Page 6
December 9, 2015
New Prices
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May 1, 2014
O PINION
Martin
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It’s Not Playing the Victim When You Are Attacked
Hatred and
division hurts
America
W illiam S PriggS
The
Republican
Party has drifted too
far into attack mode
for the health of
American Democra-
cy and the pluralistic
society we pride America to be.
America prides itself as a nation
that is not based on country of
origin, race or religion; but a na-
tion meant to stand for the prin-
ciples of liberty and justice and
for all.
The unchecked rhetoric of the
Republican-controlled
House
and the extremes of the Republi-
can presidential candidates are a
threat to that consensus; as they
seek to redefine the nation in
terms of religion, race and coun-
try of origin.
First, on the issue of immigra-
tion and the acceptance of refu-
gees, the language of the Repub-
lican presidential candidates,
which had been repugnant in the
case of Donald Trump, crossed
lines of decency.
What happed to those wel-
coming words to immigrants
to America from poet Emma
Lazarus engraved on the Statue
by
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of Liberty.
Too many people recoil when
reminded of America’s ambiva-
lence to opposition to accepting
Jewish refugees in
1938 and 1939 flee-
ing Nazi Germany.
They want to erase
the language of the
politicians of the day
who fomented hatred
by fearing that the
acceptance of Jewish
refugees would welcome Com-
munists and anarchist extremist
into America.
So these people don’t like
comparisons of Republican rhet-
oric about Syrian refugees to the
Statue of Liberty or 1939.
And, too many balk at a com-
parison of Donald Trump’s ap-
palling call to force the registra-
tion of Muslims as a comparison
to a threat of additional steps
reminiscent of America’s own sin
of forcing Japanese Americans
into camps during World War II.
And, of course, those same peo-
ple bristle at comparisons to Nazi
Germany’s registration of Jews.
In his letter from the Birming-
ham jail, written by Dr. Martin
Luther King Jr. to the clergy of
Birmingham, who objected to his
tactics, Dr. King lamented that it
is not the hatred of the bigots,
but the silence of the supposed
friends of liberty and justice that
leads to evil winning.
The apparent inability of the
Republican Party to police itself
and censor the fomenting of ha-
tred and division will hurt Ameri-
ca. And business interests that be-
lieve they can contain and manage
the irrational forces of hatred are
greatly mistaken. People pushed
to being irrational cannot be rea-
soned back to sanity.
Unfortunately, some Repub-
licans only recognize Trump as
a threat because they believe
he can’t win a general election.
They fail to see the deeper threat
the whole party faces by pander-
ing to hatred.
That pandering to hatred re-
cently took an ugly turn in leg-
islation. The Republicans in the
House voted unanimously to bar
the Consumer Financial Protec-
tion Board from doing its work
to monitor discrimination in
auto lending, which hits workers
of color, particularly, hard. Un-
fortunately they were joined by
88 Democrats.
Sub-prime auto loans, those
made to people with credit scores
below 660, have jumped by $110
billion in the period of March
to September of this year. Most
of those loans have come from
auto finance companies, outside
the traditionally better regulated
banking and credit union sector.
Of course being able to buy a
car is vital to workers trying to
benefit from the record string of
months of job growth America is
experiencing. Hobbled by high
unemployment and the dispro-
portionate impact of the foreclo-
sure crisis, African American and
Latino workers also suffer from
damaged credit scores as they
look to buy cars and connect to
jobs. This has made those com-
munities vulnerable to predatory
behaviors by auto finance compa-
nies preying on them.
The vote in Congress to strip
the protection board of power to
address this growing problem is
an attack on the African Ameri-
can and Latino community. It is
not playing victim to be appalled
by such actions.
But just as hatred against ref-
ugees and immigrants only hurts
America; so, too, as we saw with
predatory lending in housing,
does discrimination in finance.
Auto loans will not bring down
the banking industry as happened
in the housing market, but it will
bring down the auto sector; one
of the few bright spots in the re-
covery for high wage jobs. The
business community will not
win, in the end, on this one.
William Spriggs serves as chief
economist to the AFL-CIO, and is
a professor and former chair of
the Department of Economics at
Howard University.