Don't hold your breath indeed....I saw that headline and didn't bother to read it.....Knew it would be more of the same from the news urinal. Once again, unfortunately, delaware doesn't have another state wide paper to give them a run for the money/competition.....come on delaware state news-go more statewide and I will buy! Of course, there seems to be a prison health issue in delaware and no response from the governor at all?! And no prodding from the urinal either.....hmmmmmmmmm.....democratic governor, democratic mouthpiece opinion paper.......

Maybe if they weren't so easily cheated they'd pay their bills on time. I don't buy much of the liberal race-baiting that some of my compadres so easily sign on to, but this is one area in which, yes, I do feel institutionalism is still alive and well.

Mike: Good thing you said "feel" as opposed to "think." B/c, as Sowell says, a little research can be a damning thing. Read his article (among others on this subject). Lenders thus must be "racist" against whites compared to Asians. You know how "pro Asian" and "anti white" creditors are, dont'cha?

And "cheated"? Ah. And the solution? I got it -- let's outlaw stupidity.

'so easily cheated???' How about getting an education so as not to be so poor in making decisions? I suppose that education would be another area where institutionalism is alive and well also........ It is called the market place....getting the best deals by comparison shopping.....I guess the market place is another area of institutionalism as well....... I do believe that america was founded on the idea of pulling oneself up by their bootstraps and getting on with it.....but when you have liberal mouthpieces laying the blame at everyone but themselves, claiming victimhood instead of educating and becoming part of the solution, what do you expect.......if their is anything to this so called institutionalism, it is being propagated by the liberal mouthpieces so as to prop themselves up.....ie the easy way instead of the hard work of looking for solutions......

Banks want to make money, period. The only color they care about is green.

Hube,

I just had dinner with my father, who, nearing the age of sixty, has seen more than both of us on the progress of race in the past 50 years. I don't know HOW we got to talking about it, but race pretty much was the topic of discussion. And, I'm not even going to go into it here. I don't have the effort tonight. Let me just say I still stand by my opinion and I don't feel like justifying myself to anyone. The things my father told me tonight were chilling. He owns a business in the city of Wilmington that has served a couple of the Katrina folks who've moved to Delaware. Racism is indeed a disgusting thing. And he's only been hearing complaints from white people who come into his shop and bitch about the damn "niggers" from New Orleans. My father has been giving away free stuff to these New Orleans folks. Even though some are a pathetically racist bunch.

Are there racist blacks? You'd better damn well betcha. It's inexcusable, but it's understandable. 250 years of their putting up with crap like slavery and "separate but equal." I'm willing to give them a century or so to get over it. (I like the Peggy Noonan joke from several years back when Al Gore came through swinging at Bush during his Robinson Crusoe, man-o-the-wild beard days. She said something to the effect of: Well, Gore did win the popular vote, so he gets at least three years to be uncordial).

Then we got on the topic of my dad working during the 60s with blacks (notice I refuse to use the term "African-American"...I may be liberal, but some of that PC crap I don't buy). He told me stories that nearly made me break down. Do we owe blacks? No. We don't owe them a thing. And I'm being honest. I don't think reparations will make any difference. The only thing we owe them is the UNDERSTANDING to say:

"I know you're angry at us white folks. And I understand why you're angry. We screwed your race for more than two centuries. All I ask is that you not judge me guilty for the acts of those individuals who came before me."

In the past, when I've been confronted by racist blacks, it just makes me work all that much harder to win them over. Sometimes it's worked really well; other times not.

Alas, I digress. I'm straying from the topic at hand. Sowell can report and cite whatever facts he wants. I'll take my father's primary sources on race relations before I'll take Sowell's cited academia.

Feel free to come at me with whatever you want. Perhaps I'll be game tomorrow.

The actions of the credit and lending industries may not be full-on motivated by race, but I still believe institutional racism is obscenely prevalent in many corporate cultures today. Perhaps off the record I'll tell you some race-related stories about my job at the insurance company.

Mike: This is why you're a liberal, I suppose. You'll take your dad's anecdotes over proven valid studies. And, Sowell is a black man. Of course, however, he must be a race traitor? But that is just fine. You're certainly entitled to believe what you wish, after all.

Your anecdotes are essentially meaningless in this discussion. My grandfather was a beyond-Archie Bunker bigot. So? I had to listen to my father and him go at it countless times (and almost to physical blows) whenever he (grandfather) subjected us grandkids to some [indirect] racist blather when he was watching the news or telling some old story. Then, when my sister dated a black guy in high school, granddad just about disowned dad (and my sister).

What's the point? That institutional racism still exists? Well, DUH. But again, your feelings prove nothing in this instance. Again, why would banks want to NOT get someone's money? Are banks racist against whites when taking Asians into account? You completely overlook these points and stick to your all-too liberal "But I KNOW" mantra, which just makes you look foolish. Then, you hope to gain brownie points by showing how much you "care," and revisiting the history of American prejudice. That'll get you nowhere here, because 1) I'm completely aware of our bigoted past (and present); 2) I, unlike you, DO believe we owe blacks something for the way they've been screwed. I just believe in different ways of doing it than the typical liberal; and 3) the main point of Felix's post is that outlets like the News Journal will "find" supposed racism in instances like these -- where there more than likely ain't any -- and which just serves to inflame racial passions when there's no need to. They have to go find racism b/c, frankly, racism is becoming an anachronism in REAL life. It's the phonies at the WNJ and too many of those on the Left who're keeping racism alive and well in America today -- by invoking the dreaded "R" word at every turn, at the most INopportune of times.

Inexcusable but understandable. Wow. There's a license I bet a lot of racial groups wish they had. If its understandable, then how is it inexcusable? Whatever.
That's fine for you and your loved ones, Mike. But for my grandchildren, we have decided that their white skin does not mean they must be complacent to hate and real, today, government approved, institutionalized, skin color discrimination against them (or gender). Sorry, as an Irish American I feel that I and my children have already paid enough for the crimes of others. After two generations of accepting skin color discrimination, I am unwilling to accept it for my grandchildren. And I am decidedly unwilling to teach them to turn the other cheek when confronted with a racial hatred that you find so understandable.
One other thing. Maybe the transplanted New Orleans residents that so disgusted your dad with "nigger" remarks were reacting, racially, to the sight of their businesses being destroyed and the racist remarks made by scores of black and Democratic leaders. You know, maybe the remarks were inexcusable but understandable.
I found your description of your dad heartwarming. I mean that sincerely. He sounds like someone I would admire. My father was also an admirable person. He donated to the NAACP regularly for most of his adult life. He helped arrange for our local Catholic church to house around a hundred or so of the Poor People Marchers when they came to Washington. He made his children help out too. He was the kind of guy who was always there for others. When he died at age 82 my brother and I found that he had been mailing a check every month for years for two hundred dollars to an old blind black musician that he had met and aided at a Catholic sponsored retreat. (We knew he ran Mr. Dusty around on errands, but he never mentioned the money. Mr. Dusty told us.)
When he was 80 years old, he was beaten and robbed by a young black man who screamed racial epithets at him while he beat him to the ground. He never took my mother out to dinner alone again. His sin, in the eyes of the young entrepreneur, was having white skin. His abuser's racist hate crime (Is it OK to call it that?) was inexcusable, but understandable because he had white skin.
Feel free to be a victim, Mike, and feel free to preach it to others. Pass it on. But have some tolerance for others who have nothing to feel guilty about, except the color of their skin. Spread some of that inexcusable but understandable around a bit. There are lots who would qualify.
Lastly, banks are out to make money. Banks would love to be able to cite a high number of minority low interest loans. It is great advertising and it saves them from Jessie Jackson style extortions. The problem is that banks must remain profitable to survive, to keep loaning money. That means charging more interest for poor risks, less interest for low risks. Essentially, banks are screwed. They are damned if they do (higher rates=racism) and damned if they don't (not enough higher risk loans=racism). A solution would be to hold blacks to a lower credit standard based on their skin color. Why should I or my children mind paying higher interest rates for being white? It is the original sin of liberalism.

I am sooo tired of apologizing for not being black. Or African American, or whatever the latest term the professional victims use to up the ante. Notice these changes of designation are a top-down decision. It's not a bunch of people deciding, bottom-up, what they'll be called. It's PR campaigns to make hoops for others to jump thru.

I done jumped thru the very last one. Basta. Get another oppressor, babe -- I'm not playing the game anymore.

Breathing While White

Loan Officers are commissioned people. They want to write every loan possible and would never let a loan be declined for race. To even suggest such a thing is so off base it is boardering insanity. If I don't like someone the best way to show it is to take his money not decline him for a loan. If someone is declined then the bank makes nothing, even in an ultra-liberal's backwards world this would make no sense at all. Pay your bills on time and you will have no problem getting a loan with a fair rate.

Mike-Slavery? I have a quick story. My old roomate told me he only dated white women (he is black) to get out his aggression from the slavery days. He went on to say you know when your people kept my people as slaves. I am 100% Irish and my family came to the US after the civil war. My people? I asked him when he was a slave and if he ever had seen a history book. He was stumped. Just because I am white does not make me a racist nor a decendent of slave owners. My Gambian business partner laughs at this non-sense since his family got rich back in Africa selling slaves to the slave traders, and no one ever accuses him of unfair anything since he is black. Pick up a history book and then get back to us.