Donald Trump’s Department of Housing and Urban Development is waging war on Black homeownership.
Scott Turner, the Christian nationalist former NFL player turned executive tapped by Trump to run the department, has opened an investigation of Wells Fargo over the company’s efforts to boost Black homeownership. And his remarks about the probe, the existence of which was revealed by The Wall Street Journal, underscore that this is fundamentally about conservatives’ racist assault on virtually any program they think falls under the umbrella of diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, or DEI.
The investigation is being framed as an inquiry into whether Wells Fargo violated the Fair Housing Act with policies meant to boost Black homeownership, policies that came after Wells Fargo reached a massive settlement with the Justice Department in 2012 over allegations of racial discrimination against Black and Hispanic housing loan borrowers. A decade after the settlement, a Bloomberg report suggested that discriminatory behavior had continued at Wells Fargo.
But Turner, who is Black, falsely claimed that Wells Fargo has engaged in wrongdoing merely by considering race.
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“Even if Wells Fargo did not violate the law, its practice of dividing Americans based on race is immoral, unethical and un-American,” he’s quoted as saying in the Journal’s report. “Wells Fargo and all of its employees that engaged in race-based decision-making should be ashamed of themselves.”
In deranged MAGA parlance, addressing the impacts of racism amounts to “dividing Americans based on race.”
Trump, in the style of Southern segregationists, has proclaimed that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 has led to white people being “very badly treated.” As part of this anti-Black crusade, Trump’s regime has blatantly tried to open the door to racial segregation and discrimination by rolling back policies meant to fight these things. And as I explained earlier this year, that includes policies aimed at preventing housing discrimination.
Here, we can spotlight one of the many examples of Trump defying his campaign promises. In his pitch to Black voters, he vowed to improve their opportunities for homeownership. Now, Trump’s HUD is targeting Wells Fargo for attempting to do just that.
Ja’han Jones is an MS NOW opinion blogger. He previously wrote The ReidOut Blog.
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