The housing heist, the desire for generational wealth, and the great rip off -Part 2
Black Generational Wealth, a Three-Part exposé
I promised, here is the second part of this exposé, if you didn’t read the first part please read it here;
Or just read on:
Black families, working hard to build generational wealth, have always been victims of Federal policies, hungry predators, manipulative estate agents, and scheming money makers.
In this article, the second part of a three-part exposé we look at the ramifications of structural racism and why it has denied generations of black people the right to build equity on their homes.
It’s 2022 and a new gold rush is on! Not the kind that you know — Black homes are being gobbled up. A new breed of predators is in town staking out black neighborhoods.
Here is the history to the story of what will probably become the greatest heist of the 21st century.
But first Let’s go back to the beginning of times, not litirally but to where it all began, the redlining problem.
It wasn’t by chance neighborhoods rated ‘D’ happened to be Black — Segregation was at play.
The HOLC had legalized financial segregation. Anyone living in ‘D’ rated neighborhoods couldn’t qualify for a mortgage.
Black homeowners stood little chance of building equity. Black homes would remain cheap to be sold for a song.
To the new predators waiting to cash in years later patience was a secret weapon waiting to be unleashed.
In the first part of this exposé — I exposed what redlining did, here is a brief recap;
A neighborhood color code was so important. Black people living in the inner cities became collateral victims of financial segregation.
Financial institutions looked at an applicant’s neighborhood color. Green was good. Green neighborhoods mostly majority-white suburbs were ideal for loaning.
Blue was an attractive alternative. Yellow was on its way down and was ‘risky’. Then there was Red. Red was hazardous, it couldn’t be touched not with a ten-meter pole.
Red zones happened to be where most Black people lived. Redlining had been instituted to deny Black people a right to equity.
Upward mobile-conscious Black people worked hard to escape from Red zones. But that was wishful thinking. You see, Black people were pariahs. Their presence devalued a neighborhood’s color code.
White people fought hard to keep their neighborhoods all white. If they failed, they simply fled to white-only suburbs. That was the birth of white fear, a blockbuster’s dream to profuse wealth.
No sane thinking White person would wait to see their once pristine neighborhood go from green to blue to yellow and finally to dreaded red. It was a no-brainer to sell at a loss and flee.
It was a blockbuster’s goldmine, the fear. Swerve blockbusters were kings, they reeled in dollars spinning a roulette of fortune, playing a disquieting psychological manipulation calculated to cause white fear.
Here is how the script played out;
The blockbusters would zero in on a target, mostly a middle-class all-white neighborhood. They would buy a house and sell it to a black family. Then they would circulate rumors of an imminent black invasion.
This move always did the trick, White homeowners, scared of their homes being devalued sold, fast, mostly at a loss, to ready buyers — your guess is as good as mine — the blockbusters bought, always cheaply.
But not all white neighborhoods played according to the script, some determined to hold on to their purity fought back. Blockbusters didn’t blink, they had a plan for them too.
They would hire a Black woman, slowly she would push a baby carriage in the neighborhood, white homeowners, seeing black presence in their neighborhood would panic — and in comes the blockbuster, he would then confirm their worst fears, — “a black family albeit an imaginary one had bought a house in the neighborhood.”
Some white neighborhoods refused to bite the hook and didn’t budge. That called for a booming weapon from the blockbuster’s arsenal — Young Black men blaring loud music on their car stereos, driving slowly, nodding rhythmically, and looking quite at home.
That would cause a stir — sleepy white neighborhoods would wake up to dawning reality. Not long after, a blockbusting agent would knock on a few doors and conveniently drop rumors of Black people buying homes in the neighborhood.
I’m not making this stuff up….
Here is a Blockbuster’s exposé in the Saturday Evening Post titled, “Confessions of a Block-Buster, — A Chicago real-estate agent who moves Negro families into all-white blocks reveals how he reaps enormous profits from racial prejudice.”
“I am a blockbuster. Another and perhaps slightly less odious name for my craft is a real-estate speculator.
I specialize in locating blocks that I consider ripe for racial change. Then I “bust” them by buying properties from the white owners and selling them to Negroes — with the intent of breaking down the rest of the block for colored occupancy.
Sometimes the groundwork — the initial block-busting — has already been done by some other speculator by the time I arrive on the scene. In that case, all I have to do is to work on the remaining whites and reap my share of the harvest.
Now let’s not be quick to judge, before blaming blockbusters and their debased trade let’s remember they were a despicable lot, cashing in on a community’s need. You couldn’t blame them for enjoying the deep pockets of white privilege.
Here is what the blockbuster said;
“Then there are my financial sources, which are among the most reputable in the city. My credit is good in almost any bank or savings-and-loan association in town.
It also is good with insurance companies, including several Negro firms. Merely by placing an ad in a daily newspaper, I can raise cash by selling my contract paper at a discount to some of the most reputable doctors, dentists, lawyers, and other business and professional men in town.
You couldn’t blame them either for making honest money by offering essential services;
– “I make my money — quite a lot of it, incidentally — in three ways” he revealed,
(1) By beating down the prices I pay the white owners by stimulating their fear of what is to come;
(2) by selling to the eager Negroes at inflated prices;
(3) by financing these purchases at what amounts to a very high rate of interest.
And with tongue in cheek he had a word for white detractors forced to flee from their homes, who thought he was hell’s messenger sent to cause their woes;
If you are an average white citizen, with average prejudices, you may regard all this as the ruin of metropolitan neighborhoods. I think of it merely as more business for what already is a growth industry.
My attitude stems from the fact that few white neighborhoods welcome Negroes who can afford to buy there, yet the need for homes for Negroes keeps growing.
I assist in the solution to this problem. My function, which might be called a service industry, is to drive the whites from a block whether or not they want to go, then move in Negroes.
In the third part of this exposé, we reveal the resurgence of blockbusting-like tactics, — a 2022 strategy that is slowly and craftily taking away undervalued black homes.
Read the first part of this exposé here: