"Black and Latinx borrowers [are] more likely to be denied credit than white borrowers and more likely to be charged higher interest rates [...]. [O]ne of many ways the financial deck is stacked against Black and brown consumers.”
Today, nearly 60 years removed from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr’s speech during the March on Washington, countless barriers remain between his dream and America’s reality.
An economy that ultimately lives up to our country’s promise will require us to invest in public goods and health infrastructure, break up concentrated economic power, and ensure equitable access for Black and brown communities.
American democracy wasn't functioning well for many Americans before this election. Sure, it's working well as it was designed by our all-white, all-male founding fathers — to protect white political power — but it's still failing Black and brown people.
We need to continue to demand a government committed to protecting Black and brown communities in this moment, and need to continue to push for bold, transformative change.
To help make that vision real, we should consider not just bold legislative change, but also finally remaking our Constitution to make real the aspiration for an inclusive democracy.
Besides, focusing narrowly on individual instances of discrimination often leaves in place workplace policies and the power structures that perpetuate systemic discrimination against Black and brown communities in particular.
On the superhighway to freedom, while we might be moving in different lanes and at different speeds, let’s ensure we’re all headed in the right direction to emancipation and justice.
The COVID-19 crisis has cast into stark relief what has always been true: the wealth and prosperity of the U.S. economy rests on the labor, and the lives, of black and brown communities.
Private credit reporting companies should be replaced by a publicly run credit registry that operates in the public interest and that automatically corrects for events like natural disasters and global health crises.
COVID-19 has exposed longstanding racial and economic inequalities in American life, which is evident in the fact that communities of color are being hit the hardest by both the medical and the economic impacts of the virus.
There have been devastating reports of disproportionate rates of death in Black communities as a result of COVID-19. Racial capitalism and structural racism are to blame.