Facing what could be his final months in Congress, U.S. Rep. Al Green said there is zero doubt about the number one issue holding back communities of color in America.<\/p>\n
\u200bA lack of access to lending.<\/p>\n
\u200bThe Houston Democrat said for decades, discrimination against Black borrowers has prevented communities of color from building capital. That means less generational wealth to pass along than communities\u00a0with easier access.<\/p>\n
\u200b\u201cWe have difficulty acquiring the capitalization to start businesses, to get homes, borrowing money,\u201d Green said in an interview with the Rev. Al Sharpton.<\/p>\n
\u200bNot only have Black borrowers had a harder time getting loans, but when they get them, they\u2019ve been subjected to worse terms and conditions.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u200b\u201cMuch of what is wrong in Black America has to do more with the lack of money than a lot of other things that we have to face,\u201d Green said. \u201cJust can\u2019t get the money that other people get.\u201d<\/p>\n
Discriminating against Black borrowers is technically illegal.\u00a0But Green said the laws need to have tougher enforcement to make sure banks and other lenders are truly making decisions on merit and not based on where borrowers are from or what they look like.<\/p>\n
\u200bIt\u2019s why he\u2019s trying to pass H.R. 166, a bill to create a lending oversight division in\u00a0the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, to ensure banks and other lenders comply with anti-discrimination laws. Green said the bill passed the House before, but never became law. He said if Democrats retake the House next year, it will be a priority to get that legislation through.<\/p>\n
\u200bGreen said Texas Republicans, led by Gov. Greg Abbott, have intentionally reduced the number of Black people who will represent Houston on Capitol Hill next year.<\/p>\n
\u200b\u201cVery, very sinister behavior on behalf of the governor and the president of the United States of America,\u201d Green said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Facing what could be his final months in Congress, U.S. Rep. Al Green said there is zero doubt…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":243950,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[56,58,57],"class_list":{"0":"post-243949","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-houston","8":"tag-houston","9":"tag-houston-headlines","10":"tag-houston-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243949","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=243949"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243949\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/243950"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=243949"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=243949"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=243949"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}