In the city famous for segregation and corruption, we’ll see how many hoops Black people had to jump through, just to get a place to live. This scam would make Al Capone blush: crooked banks, politicians and realtors conspired to rob Black Chicagoans of more than four billion dollars! Special guest: Amber Hendley, housing activist and reparations warrior.
SHOW NOTES
Guest: Amber Hendley
Amber is a dynamic force in the national reparations movement. She directs the African American Leadership and Policy Institute, and works to promote Black homeownership. She co-authored The Plunder of Black Wealth in Chicago, an expose of the billions stolen from Black homebuyers under the “contract” system.
Highlights of episode:
[0:36] Tony & Adam on the wealth gap and why it’s been so hard for Black people to buy a house
[8:31] Amber on the Chicago housing scam
[15:01] Amber on how much money was stolen from Black Chicagoans
[22:51] Amber’s on what we need for housing reparations
[29:38] Tony & Adam’s ideas on reparations for this scam
More on the Chicago scam:
- “The Case For Reparations” by Ta-Nehesi Coates. This article was a game-changer. Exhibit A of his “case” is the Chicago scam and its devastating effects on the Black community.
- “In My Father’s House” - This 1972 piece lays out the whole story of the Chicago scam while it was still happening, with personal details.
- Family Properties by Beryl Satter. A detailed account of the Chicago contract buying system and the Contract Buyers League, who fought back and eventually forced the system to change.
For the full story on redlining and America’s history of government-led segregation, see Richard Rothstein’s explosive book, The Color Of Law.
Contact Tony and Adam
Transcript of this episode
TRANSCRIPT
TONY 0:23
So Adam, we hear a lot about the racial wealth gap. What are we talking about? What is that?
ADAM 0:42
The wealth gap is basically the big difference between the average black family and the average white family in terms of how much they have. And when we say wealth, we're talking about everything you own, minus all your debts. So like all your property, your bank accounts, your investments, minus any student loans, credit card, debt, car loans, all the other stuff that you owe on. So if there's a big difference between black and white families' wealth, you know, we might think that a big wealth gap would be something like, the average white family having twice as much wealth as the average black family, or maybe even three times the wealth, something like that?
TONY 1:19
No dude, not even close. It's more than 10 times. A couple of recent studies, one showed that the median wealth for white families was about $145,000. For black families, $13,000. Second study, the numbers were 171,000 to 17,000. This means that the average white family has over 10 times, you know, resources just for meeting your basic needs, family expenses for going out taking vacations, everything,
ADAM 1:50
Those are some crazy numbers. I think most people have no idea how big the gap is. And you know, the experts say that the wealth gap is really the best evidence of the total amount of the tab, we're talking about the total reparations, right, the result of all these centuries of theft and discrimination.
TONY 2:06
So why do we think this gap is so large? You know, there's lots of reasons for sure. But there's actually one essential reason that explains that difference. So Adam, let's start with that fundamental question. What's the number one way most Americans build their wealth in the first place?
ADAM 2:23
Playing the stock market?
TONY 2:25
No.
ADAM 2:26
Is it maybe I don't know having a 401? K?
TONY 2:29
Nope.
ADAM 2:30
How about trading Bitcoin and NFTs?
TONY 2:32
Come on, man, you don't even know what NFT stands for. Play around with bitcoin, get put on the couch by Kelly.
ADAM 2:38
It has something to do with Blockchain.
TONY 2:41
You don't even know what time it is, no, none of those. The number one way Americans have built wealth is through owning their own home. A real simple formula, buy a house, live in it, watch it appreciate, pass the equity down to your kids, and repeat the cycle. And our government, you know, was instrumental in helping to set all this up, right made it easy for many Americans to get into the game. So starting in the 1930s, with the new deal, in the 1940s with the GI Bill, you know, there were opportunities for cheap mortgages, easy credit, you know, basically, it was like, Come on, get your house and live out the American dream.
ADAM 3:16
So these huge government benefits that were given out, they also had a huge catch, which is that you had to be white. With rare exceptions, black people were pretty much frozen out of these programs. And you don't just
TONY 3:27
seems like that catch pops up in a few different areas.
ADAM 3:29
It's a very popular catch. And the GI Bill, like you mentioned, our federal government spent all this money, 10s of billions of dollars back in those days, but they left it all up to the states to decide how to give it out to people. So guess what happened? Almost all of the money went to white people. So for example, Mississippi in 1947, right after the war, where almost half of the returning GIs were black. They had 3200 loans that they gave out for people to buy houses and of those 3200 loans, two went to black families.
TONY 4:03
Get the hell out of here, two.
ADAM 4:04
Yeah, yeah. Two out of 22 out of 300. Right. And then up north in New York and New Jersey, for example, they gave out a total of about 67,000 loans. So out of those 67,000 loans less than 100 went to black families. So you know, the black GIs, they faced all the segregation in the military while they were serving our country. And then they come home and get basically zero of the benefits that were being given out. And so let's say a black family could afford somehow to buy a house without the government assistance that white people got there was another big problem they faced and it was called redlining.
ADAM 4:41
So our federal government set up this whole system starting around the 1930s. And they said that a neighborhood is considered good if it has only white people, preferably non immigrant white people, and it is bad if it has anybody else, especially black people. So they came up with four colors. It was like a color coded system where green is the best color red is the worst. And basically, they drew the red lines around the neighborhoods that were considered beyond hope, because they had too many black people. So the deal was the banks would not give mortgages in the black neighborhoods. So it was a total catch 22, right. You can't get a loan because we say you're in a bad neighborhood and the neighborhood's bad, because you're there. So you know, good luck making that work.
TONY 5:23
Yeah. And on top of that, there were other ways used to keep black people out of quote, unquote, white areas. So for example, there were these restrictive covenants that were included in many sales contracts that said that, you know, you can't sell property to black families, right, and sometimes other disfavored groups. Chicago was notorious for having the most restrictive covenants of any city in the country. And Chicago government passed laws and policies that were specifically designed to promote segregation. You know, this coincided with the second wave of the great migration in the 1940s and 50s, which saw a large numbers of black people fleeing the Deep South, looking to escape the Jim Crow and violence that was taking place down there. And heading north, right. And one major route was Mississippi and Alabama to Chicago. Yeah, folks have worked hard, had saved up their money. They were excited about starting starting fresh, got up north got to Chicago and discovered they were still largely frozen out of this home buying system.
ADAM 6:24
Right. So in this episode, we're going to take a look at what some of those black families faced when they got to Chicago in the 1950s and tried to buy a house and it's called the contract buying scam.
TONY 6:33
The contract scam was actually pretty straightforward. It took place you know, during a period of time where inner city neighborhoods were changing, white people were moving out to the suburbs with new cheap and easy mortgages, contract scammers would buy houses way under market prices from white families, and then sell them to black people at highly inflated prices.
ADAM 6:54
The down payments that were required were far above the normal going rate. The interest rates were several points higher. You didn't have a normal loan or mortgage from the bank, you just had this installment contract from the scammer who kept the title to the house the entire time. And typically it was like 12 to 15 years it would take to pay off these contracts. So Chicago wasn't the only city with this contract scam going on. But it was the most notorious and well known you may have heard about it from Ta-Nehesi Coates's article, The Case for Reparations, back in 2014. And Exhibit A in that case was the Chicago contract scam. Chicago really was the perfect storm for this mess. It was one of the most segregated and racist cities in America and at the same time, probably the most corrupt city in the country, just a ripe place for scamming, helped on by the city government and the power structure.
TONY 7:47
Today's special guest is Amber Hendley. Based in Chicago, Amber is a dynamic force in the national reparations movement. She directs the African American Leadership and Policy Institute and also works with organizations to promote black homeownership. Amber holds a Master's in analytical political economy from Duke, where she studied under the tutelage of Dr. Sandy Darrity, one of the world's leading authorities on reparations. Amber co-authored The Plunder of Black Wealth in Chicago, a groundbreaking study of the wealth stolen from black homebuyers under the contract sale system. So with Amber's help, we're gonna take a look at this colossal theft from black Chicagoans, crunch some serious numbers and explore how to make it right.
ADAM 8:24
Amber Hendley. Welcome to pay the tab. We're so happy to have you on.
AMBER 8:28
Thank you for having me. I love talking reparations.
ADAM 8:31
Tell us about the contract buying system like what was this system?
AMBER 8:35
White speculators tended to be like already in the real estate business. There were also some like Chicago, some downtown attorneys, and dentists. It was mainly people who were already in real estate though. So a lot of the people who owned their homes they kept they retain their homes, and they would move out to the suburbs, and then they could sell these homes on contract. But then those who had who already held homes within black bust, so then look at their neighbors and say, Hey, this, this area is turning black people are coming. You need to just sell to me low and get out before your property values plummet because they will plummet when black people come.
AMBER 9:14
So they get these properties. And they see this opportunity to make lots and lots of profit because they know how much black people want to live the American Dream, which is to own a home the white picket fence at least that's you know what it's supposed to be, especially during that time. They fled the south and they think they're going to have a greater opportunity here. Well, we have a greater opportunity actually. So they take these homes and they sell them which is not selling the right it's like a lease to own situation. And then they say if you miss one payment, you forfeit everything, and you turn the home back over to me if you miss one payment,
TONY 9:56
No matter what, no matter when along the process?
AMBER 9:58
No matter when. You had no equity because the deed stayed in the contract seller's name the entire time or the contract seller was very greedy and sold that contract from under you to another one of his investor friends to just kind of keep turning these things over and over and over again, like this, this building, he got enough money out of this building already, he already paid for this mortgage, and then some and then transfer the deed to somebody else, and then moved on to another property.
ADAM 10:26
So it sounds like the sellers sort of had a motivation for people not to finish their contract, right? Like you say, if they miss a payment in year 12. All that money is just gone. Right? No equity. And the seller just takes over ownership and goes on to the next buyer, right?
AMBER 10:42
And that's right. So they are also responsible for paying the taxes on this property, and the insurance on this property. On top of everything else, they don't own this home, but they're fully responsible for repairs any violation, please don't let the city come by and leave a violation that you have to pay for.
ADAM 11:01
Tell us how did this contract buying system contrast with the more mainstream American mortgage system that white families were using at that same time?
AMBER 11:11
White people were able to outright purchase their homes where each payments, they built equity, their monthly payments were less, right, and their insurance was less, and so were their property taxes, and they made more income-wise. So not only are they paying less for their monthly payments, they're building equity. Black families, however, were making less and paying more for their homes. So then you have to split up your home, it's actually becomes necessary for you to become a landlord, because you can't actually afford your more your contract price because it's already too high in comparison to your income, it was high period. But we always have to throw in the fact that black people have always made less. So now you have to split up your home. They're taking this two flat, and housing like five families. And this two flat like creating their own makeshift partitions. So now your community area becomes overcrowded, schools become overcrowded. People are working multiple jobs. Clyde Ross, who is probably the most notable contract buyer, who's he's done so many interviews, and he talks about heat, like seeing this interview with him broke my heart when he just talked about how he didn't know his children. Like how he looked, he looked up one day and realized he did not know his children. And that was because he was working night and day, literally night and day to make this crazy mortgage payment. So then that's another thing to think about - white people could be with their families.
TONY 12:47
Briefly. I want to circle back to this the issue of redlining and there seems to be a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy involved in that as well right that the redlining plus the contract buying led to neighborhoods that had already been identified as areas not worth investing in leading to further disinvestment, right. And is that kind of what happened?
AMBER 13:07
That's absolutely right. Because not only so now are the neighborhoods become overpopulated. But the city stops providing services to the neighborhood as well. So not picking up the trash and the contract fires, like did do something about that they had an action against that. But they stopped picking up garbage. So now this community area is disgusting. It's gross, Chicago has a rat problem. Can you just imagine what that's like when they're not picking up trash? And schools are now overcrowded. And also, people are working nonstop to pay their so called mortgages.
TONY 13:46
So you know, some folks might think that the contract Sale system was just the, you know, the product product of a few shady speculators, but it seems like it was much larger than that. So if you can give us a sense of the scope of who all was involved, private, governmental, you know, across the board?
AMBER 14:02
A lot of the banks were covers for these people. So exchange National Bank was huge. Lawndale National Bank was huge, Cosmopolitan. And some of these banks were acquired by institutions like US Bank, Chicago Title, the same institutions that were denying these mortgages for these exact same homes, to black people. And when any kind of court case was was was taken, those were just thrown out whenever complaints were made to anybody official, any political official, any government official, it was ignored. And it was like you signed a contract. So that's how they upheld it. And some of them were contract sellers.
TONY 14:47
Some of the government officials were? Okay. No conflict there. Okay.
AMBER 14:54
Welcome to Chicago.
AMBER 14:59
So, what we did was we tracked the court cases. And so we actually sifted through like 5000 boxes and pulled all of the addresses associated with those who were part of that, who were contract buyers. So we pulled all the addresses, and then any data that had come from that. So sometimes we could see how much the seller purchased the home for versus what they sold to the contract seller and what the terms were. So we spent weeks there just combing through these documents pulling as much as we could. What makes us different is there's been variations of this kind of done on small scale. But we we took the entire universe from that. And then we took it and verified as much as we could against the records at the Cook County recorder of deeds.
TONY 15:49
Can you help give us a sense of the size and scope of this of this practice? Like so for example, what percentage of black homebuyers in Chicago south and west side were impacted?
AMBER 16:01
We estimate where our conservative end a 75%. So we we base this off of different reports that were done during this time. That said as low as 75% of black homes are bought on contract, up to 95% of homes being bought on contract, so we don't know for sure. But Jack McNamara would swear up and down that you that it was it Amber it was it was basically 100%. So it was very rare that a black person got a mortgage,
ADAM 16:30
Maybe you can give us kind of an overview of the findings, right? Like, what were the main sort of numbers that came out of the Duke study, before we get into the Amber analysis?
AMBER 16:41
Yes, the homes are marked up on average 84%. So a home that was sold to a white buyer for $12,000, was then sold to a black buyer for 22. We had some markups that were 300%, which is crazy. And we had some that were maybe only 25%. But the average of our data set was 84%. Which translates to in today's dollars, about $79,000 more than they should have been paying. And they paid each month for their mortgage about $650 more than they would have paid had they been one of their work white counterparts. So that's what we call our "race tax" was that $79,000 figure.
ADAM 17:30
So that's the average estimated overpayment that a black family was forced to make under this system because they couldn't get a mortgage.
AMBER 17:37
That's right.
ADAM 17:38
And did the study put a total price tag in its estimate of the total loss to black Chicago?
AMBER 17:45
Yes. So in today's dollars, it would have felt like between $3.6 and $4.5 billion.
ADAM 17:56
Billion with a B?
AMBER 17:57
Billion with a B. And it's a conservative estimate, that's a conservative estimate. Because we we know that more than 75% of black homes were sold on contract, it's just we have to, you just have to be careful because of the skeptics. So we know it's more than 4.5 billion, because of also we weren't able to calculate other ways that homebuyers were exploited.
ADAM 18:23
And it seems like another one of the factors that is really hard to put a number on is the just being frozen out of the entire system, like you were talking about of mortgages and home equity and and you know, neighborhoods appreciating in value, if you're shut out of that entire system. You know, how do you put a price tag on that?
AMBER 18:41
How do you put a price tag on that when it's a present day issue as well. So then you have to do some type of compounding calculation, I'm not going to say it's impossible because we have to do something we have to get as close to something because we have to have preparation. So we have to - we can figure something out. But it's never going...
AMBER 18:58
Whatever we do is going to be conservative is the moral of the story. Because you're going to miss so much that trickles off - there's this wealth gap. But there's a health gap that's associated with this too. There's an access gap that's associated with this too. There's all these things that come off of it that have to also be calculated. How do we do that? Well, there's lots of researchers who are doing various aspects of it, we have to start talking to each other a little bit more. It's so important to like understand that yes, wealth was extracted. But this may even be worse, like the psychological effects of watching your neighbors, your community members. deal with that.
AMBER 19:45
There's two things that I can think of that could come out of that. One is you being completely turned off to the American dream, and homebuying. I know so many in my age and I'm a millennial and a lot of us are like, Ah, we're not doing - black Millennials are like, we're not doing that, like we see how much that takes. And it's more expensive for us. We have different credit scores. I don't know how to prove that that's racial. But I suspect highly, that we have higher interest rates. And it's, we don't have the same access to capital even today. So it's like, Oh, I've seen all the documentaries. I've heard the stories from my great grandma. No, I'm not doing that.
AMBER 20:29
And then something else that's more harmful, because I'm okay, I'm making it not owning a home, I'll be fine. But the saddest thing that I see is what it makes a black person think of themselves when you do look, and you see what your community has become. And it wasn't at your hand, but when you're young, you don't know that. You don't understand that, um, and how do you think about your own communities? And that becomes a self fulfilling prophecy? Because now you've you made this, this group of people devalue themselves in a certain way. And sometimes, like, you're you're not investing in the community area, but then the people that live in it, don't invest in it, because they don't see what is the point to them? What is the point? And that's really harmful? And very, very sad, because I see it. I work in North Lawndale, currently. And you can see that people are still defeated.
TONY 21:31
Yeah. What's the message that you internalize? When trash isn't collected in your neighborhood? And rent you know, rats run rampant in? How is that passed down? Yeah, that's generational trauma.
TONY 21:49
I read one of the stats that about 83% of contract buyers during that time, were actually able to pay off their contracts. And so I'm wondering like, what, what's your takeaway from that? Like, what is that? What does that speak to?
AMBER 22:03
Well, for one, the resiliency of black people. 83% of home black homebuyers, they paid off their contract, they paid those off. When they made less - could their communities were being deteriorated... There's no way that somebody who lived on the northside - trash was not right - was going to pay their mortgage payment, you know, like just different. It just speaks to the builds of black people, the resiliency, the heart that drive like, it speaks to the beauty of black people. That 83%. How much more could they have done? Had they not had their hands tied? Because if they did make those payments, how much was it?
TONY 22:46
What was the cost? Yeah.
ADAM 22:48
What thoughts do you have on possible reparations to families in Chicago who were impacted by the racist housing policies? Are there some projects that have been underway? Anything you'd like to share with us about that?
AMBER 22:59
Sure. So right now, I am supporting in North Lawndale, an organization that's developing affordable homes, building 1000 affordable homes for working class families. But I've also been a part of policy conversations with how do we get the lenders to create a product to support these homebuyers that are having such an issue accessing a mortgage for the right amount, and that terms that are actually affordable, because I'm still running into the same affordability process or issue that I saw the contract selling, it's kind of the same. It's what people are saying they're pre approved for, it's still extractive, the amounts are too high, but some type of loan product that acknowledges fully acknowledges what has happened, what the banks did in these community areas that were redlined.
AMBER 23:46
And this might be far fetched, but 0, 1-2% interest rates held fixed for a 20% downpayment to completely eliminate mortgage insurance. So the goal is to get these community members back in homes in a way that is affordable, but allows them to catch up right? These initiatives that are about just increasing black homeownership? No. Increasing affordable reparative homeownership, where black families are paying less than the average family. Because we have to catch up because we've always paid more when we when we paid it, we paid more. So we should be paying less to do this catch-up.
ADAM 24:34
Seems like we have a real problem when you know, we have the fair housing laws that require equal access, equal treatment, everything being equal, equal equal, but things have never been at all equal. Right? So if you're starting from in the hole, those equality laws don't always don't always cut it right?
AMBER 24:51
We don't want equality. We want equity. We actually need you to give us more - we don't want like - we don't want the same. You're on this rung, and we're on this rung. So we don't want to just move this way, we need you to stay where you are. And we need that bump. Like, that's - I don't want equality. I don't want what you have. We want what we need that you got, that we never got. That means you're okay for a second. We need equity not equality right now.
ADAM 25:19
That's great.
TONY 25:19
Yeah. Amber really exciting to have a chance to speak with you. You're inspiring, motivating and encouraging and empowering, all that. So just pumped that you were able to spend some time with us on on pay the tab and share some of your your wisdom and vision with our listeners.
AMBER 25:37
Thank you guys again, for doing this in the first place. This is great, like more platforms talking about reparations is is what we need.
TONY 25:47
Is there a way for listeners to to follow you?
AMBER 25:49
I'm very anti social media. I do LinkedIn, I do LinkedIn and that's it.
TONY 25:55
Fair enough.
ADAM 25:57
A kindred spirit.
TONY 26:04
As Amber mentioned, you know, many families were in fact able to scrape by and make it through the gauntlet of this scam to eventually own their own home. But as we also learned, a lot of folks along the way weren't successful. Again, remind you, late on one payment could equate to being bounced out completely. Sheriff would come out, throw people out, throw their belongings onto the street, and and that's it, and there's no recourse. But there were some black people and others who fought back. Amber mentioned the contract buyers League. They were formed in the late 60s Who said no, we're not done with this. And they engaged in a number of tactics to try to thwart this contract scam. They actually filed a lawsuit for reparations. It took a few years for for it to work its way through the court system. But finally the jury, although didn't award monetary damages, the contract system was exposed and ultimately dried up for the most part.
ADAM 26:54
So the contract buying system mostly fizzled out after the 1970s. But still today, black Americans are still mainly frozen out of the housing game, it's harder to get loans. You know, even if you have good credit, there's less wealth to spend on homes and the scams just keep coming like in 2008. You know, we all know about the subprime loan scam and the huge financial crisis. What a lot of people don't know is that the banks specifically targeted black buyers and black neighborhoods with these bogus subprime loans and pushed them hard. There were some people who already had normal loans and mortgages, but they were pushed into these bad ones. And then after the meltdown happened, you know, the banks and the media tried to blame it on the people who got scammed. So what else is new, right?
ADAM 27:34
This contract scam from the 60s. It's weird, you know, I'm from Chicago, I lived in a mostly black neighborhood. But I never heard about this at the time. You know, we always talked about white flight and the white families that, like you were saying sold fast and moved out of the neighborhood when black people started to move in. But this was at a whole different level. You know, I never had any idea that black families, first of all, couldn't buy a home the normal way. And then the level of hardship everybody went through who was under this contract system. I'm sure I knew some families that were involved in it, but they didn't talk about it. And you know, I just never really had any idea.
TONY 28:12
Let's look at the harms here. Right? What's What's the tab? What are we talking about? You know, let's dig, dig a little deeper into the figures that came out of the Duke study on how Amber and her team came up with an estimated total loss of black families of $4 billion. That's real money, right? That's some real coin, to be sure. But it's still a conservative figure.
ADAM 28:31
She estimates that about $60,000 per home was lost in lost depreciation, right due to the racist housing policies, as opposed to the white areas that just went up up up in value. And there's also what they call opportunity cost where, you know, if you're spending every penny trying to make this crazy monthly payment, and that means you're not able to spend your money on other things. You could be like your kids education or investment or maybe starting a business. And so how many more billions, you know, does that come out to - just for these families we're talking about?
TONY 29:03
Yeah, absolutely. In addition to the economic harms, there's some unquantifiable harms, just in terms of the disinvestment that took place in these neighborhoods and these communities, right, what what's the damage? What's the trauma that comes out of disinvestment?
ADAM 29:21
Absolutely. And all is the result of government policies right at the city level and the national level.
TONY 29:26
So what can we do about this gigantic taking of money, this this grand theft?
ADAM 29:30
Well, what time is it?
ADAM 29:35
So here's some ideas that Tony and I have that are at least a good start for actually repairing the intentional harm that's been done by our government. So since this episode is about Chicago, let's start by looking at Chicago.
TONY 29:46
Yeah. So one place is to establish some kind of a superfund funded by banks and title companies, the banks and title companies that were involved in this scam in the first place. You know, we have to remember that it was because banks refused to lend to black buyers on conventional mortgage terms that buyers were frozen out and had to look for other alternatives. And that fund could be something in the neighborhood of $4 billion. That Amber's study, you know, discovered, right? They had their fingerprints all over it.
ADAM 30:16
Yep. And while we're talking about Chicago, you know, the corrupt-ass city of Chicago needs to pony up as well, you know, these, these scams and rip offs are not just a few shady individuals doing stuff, you know, it was part of the full program of local government and business as usual with segregation, right, exploitation and just taking money away from black people.
TONY 30:36
You know, another area where we would look to propose, you know, reparations be made is in property taxes, right? All Black buyers who purchase under this contract scam system should be reimbursed past property taxes plus interest, for sure. Right, shouldn't have been their responsibility in the first place. So that was just just a straight, you know, gangster theft.
ADAM 30:57
So we also want to look at the national level, right, we have this gigantic wealth gap, the result of intentional government policies, and, you know, what does the US government need to do to start paying that back?
TONY 31:08
Yeah, so one of our ideas is to create the black GI Bill. So for descendants of black people who served his country, in mostly substandard, segregated and more dangerous conditions, but then were largely frozen out of the benefits of the initial GI Bill: federal government would provide tax breaks and grants to subsidize home buying and education costs, just like the GI Bill was supposed to have done.
ADAM 31:36
So let's look more broadly, right, let's look at all black homebuyers. You know, let's start talking about how to repair this. We're talking about no interest loans. And not only that, but how about some grants and subsidies towards a down payment towards buying a house right cash money. And you know, if some of this sounds kind of extreme, like, Oh, you're just giving away money to people, I think we need to remember that it wasn't just the GI Bill that got white America started on this road to all this wealth.
ADAM 32:03
It went way back before that with the land grants of the 1800s and 1900s, right when our government was basically giving away land, to build homes only to white people - land that a government, of course, had stolen and that's a whole different conversation. But they say that now there are millions of white families in America, who can trace their family wealth back to those land grants right all across the US. So this is another way that wealth was built up by a government program that was only for white people.
ADAM 32:34
What are some things that our listeners can do who may want to get involved and make a difference in people's housing?
TONY 32:39
Well, one thing that listeners can consider doing if they really want to take some direct action is contact your local Fair Housing Council or center for fair housing, and volunteer to help fight against housing discrimination. One very specific way is to serve as a tester, where you actually go out, you know, posing as a prospective homebuyer or apartment renter, and to help sniff out when there's suspected discrimination going on.
ADAM 33:08
Absolutely. And I know in Fair Housing work that we've done, it's always critical to have people available who can do this testing. And for people who want to learn more about redlining and how our government has always intentionally promoted segregation and white supremacy, check out our show notes. We've got some great books and other resources in there so you can dig deeper and we'll also have a link to the amazing report that Amber and the rest of those folks did about the Chicago contract scam.
TONY 33:31
Something else for folks to consider particularly people that are active in their you know, local school boards is to push for curricular reforms, right? And like this, this kind of information that needs to be to be taught. Adam didn't learn about this, you know, in Chicago, I didn't learn about any any of this in Los Angeles, and I'd be willing to bet that most listeners never read about any of this when they were coming up in school. So this is exactly the kind of educational information that folks need to be made aware of so that we don't repeat the history.
TONY 34:04
Hey, everybody, thanks for joining us on pay the tab. We hope you enjoyed the show. Please subscribe to our podcast and if you like what we're putting down share it with your family and friends.
ADAM 34:12
And please give us a review on Apple podcasts. This is the best way you can help us to get the word out with this show. So please check that out and give us some love.
TONY 34:20
Thanks for listening. Keep coming back to pay the tab.