Congressional Black Caucus

Floor Speech

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Mr. AL GREEN of Texas. I am honored to be with the team of Kelly and Payne tonight. You do outstanding work, and you also provide an opportunity for other Members to have an opportunity to call to the attention of our constituents some of the concerns that we have to address in Congress. I will always be grateful for the wonderful work that you do in Congress.

I am also very grateful and thankful to the many persons who worked to bring down the Confederate battle flag in South Carolina. It was not easy. There are many who said they never thought they would see it happen, but it did, and it happened because of a willingness to forgive and an understanding that we had an opportunity to do something meaningful for a good many people across the length and breadth of this country who saw the Confederate battle flag as a symbol of segregation, a symbol of racism and bigotry, a symbol of slavery. Not all did, but it was painful for a good many who did see it this way, many who suffered the indignation and humiliation of segregation, who suffered knowing that their bloodline had suffered slavery.

So I am here tonight to thank those who worked so hard to get this done. It was not easy, and I want to thank you for what you did. But I also know that there are a good many people now who would like to see us go back to normal. They are ready to get back to the normal things that we have in this great country of ours, the richest country in the world. For them, normal is a very pleasant thing. Normal means new homes. Normal means greater opportunities.

But let's talk about normal for some others in this country because normal is not always the same for everyone. Normal for the month of June 2015 unemployment: normal for Whites was 4.6 percent, that is the unemployment rate. That is normal for Whites. Normal for Latinos was 6.6 percent, and normal for Blacks was 9.5 percent.

Now, I have already heard the arguments about how President Obama ought to resolve this; this is all his fault. Not so, my friends. If you look back through the vista of time, you will find that unemployment for African Americans is usually about twice the unemployment rate for White Americans. This is not something new to President Obama. This is not something that started in 2008 when he was elected or when he was sworn in in 2009. This is not something that is new to us, those of us who know and see the pain and suffering that results from a lack of employment.

We understand that the flag coming down was a great moment for us symbolically. It was symbolism. Now, the

substance is what we ultimately have to deal with, and the substance is the normal life that people lead under conditions that are abnormal for many others in this country.
Let's look at normal as it relates to lending for businesses. Minority businessowners in 2012--this is the latest information that I have from the Federal Reserve--paid interest rates that were 32 percent higher than what Whites paid--32 percent higher. That is normal.

Some people don't want to go back to this normal state of affairs. They see the flag coming down as an indication that we need to move on in other substantive areas. Lending, mortgage lending is an important area. Normal for African Americans meant that in 2013 only 4.8 percent of loans made to buy homes were made to Blacks, when Blacks comprise 13.2 percent of the total population. Normal for Latinos meant that in 2013 only 7.3 percent of the loans made to buy homes were made to Latinos, Hispanics, when they make up 17.15 percent of the total population. That is normal.

Normal in 2013 meant the conventional mortgage loan denial rate was, and this is according to CNN, 10.4 percent for Whites, 13.3 percent for Asians, 21.9 percent for Hispanics, and 27.6 percent for African Americans. There are a good many people who don't live normal lives in this normal climate that we want to get back to--we, in a generic sense.

I, not the personal pronoun for me, I don't want to get back to this. I want to see us move on with substantive change. I appreciate what was done in bringing down the flag. I celebrate its coming down, but it is time for us to initiate greater action in areas where we can integrate the money. I am an integrationist. I think we ought to integrate every aspect of American society, including the money.

Let's talk about normal. Normal means that Black applicants are 2.1 times more likely to be denied loans by mortgage lenders than non-Hispanic Whites. That is normal. For Hispanics, it means that they are 1.7 times more likely to be denied loans. That is normal. For Asians, 1.2 times more likely.

So I am saying to us that we have got to create a new normal. It is time for us, those of us who sit on committees of jurisdiction, to use our influence on these committees of jurisdiction to bring about the substantive change that lowering the flag and placing it in its place of honor, proper place where it should be, lowering that Confederate flag. That means that we must do that, but do it in such a way that we acknowledge that there is more work to be done, and we can do it on our committees of jurisdiction.

So, given that I serve on the Committee on Financial Services, I will be calling to the attention of the committee the need to investigate the mortgage lending culture in banks. We need to understand why it is that African Americans and Latinos who are equally as qualified as Whites can go into a bank and not get a loan when a White can. We have got to find out why. I know that there are many people who are uncomfortable with the language of Black and White and Brown, but that is the language we have to use to communicate clearly a message of what is taking place.

So on my committee, I am going to push for an investigation of banks. We need to know why banks consistently do this. Not all banks, but we need to know why those who do it are doing it.

The way you do this is to test, to send people out who are equally qualified of different ethnicities and

acquire the empirical evidence. In every instance--maybe with a few exceptions, but in every instance, in a general sense, we find that Blacks and Browns who are equally as qualified as Whites do not receive their loans.

I encourage all of my colleagues to use your committees of jurisdiction to create a new state of normalcy for those who have been suffering continuously.

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