New lawsuit accuses New York bank of racist lending practices

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The RealNews recently interviewed former financial regulator Bill Black who is also a scholar on white-collar crimes, where he discussed the significance of a new lawsuit against New York bank Evans Bancorp that alleges the bank would not give loans to black neighborhoods. Evans Bancorp is alleged to have gone as far as to draw a map detailing where they would not provide financial loans to Black people.

Bill Black also detailed the similar racist practices of Bank of America and mentioned that when he blew the whistle on them, at the time Bank of America racially showcased a prominent “African-American” as the chairperson of its board of directors, which was purely a public relations tactic. This again shows that Black people being featured in positions of power whether in government or in the corporate boardroom, means very little in eliminating racism in either and are usually used to deflect charges of racism or to blame them when things go bad.

Redlining Black neighborhoods is a major reason why attempts at Black business building in the Black community are impeded and that if they are to be successful, alternative means to obtain capital will need to be developed. One solution that has been used in the past by the Black community is for churches and other institutions to be part of efforts to create Black banks and credit unions to bypass the need to seek out and obtain loans from banks with racist practices of lending. In fact there used to be many Black Wall Streets across America that were destroyed by racist white mob violence and later by integration whereas Black people stopped patronizing businesses in their own communities and instead took their dollars to white-owned businesses.