Posted on 09/18/2009 8:54:15 PM PDT by Saije
As the housing market began booming in mid-2000, Wells Fargo & Co. teamed up with prominent African American commentator and PBS talk show host Tavis Smiley and financial author Kelvin Boston, the host of “Moneywise,”...to host something called “Wealth Building” seminars in black neighborhoods.
Smiley was the keynote speaker, and the big draw...Smiley would charge up the audience — and rattle the Wells Fargo executives in attendance — by launching into a story about how he hated banks, and how they used to refuse to lend him money for his real estate projects in Compton, Calif., and elsewhere. After Hurricane Katrina, Smiley also emphasized the importance of building assets and wealth, saying those who had done so were able to leave New Orleans, while people with nothing had to stay behind, Boston said...
The Illinois lawsuit against Wells is one of many such actions winding their way through the court system around the country, offering more details of alleged discriminatory tactics by lenders during the height of the subprime boom.
In a city of Baltimore lawsuit against Wells, former employees charged that Wells Fargo loan officers referred to minority borrowers as “mud people” and called subprime mortgages “ghetto loans.” But some prominent black bloggers find the “wealth building” seminars just as egregious, and question why Smiley, Boston, and anyone else who participated in them hasn’t been called on further to account for their actions.
“If Tavis Smiley was white, Wells Fargo and ‘Ghetto Loans’ would be front page news,” wrote Genma Stringer Holmes, a Nashville, Tenn., business owner and blogger who has blasted out several posts on the seminars.
Holmes said Smiley should speak out more against discriminatory subprime lending practices – but he hasn’t been forced to, because the black media has been silent on the issue, she said.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonindependent.com ...
Everyone needs an excuse for their own stupidly.
Stop making everyone else responsible for bad decisions.
Maybe that was his way of saying, 'I hates da man but I likes da money."
better yet sue ACORN and Clinton for this mess.
To be fair, why should Mr. Smiley be blamed for the lack of due diligence engaged in by the plaintiffs of this suit? The way I see it, he was simply advertising services just like any other spokesperson.
The “soft bigotry of lowered expectations” rears its ugly head yet again. I think non-blacks are supposed te be happy that Tavis didn’t do something violent, and just leave it at that...
“To be fair, why should Mr. Smiley be blamed for the lack of due diligence engaged in by the plaintiffs of this suit?”
I think anyone who promotes a service or product is putting his name and reputation out there. People assume it must be a good thing if someone who’s trustworthy pushes it. Doesn’t excuse a person from looking into it for themselves but it is understandable.
Oh man... then anyone who makes any ad could be subject of a lawsuit!
Franklin Raines didn’t earn double digit millions in bonuses from Fannie/Freddie for nothing.
Well Smiley wasn’t just making an ad. He was also getting financial support from Wells Fargo for those “State of the Black Union” forums he does every year, according to the article.
Doesn’t mean he knew anything about the loans or the bank’s practices. But he was benefiting in more than one way.
Once a victom, always a victom.
Uh, because the scumbags always go after "deep pockets"?
Anyway, Wells Fargo deserves whatever it gets because, after all, the bank was extorted into making all these ghetto loans by Senator Dodd and Barney Frank and the rest of the pandering Democrat quota kings in Congress and... uh...
Kind of says it all...
“Anyway, Wells Fargo deserves whatever it gets because, after all, the bank was extorted into making all these ghetto loans by Senator Dodd and Barney Frank and the rest of the pandering Democrat quota kings in Congress and... uh...”
And because the banks were making a ton of money off these loans...and got bailed out when it all went bad...no heroes in this story that’s for sure.
Who can blame them? If somebody (the pandering Democrat quota kings in Congress who demanded the easing of prudent underwriting standards so their constituents could get loans they didn't deserve, for example) throws a suitcase full of thousand-dollar bills at your feet, you pick it up.
“Who can blame them?”
Apparently nobody. But we taxpayers and responsible borrowers are the ones paying for it now.
And how many borrowers rolled over those mortgages again and again, sucking out equity in the boom.
Now in the bust they’re back in apartments but they still have the Escalade.
every level of corruption and it’s all about the money.
Who ya gonna trust these days?
No one will convince me that Tavis Smiley had no idea that people were being encouraged to do thinks outside their best interests.
Doesn't necessarily make him responsible, but it does make him a scumbag.
It’s not surprising that Smiley worked to harm the Black and Hispanic poor at all. Leftist shake down artists, I mean community activists, explain why things never get better for the poor people they claim to represent.
The Blacks and Hispanic who bit on the fishing line are not innocent victims, either. They are corrupt enough to fall for the “scam the banks” with bad loans bait. Unfortunately, George Bush celebrated the race quota improvement of home ownership in the underclass areas of the country.
“Mud people???” Didn’t people sling that term around in Nazi Germany?
Maryland “Freak State” PING!
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