A common 21st-century discriminatory practice, in which banks specifically target African Americans for predatory subprime loans (rather than specifically denying them loans, as in redlining). These subprime loans are designed to bankrupt borrowers rather than actually help them pay for their homes, and as a result, banks’ well-documented and widespread campaign to market these loans to black Americans disproportionately drained the savings and intergenerational wealth of African American families. The government’s failure to intervene and stop this practice shows how de jure segregation continues into the present day.
Reverse Redlining Quotes in The Color of Law
The The Color of Law quotes below are all either spoken by Reverse Redlining or refer to Reverse Redlining. For each quote, you can also see the other terms and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Chapter 7
Quotes
The consequences of racially targeted subprime lending continue to accumulate. As the housing bubble collapsed, African American homeownership rates fell much more than white rates. Families no longer qualify for conventional mortgages if they previously defaulted when they were unable to make exorbitant loan payments; for these families, the contract buying system of the 1960s is now making its return. Some of the same firms that exploited African Americans in the subprime crisis are now reselling foreclosed properties to low- and moderate-income households at high interest rates, with high down payments, with no equity accumulated until the contract period has ended, and with eviction possible after a single missed payment.
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Reverse Redlining Term Timeline in The Color of Law
The timeline below shows where the term Reverse Redlining appears in The Color of Law. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 7: IRS Support and Compliant Regulators
...to discriminate against African American people “into the twenty-first century.” Now, regulators support the “ reverse redlining ” that helped cause the 2008 economic collapse. Banks pressured African American people into predatory...
(full context)
...after a single missed payment.” Rothstein concludes that “regulators shared responsibility [with banks] for [the] reverse redlining of African American communities” in the 1990s and 2000s, and thereby shirked their constitutional responsibilities.
(full context)
