Are America’s Bailout Policies Racist?

The Gantt Report

By Lucius Gantt

When things are bad for General Motors, AIG and Merrill Lynch they are devastating for America’s poor and disabled.

While corporate big wigs skirt around the world in expensive corporate jets, plan lavish staff parties and exotic retreats, enjoy exorbitant and unworthy bonus payments and spend millions on office redecorations with taxpayer money, America’s poor continues to suffer.

Are America’s “bailout policies” racist?

I know you don’t like for me to ask questions like that, especially when the policies are tied to proposals made by an African-American President, but look at who benefits from infusions of government money and look at who suffered the most from economic exploitation, financial criminality, predatory lending and unfair banking practices like redlining and the awarding or denial of loans based on race.

Everybody is upset because the nation’s unemployment rate has increased. Well, unemployment in the Black community has been high forever. Double -digit unemployment in the hood is nothing new. We haven’t had full employment since slavery.

Every African-American and most Americans know a family member, a neighbor or a friend that has lost their job, lost their homes or has lost their minds because of the depression, high blood pressure, hunger and other problems that were brought on or exacerbated by the extreme lack of capital in this capitalistic society.

But is it racism? I don’t know if you could call the government policies racist but my experience is that the attitudes that have surfaced since the economic hard times began certainly seems racist.

Let me explain. President Obama is right. The wealthiest of us should do all they can to help those of us that have the least.

I know a few rich people and all I’ve spoken to feel it is great for beast bankers to get a trillion dollars to help them but the poor, the disabled and the unemployed should get little or nothing.

In other words, welfare and social services for poor people is wrong but welfare for Citicorp, Bank of America, General Motors and AIG is great!

The best way to stimulate America’s economy is to give poor people some money. They will buy cars, clothes, travel to football games and music festivals, buy new rims or new hair weaves, order more ringtones, TV fights and pay-per-view programs and possibly pay off some of their bills.

Could it be that the corporations are getting the bailout money because the corporations donate more campaign contributions to the politicians? I think the President got a huge amount of contributions from Wall Street affiliated contributors.

Could bankers and others be getting most bailout dollars because of what they know about political parroting, rubber stamping and how politicians closed their eyes, turned their heads and allowed financial criminals to steal all of the money they could steal? Even Stevie Wonder can see that the politicians, investigators and government financial analysts are perhaps involved in or implicated in the current financial melt downs.

The policies themselves may or may not be racist but one thing is for sure, only the poor people feel it.
America continues to get deeper and deeper into debt and the rich keep getting richer and richer.