US banks are sacrificing poor communities to the climate crisis

(The Guardian, 20 Mar 2023) It took decades to force banks to abandon racist redlining. We don’t have decades to avert catastrophic climate crisis.

The collapse of Silicon Valley Bank will bring many forms of fallout. One of the most obvious consequences is that the biggest banks – Chase, Citi, Wells Fargo, Bank of America – will probably get even bigger. That is why we’re joining protests across the United States outside hundreds of those banks’ branches on Tuesday, 21 March: if they’re going to hold that much power over the planet’s economy, we need them to recognize and help with our great crises. We need them not to do what they did last century, which is to ignore or exacerbate our deepest troubles.

Beginning in the 1930s, the federal government mapped America, grading neighborhoods to decide which ones were worthy of investment, literally drawing red lines on maps to make it crystal clear. Many mainly Black and brown neighborhoods ended up with low grades, and most US banks made sure money didn’t flow in their direction. Nearly a century later, these neighborhoods still suffer. Lacking trees and parks, they are degrees warmer than nearby leafy communities. Their residents are condemned to a myriad of health issues, from asthma to kidney stones.

Beginning in the 1970s, US banks pledged to do better, though several have been forced to pay fines in recent years for continued discriminatory lending practices. Those practices persist today – they’re just less obvious.

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The Guardian, 20 Mar 2023: US banks are sacrificing poor communities to the climate crisis

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