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About The skanner. (Portland, Or.) 1975-2014 | View Entire Issue (Feb. 7, 2018)
Page 2 The Skanner Seattle February 7, 2018 ® Challenging People to Shape a Better Future Now Bernie Foster Founder/Publisher Bobbie Dore Foster Executive Editor Jerry Foster Advertising Manager Christen McCurdy News Editor Patricia Irvin Graphic Designer Monica J. Foster Seattle Office Coordinator Susan Fried Photographer 2017 MERIT AWARD WINNER The Skanner Newspaper, es- tablished in October 1975, is a weekly publication, published every Wednesday by IMM Publi- cations Inc. 415 N. Killingsworth St. P.O. Box 5455 Portland, OR 97228 Telephone (503) 285-5555 Fax: (503) 285-2900 info@theskanner.com www.TheSkanner.com The Skanner is a member of the National Newspaper Pub lishers Association and West Coast Black Pub lishers Association. All photos submitted become the property of The Skanner. We are not re spon sible for lost or damaged photos either solicited or unsolicited. ©2018 The Skanner. All rights re served. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission prohibited. Local News Pacific NW News World News Opinions Jobs, Bids Entertainment Community Calendar Opinion Trump’s Consumer Protection Agency Changes Course I n the wake of a recent series of anti-consumer actions taken by Mick Mulvaney, the Trump-appointed Con- sumer Financial Protection Bureau’s Acting Director, a bi- cameral call for accountabil- ity was released on January 31. Led by Congresswoman Maxine Waters of California and Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, two other Congressional Black Cau- cus Members, Congressmen Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) and Al Green (D-Texas) joined Senators Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) and Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) as signatories. Together, the group of law- makers seek to know what prompted Mr. Mulvaney’s ac- tions as well as his ties to the payday lending industry. A January 31 letter calls into question the following specif- ic actions that have occurred over the past month: • Halting implementation of the agency’s final rule preventing abusive payday lending (the ‘Payday Rule); • Announcement of the Bu- reau’s intention to initiate a rulemaking process that appears designed to weak- en the Payday Rule; • Withdrawing a Bureau law- suit against four online pay- day lenders who allegedly misled customers on inter- Charlene Crowell NNPA Columnist est rates that spanned a low of 440 percent to as high as 950 percent; and • Ending an investigation of World Acceptance Corpora- tion, a high-cost installment lender that began in 2014 af- ter consumers complained of unaffordable loans and aggressive collection prac- tices. “For too long, some payday, auto title, and installment lenders have taken advantage of American workers who need a little extra money to pay an unexpected medical bill or fix their car,” wrote the lawmakers. “For too many families, one unexpected expense or tight week traps them in a cycle of debt that lasts months or years…The rule finalized by the CFPB last October was carefully bal- anced to end that cycle of debt while ensuring that borrow- ers retain access to needed credit.” The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act that created the CFPB intended for it to be an independent agency, charged with serving as the consum- er’s financial cop-on-the-beat. Its director was to be nomi- nated by the President and confirmed by the Senate to a five-year term of service. Ad- “ One unex- pected ex- pense or tight week traps them in a cy- cle of debt ditionally, CFPB was to secure its funding directly from the Federal Reserve Bank, rather than through Congress’ an- nual appropriations process that could enable powerful special interests to restrict necessary funding. Even though the Dodd- Frank Act also defined a suc- cession plan for an Acting Director in the event of per- sonnel changes, two people were appointed to this same role. One, Leandra English was lawfully appointed by the former Director Richard Cordray, while another, Mr. Mulvaney, was appointed by President Trump. The law- makers’ letter is addressed to both appointees. An appellate federal court will eventually decide who should be the legal Acting Director; but in the interim, Mulvaney leads CFPB while retaining his position as Di- rector of the Office of Manage- ment and Budget. In his prior role as a South Carolina Con- gressman, he co-sponsored a bill to eliminate the CFPB and accepted nearly $63,000 in campaign donations from payday lenders. These dona- tions included $4,500 from World Acceptance Corpora- tion’s political action commit- tee. “The CFPB spent five years honing the Payday Rule, conducting research and reviewing over one million comments from all types of stakeholders: from payday lender, to state regulators, to faith leaders,” wrote Ranking Members Warren and Wa- ters. Now Mr. Mulvaney over- sees the daily operations of the same Bureau that re- turned $12 billion to nearly 30 million consumers in about six years. Instead of regulat- ing financial services, this Acting Director prefers al- lowing private enterprise to determine consumers’ choic- es – including those that are harmful and predatory. Read the rest of this commentary at TheSkanner.com Black Women Show the Way Forward in 2018 T here is a reckoning afoot in this country. On one side, Trump has embold- ened and embodied a vir- ulent and reckless hate that targets women, Black peo- ple, and immigrants (among many others). Each day brings a new outrage. On the other side, #MeToo has fol- lowed #BlackLivesMatter as a hashtag-turned-movement, led by courageous truth-tell- ers who are sick and tired of a violent and largely ignored status quo. The conversation about race and gender in this country has broken open, and now we must all contend with the truth of who we are as a nation. While this may feel like scary and unfamiliar territo- ry to some, in reality, the U.S. is just catching up to an un- Monica Simpson Executive Director, SisterSong derstanding and analysis that Black women in this coun- try have had for a long time. Black women have never had the luxury of ignorance—not to police violence, not to the rampant sexual harassment and assault that women ex- perience at home, school, and work. In 2018, we should look to the work of Black women to see the path forward for a troubled and divided nation. In a way, Black women schol- ars and organizers have left breadcrumbs for us to follow to liberation. In 1989, legal scholar Kim- berlé Crenshaw coined the term “intersectionality” in her paper for the Universi- ty of Chicago Legal Forum to explain how Black women’s oppression on the basis of gender combined with op- pression on the basis of race to create an experience of discrimination did not match what either white women or Black men experience. This concept would lay the groundwork for social justice organizing that now spans the globe, and provided a vocabulary for something Black women experience on a daily basis. While intersec- tionality risks dilution as an increasingly popular buzz- word, the analysis it provides is a crucial tool to cut through the noise and understand the Trump administration’s pol- icies and their impact on dif- ferent communities. Take for instance the re- cent Jane Doe case, and sim- ilar cases, of the Trump ad- ministration blocking young immigrant women from getting reproductive health- care. The mistreatment of the “Janes” (as they’ve come to be called) at the hands of the Trump administration targets them both as wom- en and as immigrants, and the two identities cannot be pulled apart. “Intersectional- ity” provides an analysis that explains why their treatment is so much more extreme, and its impact so severe. Read the rest of this commentary at TheSkanner.com A career you can be proud of. 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