NYU Black Renaissance Noire Summer/Fall 2011 | Page 13

Mitt Romney

Michelle Bachmann
Rick Perry

But Obama’s most rabid opposition
will come from Congressional diehards
who believe that if Stonewall Jackson
had been in charge at Gettysburg
instead of Robert E. Lee, we’d be living
under a different system today. They
will thwart Obama at every turn.

Let them elect Michelle Bachmann
(a Mormon doesn’t stand a chance
with intolerant Dixiecrats) and her
homophobic first lady of a husband,
or Rick Perry who surrounds himself
with intolerant theocrats, who’ve
managed to escape the kind of vilification
that the media accorded Reverend
Jeremiah Wright. They might even
elect Mitt Romney, Marie Antoinette
in a business suit.

Either one of these three will really
fuck up the country; then, all his critics
will miss Barack Obama. ?

President HTTP://EN.WIKIPEDIA.ORG/WIKI/GEORGE_W._BUSH
George W. Bush ,and counselor to HTTP://EN.WIKIPEDIA.ORG/
WIKI/VICE_PRESIDENT_OF_THE_UNITED_STATES Vice President

But what appeared on the surface as a way to help
black borrowers build wealth was actually just the
opposite, according to a little-noticed explanation of
the “Wealth Building” seminar strategy, contained in a
lawsuit recently HTTP://WWW.ILLINOISATTORNEYGENERAL.GOV/
PRESSROOM/2009_07/20090731.HTML ?led by Illinois Attorney
General Lisa Madigan.”
Wells’ plan for the seminars all along was to
target black borrowers for higher-cost HTTP://

COPYRIGHT © ISHMAEL REED, 2011

Sources for this essay

HTTP://WWW.NPR.ORG/2011/02/02/133306879/WALKING-AWAY-

INSIDE-THE-NEVADA-FORECLOSURE-CRISIS

Walking Away: Inside The Nevada Foreclosure Crisis : NPR
Feb.21, 2011
“The Washington Journal,” February, 15,2009
“The Tea Party, Take Two,” Joe Nocera, August 5, 2011
“News Lady “ by Carole Simpson, Self Published, 2010
“ Black Americans and Organized Labor A New History,
”Paul D. Moreno, Louisiana State University Press, Baton
Rouge, 2006
“American Communism And Black Americans, A
Documentary History, 1919-1929,” edited by Philip S. Foner
and James S. Allen, Temple University Press, Philadelphia,
1987
“The Billionaires Bankrolling the Tea Party,” Frank Rich,
The New York Times, August 28,2010
WWW.POLITICO.COM/BLOGS/GLENNTHRUSH

Anti-socialist Bachmann got $250K in federal farm
subsidies—On Congress: Anti-socialist Bachmann got
$250K in federal farm subsidies Politico December 22,
2009
“Tea Party Rep. Joe Walsh sued for $100,000 in child
support” BY ABDON M. PALLASCH, Chicago Sun Times, July
27,2011
“Suit Alleges Trusted Blacks Drew Minorities to
High-Rate loans,” Mary Kane, The Washington Independent,
September, 17,2009
“As the housing market began booming in the mid2000s, HTTP://WASHINGTONINDEPENDENT.COM/60458/TAVIS-

SMILEY-ISSUES-NEW-STATEMENT-ON-WELLS-FARGO?LC=INT_MB_1001

Wells Fargo & Co.

HTTP://EN.WIKIPEDIA.ORG/WIKI/PRESIDENT_OF_THE_UNITED_STATES

004-Essay-Ishmael-Reed.indd 11

HTTP://EN.WIKIPEDIA.ORG/WIKI/DICK_CHENEY HTTP://WWW.

PRNEWSWIRE.COM/CGI-BIN/STORIES.PL? ACCT=109&STORY=/WWW/

teamed up with
prominent African American commentator and PBS talk
show HTTP://WWW.PBS.ORG/KCET/TAVISSMILEY/ host Tavis
Smiley and ?nancial author HTTP://WWW.MONEYWISE.TV/
Kelvin Boston, the host of “Moneywise,” a multicultural
?nancial affairs show, to host something called HTTP://

STORY/08-25-2005/0004094109&EDATE=

WASHINGTONINDEPENDENT.COM/TAG/WEALTH-BUILDING-

SEMINARS?LC=INT_MB_1001 Wealth Building” seminars in
black neighborhoods. Smiley was the keynote speaker,
and the big draw, according to Boston and HTTP://WWW.
RESPONSIBLELENDING.ORG/ABOUT-US/LEADERSHIP/ Keith Corbett,
executive vice president of the Center for Responsible
Lending, who attended two of the seminars. 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.
“My spiel was the ?nancial planning
process, how you want to be able to save
and invest for the future, and to have a
plan of action,” Boston said. “Then Tavis
talked about his experiences with the
banks, and how people should be thinking about some
real estate.”
The seminars in some cities drew standing room only
crowds, with numerous Wells Fargo representatives
on hand, seated at carrels to meet one-on-one with
potential borrowers who lined up after the speeches,
which were usually held in hotels. The free, daylong
events were heavily HTTP://WWW.GLOBENEWSPAPERS.COM/
WEBARCHIVES/05AUG31/ENTERTAINMENT.HTM advertised in
the black media, and launched in eight cities, including
Baltimore, Chicago, Richmond, Va., and San Francisco.

WASHINGTONINDEPENDENT.COM/TAG/SUBPRIME-

subprime mortgages,
not for wealth-building, the suit HTTP://WWW.

MORTGAGES?LC=INT_MB_1001

ILLINOISATTORNEYGENERAL.GOV/PRESSROOM/2009_07/20090731.
HTML

charged.

Americans for Tax Reform Funders:
AOL Time Warner provided funding in 1999. No additional
material available. H TTP://WWW.STEALTHPACS.ORG/FUNDER.
CFM?ORG_ID=103” \L “1” 1 Distilled Spirits Council Provided
funding in 1999. No additional material available. HTTP://
WWW.STEALTHPACS.ORG/FUNDER.CFM?ORG_ID=103” \L “2”
2 HTTP://WWW.STEALTHPACS.ORG/FUNDED.CFM?ORG_ID=223
Microsoft Provided funding in 1999. No additional
material available. HTTP://WWW.STEALTHPACS.ORG/FUNDER.
CFM?ORG_ID=103” \L “3” 3 Mississippi Band of Choctaw
Indians Contributed $360,000 in 1999. HTTP://WWW.
STEALTHPACS.ORG/FUNDER.CFM?ORG_ID=103” \L “4” 4 HTTP://
WWW.STEALTHPACS.ORG/FUNDED.CFM?ORG_ID=212 P?zer
Provided funding in 1999. No additional material
available. HTTP://WWW.STEALTHPACS.ORG/FUNDER.CFM?ORG_
ID=103” \L “5” 5 HTTP://WWW.STEALTHPACS.ORG/FUNDED.
CFM?ORG_ID=510 Philip Morris Contributed $685,000 to
the group in 1999. HTTP://WWW.STEALTHPACS.ORG/FUNDER.
CFM?ORG_ID=103” \L “6” 6 RJ Reynolds Provided funding
in 1999. No additional material available. HTTP://WWW.
STEALTHPACS.ORG/FUNDER.CFM?ORG_ID=103” \L “7” 7 United
Parcel Service (UPS) Provided funding in 1999.
“GOP Makes Big Gains among White Voters.” Pew
Research Center, July 22,2011
“Confederate Reckoning,
Power Politics in the Civil War South,”
Stephanie McCurry, Harvard
University Press.

BLACK RENAISSANCE NOIRE

“How White People Got So Rich,” Part 111, The Historical
Research Department of The Nation of Islam, The Final
Call, June 14,2011
“Minority Programs Mostly Aid White Areas,” by Tim
Bovee, Associated Press April 17, 1994
“Still Losing The Race,” John McWhorter, Commentary
Magazine, Feb.2004
“Fair Housing Partnership Study: Blacks Still Face
Mortgage Bias,” Sam Spatter, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review,
November 25,2009

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