The attention that pay day and sub-prime lenders direct toward African Americans, indeed
asserts that we have become bound by slavery again; a slavery even more powerful than before
because the master albeit rooted in racism is debt. Today 81 percent of African American college
student’s graduate owing back loans and our unemployment rate is two times that of whites,
For African Americans, pay day loans and the subprime mortgage market represents yet another
example of the impact of the discriminatory allocation of credit upon African American wealth
accumulation and indeed resembles financial slavery. Through the use of such impediments,
they continue past historical practices of discrimination and racism which have existed since
the founding of the United States, and add to the incessant history of deprivation directed toward
African Americans.
