmers, and the previously successful farms had to be sold. But such publicity is not just the job of the President. What about the gag order in places where people used to discuss such things: the churches? They were the center of the 19th century abolition movement, but who is allowed to discuss anything of substance now without losing tax exemptions? It is moral outrage that is needed, taught in places where morality has some meaning (which it does not in most workplaces, or in politics). I also hope that the hate crimes bills pass; this wouldn't just apply to gay people, but also to black people. I think such a bill should be strengthened to include discrimination in many areas, including lending, jobs, etc. The Humphrey Civil Rights Act of the 1960s hasn't gone near far enough in enforcing fairness. Then there is healthcare. The worst crime in America is solved, but not prosecuted: the systematic murder of poor people who cannot afford health care. There is no statute of limitations on murder, we are told, and then large corporations, health insurance, tobacco, etc., are allowed a license to kill. The worst image yet in my mind was hurricane Katrina: black people unable to get hospital treatment, while the more affluent were air-lifted to better hospitals. Could the President speak out? He does support healthcare, although he is all too willing to compromise, but perhaps he thinks that is the only way to get it. Finally, I think that we need to focus on healthcare, not because we need to ignore the question of race relations, but because healthcare is one of those areas most needed by all people, especially those who have been shut out of jobs, housing, etc.
Hello Greg. I not only agree but think you went easy on Obama. I've also been coping with having my hopes for a real black man, an advocate for the downtrodden, crushed. Still waiting for a people's supporter instead of a Wall Street puppet.
Interesting...
Now Obama got a little flak from the media for 'being black' (whatever that is suppose to mean). Yet, turn the tables Greg...think about it for a while and then answer me this...
Greg what is being black? Your article implies that it means having one's home under foreclosure. It implies being beaten by cops (King). It implies not having one's vote count.
So I ask you Greg... What do YOU think of Blacks in America? hmmmmm...
Interesting
Greg,
Mind the statistics over here. I'm not sure, but if there are exponentially more impoverished black people living in cities, one would think that they would stastistically speaking be overrepresented in the sub-prime pushing column.
Much like people living in certain areas in Nevada, California, New Mexico and Florida seem overrepresented in the overall sub-prime mortgage victim stats.
Sincerely,
Kaj Leers
The Netherlands.
quote: "he came from some other monster that the machine was afraid of,"
Exactly. They don't call this Obamageddon for nothing. The FedReserve benevolent dragon "the great bernanke" is the monster. The demopublicans are two sides of the same corrupt coin. There are no elections here in the USA. And you still have these idiots talking about the "liberal media" which is wholly owned by Zionist Jews and Fascist Republicans. Paid liars clutter the airwaves in the USA with patent disinformation. The dreary half-asleep "americans" rushing on their way to nowhere, road raging, uninformed, gullible, self-centered dumbasses...we are indeed circling the drain.
Greg,
Check out the Life Insurance industry too.
Specifically: INDUSTRIAL LIFE INSURANCE.
"Efforts to change state law and ban the sale of industrial life insurance have failed in Florida, largely because of a strong insurance lobby."
http://www.fldfs.com/Hot_Topics/IndustrialLife/Ind_Life_Brochure.htm
" In one illustrative case, a Gadsden County farm worker paid $2,214 over 10 years on a burial policy with a $836 death benefit. The then-85-year-old would have kept on paying, if his money hadn’t run out after he moved into a nursing home.
Over the years, many consumers have purchased policies like the farm worker’s. If you have such a policy, with a small death benefit – be informed!"
http://www.fldfs.com/Hot_Topics/IndustrialLife/Ind_Life_Brochure.htm
BTW, according to the US Census, American FactFinder web site, Gadsden County, FL is 55.1% "Black or African American"
http://factfinder.census.gov/home/saff/main.html?_lang=en
"In a nutshell, the problem involves small-face-amount policies sold to people who didn’t know they could end up paying more in premiums than their policies would be worth. About 1.2 million such policies are in force in Florida. * * * Although industrial life sales are on the decline, there still are nearly three dozen companies that have policyholders in Florida."
http://www.fldfs.com/Hot_Topics/IndustrialLife/Ind_Life_Brochure.htm
Jim Callahan
Orlando, FL
I am somewhat baffled by the controversy surrounding what I believe is inconsequential amidst the myriad crises presently facing the nation. However, it is most American of us all to bring "fixin's" to the plate when we are full, and leave them on the stove to burn when we are starving...
A man arriving from a flight from Asia, with luggage in hand, arrives at the front porch of his home. Having trouble with the door, he shoves his way in, and receives a knock at the door from the police investigating a possible burglary. The police, by procedure, interrogate the man to discover he does, indeed, live there. The man is upset at the intrusion, the interrogation. The police officers don't like his bad attitude, and proceed to force him outside of his home and arrest him under the charge of disorderly conduct.
This is a ridiculous scenario by anyone's standards, just based on sketetal circumstances. When you bring into account that the 911 call did not specify that the assailant was Black; did admit the men she saw were carrying luggage; identification and indications (photographs, memorabilia) did establish the man was in his own home; did establish he was a professor (and a public intellectual spanning over three decades) of an eminent university: it becomes beyond absurd, and the public is debating whether or not this is a race issue.
Given only the bare bone circumstances, we would have never heard the story: if the man were White. Can you even imagine a White Harvard professor being arresting in his own home, under a suspected burglary, for having a bad attitude? Gates' race did play a factor, undoubtedly. As for how blatantly racist the officers were, there is a prejudice, yes, but a outright cross-burning, no. Gates is being just as reactionary as the police officers. Just as racist? No, just as reactionary... the scenario is showing the racial tensions in that community, not real racial hostility. But let us not leave this controversy with "race has nothing to do with it." Perhaps not all the time, but in this case, yes, unfortunately, it does.
Greg Palast is attempting to point out the real racial hostility that is being ignored while tensions are being fanned into flames. I agree with him: there are real fights to pick in this country as far as the road to racial harmony and equality is concerned: let this incident be a reminder of the bigger fires out there to be put out...
By all means let Obama hold the outrage (unless you want to see Palin or someone like her elected in 2012), just get busy leading in fixing the biggest problems and institutional racism is at or near the top of the list. One man isn't gonna do it alone, and unfortunately hasn't picked himself a team that'll move the ball down that court, either. Once again, looks like it's up to us. Let's not waste time and precious energy ripping on the Prez. It's too easy and it's unproductive. Skip who???
first of all obama is not his own man his brought and paid stooge of geoge soros and goldman sachs
he nothing but a house negro doing the masters bidding
Obama is not a real black man a real black man would have never made it to the "white house"(emphasise on the white)think about it his mom was white his black dad died when he was an infant he grew up in a white home with white values and experiences.to be trully black you have to really experience the oppression that we are faced with everyday...its funny and scary how the media plays an important role in influencing our judgement of a person,the very same media that is owned by these mobsters in suits who are still racist!to me obama is a typical example of what you call a "rent-a-black"!the world is in danger of all these criminals so much for HOPE obama!