Some lending banks have been caught being racial and discriminatory. They have also been slapped hard for doing it. There is no laws that allow for that to happen. I am not denying there is racism. There is structure in our country to support it. Not all banks were doing those practices. Redlining has been a thing from several banks, and after the housing market crash of 2009, some banks went back to certain practices that looked like redlining. These practices are also not nation wide either.
The other issue is studies like this are inherently flawed as they lead with the answer instead of seeking alternatives. Take for example the studies about job seeker discrimination. The major one that gets floated around is the study from 2001 where resumes were sent in to newspaper ads. That study was so flawed that determining any conclusion, let alone racism, is just ridiculous. Want to know why it was dumb? They didn't look for alternative solutions to what they were seeing in the data. Let me give you an example of what I mean.
Send in resumes with example same qualifications for several jobs. One has the name of Tom or Jenny, and the other with Rau'shee or Laeticia as a name I can tell what is going to get a call back and what isn't in America. It has nothing to do with racism. It would be the same reason that I wouldn't call back Anatoliy, Bjorgersenson, or any other ridiculous hard to pronounce white name. They are HARDER TO PRONOUNCE. People don't like to sound like an idiot on the phone. If I have two resumes to call back with the same qualifications for my job, I am calling the easier one first. If that works out I am done. This is the same reason that most East Asians, Indians, and Europeans with hard to pronounce names use American nicknames on their resume. These studies never look at the call back rate when providing an easier to pronounce nick name along with the full name. They just want to come to the horrible conclusion of it's racist!
Also, here is a good article about the institutional racism.
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Anyone, regardless of color, looking to make their lives better can do so no matter how shitty of a start the come from. This is why many immigrants and refugees from Africa that come here with nothing but the clothes on their backs do vastly superior in terms of success than many people from various black communities. I'm not saying all communities, but I am saying those that don't try to promote to their children to graduate high school, get a job, and wait to be married before having kids. Less than 2% of the people in poverty meet those conditions and they rarely stay anywhere near the poverty level.
Are there racist people with power influences still out there? Damn right there are. Seen more than a few. They can make the problem seem bigger than it really is.