Friday, April 30, 2010

Dr. Boyce Watkins: NAACP Lending Principles for Banks

 

From Dr. Boyce Watkins, Syracuse University

In light of the article I wrote challenging the partnership between the NAACP and Wells Fargo, the company accused of predatory lending in the Black community (click here to read the article), I thought I'd publicly share the NAACP lending principles that were sent to me by one of the NAACP spokes people.   In spite of the fact that I am not accusing the NAACP of illegal or unethical behavior, I still hold to the fact that the following must be true in order for me to become comfortable with this partnership:

1) There should be public accountability and transparency regarding the nature of the deal between the NAACP and Wells Fargo.  That includes the amount of the sponsorship and all WRITTEN contractual commitments between the NAACP and Wells Fargo.  Only specific terms in writing are relevant and can be properly enforced.

2) Simply agreeing to stop predatory lending is not enough, since there must be compensation given to the African-American community for tens of billions of dollars in lost wealth due to the racially discriminatory practices of Wells Fargo.  If a senior citizen on the South Side of Chicago who lost her home is not given relief from her situation, then this partnership does very little for our community.  A person cannot simply apologize for a crime and refuse to commit the crime again; there must be an effort to make right on the crimes that have been committed in the past.

The NAACP Banking Principles on Fairness in Lending are Below:

 

Mortgage foreclosures, excessive subprime mortgage interest rates, and hindered access to prime mortgage loans have had an inordinate impact on people of color and other historically disadvantaged borrowers. These practices have resulted in adverse effects even beyond the actual borrowers themselves. Home values have been depressed as a result of these practices, and in general people of color and their families have become increasingly vulnerable to loss of shelter, home security, equity, and wealth—even if they do not have subprime loans. To encourage transparency and fairness in the processes associated with obtaining quality loans and improved relationships between financial institutions and people of color and other historically disadvantaged borrowers, the NAACP has developed the following principles.

1. Loan terms will not be determined by a borrower’s race, ethnicity, gender, national origin, sexual orientation, language preference, disability, religion/creed, or age, except as otherwise permitted or required by law. Additionally, loan terms will not be determined by factors designed to serve as proxies (e.g., zip codes) for the above categories. Loan terms will not be determined by subjective underwriting without controls to prevent inappropriate bias or discrimination. Similarly situated borrowers (i.e., borrowers with similar underwriting characteristics, including credit scores, debt ratios, loan-to-value ratios, etc.) will receive comparable loan terms on identical or comparable loan products.

2. Every borrower will have the option of selecting a loan product that is appropriate for his or her circumstances. Borrowers will first be presented with loan product choices that are consistent with their financial circumstances. Lenders will determine whether borrowers are eligible for prime loan products and, if so, the borrowers will be presented with prime product options. Additionally, information will be provided to the borrowers about available conventional and Federal Housing Administration (FHA) loan products in order for the borrowers to fully understand their options. Borrowers with good payment histories and demonstrated improvement in credit performance and other risk factors will be considered by their existing lenders for loan refinancing that result in improved loan terms.

3. Institutions will seek to eliminate policies or practices that encourage biased and exploitive behaviors toward borrowers. Lending institutions will disclose in good faith the loan fees associated with each loan and will conduct periodic audits of files, policies, and practices to ensure an environment—in lending, credit, and payment options—that is free of bias toward borrowers. Additionally, lenders who sell loans on the secondary market to third parties will also observe these fairness principles and will refrain from charging usurious interest rates.

4. Borrowers will be approved only for loans they have a current ability to repay. Borrowers will receive loans that they demonstrate the ability to repay, even in the event of a rate increase. Adjustable rate mortgages (ARMs) and other loans will not be underwritten at the “teaser rate,” but rather at the fully indexed interest rate. Standard adjustable rate loan products will be clearly identified as such to borrowers, so they are fully aware of the terms of the ARM loan products and the possibility of interest rate and payment increases.

5. Each policy may be maintained and monitored for its racial impact. Fairness is measured not only in terms of intent, but also impact. Policies will reflect a demonstrated effort to ameliorate negative outcomes based on race or ethnicity. Each institution will have internal controls to determine overall, and within the subprime community of loans issued by the institution, that its neutral practices do not have an unlawful adverse impact based on grounds of race, sex, color, or ethnicity.

6. All borrowers will have access to free information, online and in print, that will help them understand and improve the quality of their loans. The terms of each loan will be provided to the borrower and explained in plain and simple language. The terms of the loan will be in a large font and easily legible to those who are not severely vision-impaired. If the borrower is fluent in Spanish but not English, the loan disclosures and documents will be translated. In the case of other languages, borrowers without access to loan translation expertise will be referred to phone-based or other translation services that are familiar with loan terms and conditions. All borrowers should be able to clearly understand the terms of their loan products.

7. Lenders will work with borrowers to prevent foreclosures. Loan servicers will consider foreclosure to be the “last resort” and will explore all appropriate alternatives before completing a foreclosure sale. Because these matters impact borrowers, their neighbors, and the institution, we believe it wise for the institution to engage in extended good-faith efforts to do all that it can to prevent foreclosures. Lenders and their affiliates will not operate using a business model intentionally designed to profit from a foreclosure.

8. Lending institutions will support and implement the inclusion of diverse suppliers in their contracting and partnership decisions. Financial institutions will establish aspirational and measurable goals and develop supplier programs that ensure the inclusion of businesses owned by women- and people of color wherever contracting and partnership opportunities present themselves. Goals will be, at the very least, to reflect the various racial, ethnic, and gender compositions of the general population.

9. Workforce diversity is important to fair decision making and expanded opportunity for economic development. From the boardroom to the cubicle, the workforce continuum will reflect the diversity of the nation. As financial institutions establish inclusive business policies, so too will there be a measurable effort to employ a workforce that is reflective of the growing diversity of the nation—at all decision-making levels within the institution.




Thursday, April 29, 2010

Bob Johnson's Wife is Ashamed of BET

by Dr. Boyce Watkins

Thirty years ago, with $15,000 dollars in seed money and another $500,000 in bank loans, Sheila Crump Johnson and her ex-husband, Bob Johnson founded Black Entertainment Television. Since that time, the couple has earned over $1 billion dollars from their tiny investment, and BET is a household name. They sold the company to Viacom in 2000 for $1.3 billion, making them richer than Oprah Winfrey.

Now, the 60-year old woman who founded the company with her husband says that she is ashamed of the channel:
"Don't even get me started," says Mrs. Johnson. "I don't watch it. I suggest to my kids that they don't watch it... I'm ashamed of it, if you want to know the truth."

Johnson goes on to admit that BET may be contributing to the spread of AIDS in the black community by promoting raunchy, unprotected sex in rap music videos.
"When we started BET, it was going to be the Ebony magazine on television," Johnson told The Daily Beast. "We had public affairs programming. We had news... I had a show called Teen Summit, we had a large variety of programming, but the problem is that then the video revolution started up... And then something started happening, and I didn't like it at all. And I remember during those days we would sit up and watch these videos and decide which ones were going on and which ones were not. We got a lot of backlash from recording artists...and we had to start showing them. I didn't like the way women were being portrayed in these videos."

 

Click to read




Friday, April 23, 2010

Dr. Boyce Watkins: Where Henry Louis Gates Has it Wrong about Slavery

Henry Louis Gates gets slavery's history all wrong

by Dr. Boyce Watkins, Your Black World

Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. recently wrote an interesting piece for the New York Times called, "Ending the Slavery Blame Game." In the piece, Gates effectively argues that the fight for reparations is convoluted and somewhat mitigated by the fact that African elites participated in the slave trade. While describing complex business deals made between some African leadership and the Europeans who brought Africans to the New World, it almost appears as though Gates is saying that this disturbing relationship somehow undermines the right of African-Americans to hold our government accountable for its involvement in crimes committed against our people.

At very least, I am under the assumption that by "ending the slavery blame game," Gates is arguing that we should stop blaming the United States government and white America for the rape, murder, castration, lynching and beating of our ancestors.

Sorry Dr. Gates, but I must respectfully (or perhaps not so respectfully) disagree. If a young girl is sold into prostitution by her own parents, the pimp must still pay for the suffering he caused the young woman. He can't simply say, "Her parents made a deal with me, so you should stop the blame game."

In other words, the United States, as a broad and powerful industrial entity, benefited from slavery to the tune of several trillion dollars. Much of this wealth was passed down from one white man to another, and was always out of the grasp of the black men, women and children who gave their lives on American soil in order to earn it. As a result, the median net worth of the African-American family is roughly one-tenth that of white American families and we have consistently higher unemployment due to our inability to create jobs, since white Americans own most businesses. These facts hold true without regard to how the African-American holocaust started in the first place. They also hold true because wealth and power are commodities that are passed down inter-generationally, and we missed out on all of this because we were slaves. What occurred after we left Africa can and must be considered independently from what happened while our forefathers were in the mother land.

 

 

Click to read




Monday, April 19, 2010

Dr. Boyce Watkins: Resident Scholar - AOL Black Voices

 

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Harvard's Charles Ogletree Describes Sharpton's Link to Obama

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The Black Agenda: Wealth-Building Must Top the List - Dr. Boyce Money

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Officer Charged With Beating a Motorist

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Financial Lovemaking: Tiger, Tiki and the High Cost of Cheating

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Jay-Z Sues Red Sox Slugger David Ortiz Over 40/40 Club Name

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Bill O'Reilly Gets Booed at Sharpton's National Convention

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President Obama Spends $18 Billion on Jobless Benefits

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Police May Have Coerced Boys to Confess to Gang Rape of 7-Year-Old

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Former NAACP President Benjamin Hooks Dead at 85

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Man With HIV Knowingly Infected Women, Set to Be Released From Prison

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Kennedy Family Member Staying in Prison on Murder Conviction

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Mississippi Gov. Says Slavery Conversation is Not Important

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NBA Star Derrick Coleman is Now Broke: $87 Million Up in Smoke

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Michael Steele Tries to Explain Himself to Other Republicans

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Suspects Found in Slaying of Newlywed Couple




Sunday, April 18, 2010

What is the Black Agenda? Lola Adesioye and Dr. Boyce Watkins Talk it Out

by Lola Adesioye, Huffington Post - www.LolaCreative.com

Should there be a "black agenda" in America? And if the answer to that question is 'yes,' what is the black agenda?

These are the questions that black leaders and black people have been discussing more and more since President Obama took office. Last week, Reverend Al Sharpton hosted a leadership summit addressing this very issue. Today a group of black leaders got together on an MSNBC special to talk about this issue in more detail. And many will remember the on-air argument that Tavis Smiley and Rev Sharpton had a few weeks ago about this topic.

Tavis believes that Obama isn't doing enough. Sharpton believes that Obama need not 'ballyhoo' a black agenda. I think most agree, though, that something needs to be done.

With a 16.5% unemployment rate (compared to 9.7% for white Americans), an education system that is under serving black children, higher than average rates of death from diseases like breast cancer, and continued social issues, it is hard to disagree that there is need for some kind of targeted and focused approach to dealing with the issues that affect African-American. But many are divided on whether or not the president is doing enough for black people, whether or not it's incumbent on him to do anything at all, and what should or shouldn't be done.

 

Click to read




Friday, April 16, 2010

Your Black News: Guest List for the National Black Leadership Forum in NYC

Host: Tom Joyner- Host, “Tom Joyner Morning Show”

Moderator: Roland Martin- TV- ONE’s “Washington Watch” / Political Commentator

Leadership Roundtable

Rev. Al Sharpton- President, National Action Network

Marc Morial- CEO, National Urban League

Ben Jealous- President &CEO, NAACP

Dr. Elsie Scott- President and CEO, Congressional Black Caucus Foundation (CBCF) in Washington, D.C.

Angela Sailor- Coalitions Director, Republican National Committee

Lezli Baskerville- - President & CEO, NAFEO- America’s Black Colleges and Universities

Congressman James Clyburn

Discussion Panel

Moderator: Roland Martin- TV- ONE’s “Washington Watch” / Political Commentator

Warren Ballentine- Host, “The Warren Ballentine Show”

Dr. Boyce Watkins- Assistant Professor, Finance- Syracuse University

Dr. Charles Ogletree- Professor, Harvard Law School

Jeff Johnson- BET Personality/ Political Motivator

Chuck D- Recording Artist

Judge Greg Mathis- Judge and Star of Court TV Series “The Judge Mathis Show”

Reverend Doctor Frederick D. Haynes III-

Senior Pastor, Friendship West Baptist Church, Dallas Texas

Michael Eric Dyson- Professor, Georgetown University/ Author

Hermene Hartman- President/CEO, Hartman Publishing Group, INC.

LaKimba B. DeSadier- Executive Director, The National Black Caucus of State Legislators

** Michael Blake- Associate Director, White House Office of Public Engagement& Deputy Associate Director of the Office of Intergovernmental Affairs

** Danny Bakewell




Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Should This Man Be Released After Spreading HIV Deliberately?

by Dr. Boyce Watkins, Syracuse University

You may not know the name Nushawn Williams, but it's probably a name you need to know. You would especially want your daughter to know his name, as well as anyone else in the community who has reason to fear a more disturbing style of sexual predator for the new millenium.


Williams is in prison right now for knowingly infecting women with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. His victims were as young as 13 years old, and authorities believe he may have infected as many as 50 women prior to going to state prison in 1998. Police are working to keep Williams behind bars because they fear what might happen if he is released to the American public.
"He is prone to further sexual contact with underage individuals because of deficits in his emotional capacity to understand why this is wrong and attitudes that support these types of exploitive encounters. His emotional callousness, lack of remorse and impulsivity undermine important internal mechanisms for managing his sexual behavior," said examiner Jacob E. Hadden from the New York State Office of Mental Health. Authorities have determined that Williams suffers from a mental health abnormality that makes him incapable of understanding why his actions are wrong or harmful.


The possible release of Williams reminds us of the urgency of managing the public health alarm called HIV infection. African Americans are taking the lead in HIV infection rates, and what is also true is that the experience in our community is nothing less than a precursor to what is eventually going to happen all throughout America. What is most frightening about the case of Nushawn Williams is that he is probably not the only person deliberately spreading the disease: there are likely women and other men doing the same thing. To make matters worse, there are many in our community (and others) who are being incredibly irresponsible with their sexual behavior and infecting scores of people in the process.


As I felt empathy for celebrities like Magic Johnson and Eazy-E for their battles with HIV/AIDS, I wondered how many of us thought about the long list of partners they infected before finally getting their own positive test results. Did you ever think about the fact that many of those people are out in the community right now, quite a few of whom may have taken years to become aware of their HIV positive status? This is scary indeed, so the truth is that to protect yourself from the silent community killer, a general strategy of protection must be put into play.

 

Click to read




Saturday, April 10, 2010

Your Black Social Commentary - 4/10/10




Sunday, April 4, 2010

Blacks Far More likely to be Incarcerated than Whites

This data was gathered from the prison initiative and shows that there is more racism in the US prison system than there was in South Africa During Apartheid:

 


Incarceration is not an equal opportunity punishment

by Peter Wagner
Updated June 28, 2005

On June 30, 2004, there were 2,131,180 people in U.S. prisons and jails. That's a rise of 2.3% during the 12 previous months. Federal prisons are growing almost 5 times faster than state prison populations.

As of June 30, 2004, the U.S. incarceration rate was 726 per 100,000 residents. But when you break down the statistics you see that incarceration is not an equal opportunity punishment.

U.S. incarceration rates by race, June 30, 2004

incarceration rates by race graph

Gender is an important "filter" on the who goes to prison or jail:

incarceration rates by gender graph

Look at just the males by race, and the incarceration rates become even more frightening

incarceraton rates for males by race

If you look at males aged 25-29 and by race, you can see what is going on even clearer

incarceration rates for young males

Or you can make some international comparisons

International rates of incarceration graph

South Africa under Apartheid was internationally condemned as a racist society. What does it mean that the leader of the "free world" locks up its Black men at a rate 5.8 times higher than the most openly racist country in the world?

Statistics as of June 30, 2004 from Prison and Jail Inmates at Midyear 2004, Tables 14; except for the race rate statistics which are calculated from Table 13 and Census Bureau population estimates. South Africa figures from Marc Mauer, Americans Behind Bars: The International Use of Incarceration. All references to Blacks and Whites are for what the Bureau of Justice Statistics and U.S. Census refer to as "non-Hispanic Blacks" and "non-Hispanic Whites".)




Thursday, April 1, 2010

Dr. Boyce Watkins on MSNBC's TheGrio - 4/1/10




Supporting the right for Felons to Vote

Here is a form letter you can use to write your Congressman about the Democracy Restoration Act, an act sponsored by Russ Feingold and John Conyers.  The act would restore voting rights to ex-convicts in federal elections.  In case you are unaware, slavery in the United States was never fully abolished.  Actually, it was only abolished for those who were not convicted of a crime.  Therefore, many hundreds of thousands of African Americans are still victims of slavery and involuntary servitude.  This has got to stop now.  To read more on this issue, please click here.

 

Here is the sample letter you can cut and paste to send to your representative.

 

To whom it may concern,

I am a member of the Your Black World Coalition, as well as a concerned American.  I would like to write to express my support for HR3335 - The Democracy Restoration Act, sponsored by Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI) and Rep. John Conyers (D-MI).

I strongly believe that when felons have paid their debt to society, they deserve an opportunity and incentive to become a part of that society again.  Voting and participating in federal elections is an important part of being an American, and would serve to reduce recidivism, which hurts us all.  Additionally, it would ensure that these men and women receive the representation they deserve from elected officials, since most of us would agree that taxation without representation is fundamentally unfair and unAmerican.

We will continue to campaign on this matter, and hold our officials accountable.  Please do the right thing and vote "yes" on the Democracy Restoration Act.