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Posts Tagged ‘Chase Bank’

J. P. Morgan Chase Bank – institutional Racism?

Tuesday, July 19th, 2022

Chase Bank recently came to Boston and set up offices around the area. They organized and internalized what they needed to succeed in this New England area. That includes internalizing the extreme racism of the area.

What is it like to be African American in these United States? We talk about addressing racism and wanting to eliminate it in this country. In fact, most of the people I know could not survive without their wrap of “better than” which helps them get up in the mornings and get through their day.

Keep reading and you will understand the day to day horribleness of being African American in the United States. For this article, in the New England area. Everyone dumps because they need to feel “better than”. After the dumping comes the denials. You – African American Male and/or Female – are not supposed to understand that system. If you do, you should keep your mouth shut because the only thing that will come of speaking up – speaking out – asking for change – demanding change when the ask is ignored and you are being viciously treated, is more horribleness.

Chase, in the deep south, was our bank. We used other banks in New England before Chase moved in and had horrible experiences. We came to Chase because we decided to go where we were known – into the deep south – and open our accounts in that part of the world. We were doing business there so we were able to open bank accounts there.

All of the banking problems we were experiencing in New England stopped when we took our banking business down south. We had a reprieve of a decade or more until Chase Bank decided to open branches in this New England area.

All the problems plus a few more, which initially caused us to take our banking to our old home town, re-surfaced when Chase moved into New England.

This article outlines one of the problems. Articles which follow will outline others – “Banking while Black” should be the title of this series.

Chase Bank, for whatever reason, stopped sending us our monthly corporate bank statements with copies of cancelled checks. That service was supposed to be a normal part of the banking relationship.

They stopped sending us statements for 2 1/2 years.

We called and called and the response was always the same – when you give us a new address that shows you moved, we will start sending your bank statements again.

Being persistent, we went back and forth for months trying to get our corporate bank statements. Finally, we filed a complaint with the Banking Commissioner. They notified Chase of the complaint and told them to send our statements from the month they stopped to the current month.

Chase did the minimum. They sent the statements without copies of the cancelled checks, which we needed for our corporate records. After several calls and another complaint to the Banking Commission we finally received the complete corporate statements which we should have been receiving over the past 2 1/2 years.

We spent lots of time trying to get these statements. We lost a lot. I could go on for another page about the damages, but you can imagine that part. Chase’s response – not even an apology. No one could find a reason as to why this happened. It struck me that we live in a neighborhood which has been redlined for decades. When the persons we spoke to trying to get our statements sent to us all said “when you send us a new address we will start sending your statements again”. That resonated on a very racist level. That is the kind of ‘policy’ which resonates in the deep south, but this is New England.

Of course, the bank person who responded to us first read a statement which said in affect “Chase does not discriminate on any level for any reason.” We laughed about that because it was so ridiculous.

Institutional racism plagues corporate America. To read such a statement and make such a blatant claim and to expect us to believe that was beyond ridiculous. It was mean, evil and meant to maintain institutional racism. If they are so perfect and do not discriminate then anyone who makes a complaint has lost before the ink on the complaint is dry. It is the ultimate denial. It says – to paraphrase – don’t tell us about the claimed discrimination you think you experienced because we will not address it we are perfect in that respect and this statement attests to that fact.

What is institutional racism? One definition is – there is personal racism experienced by minorities from someone white who feels better than. If that person does the discriminating within a bank from the perch of their job it is still personal racism. When a complaint is made and there has been discrimination and the institution backs its employees instead of addressing the discrimination – that makes it racism with the institution responsible – a form of institutional racism. There is more to the definition than that, however, that is one part of it.

That is one incident. There are many more. Too many for your emotions to take in one reading. We will add the rest one at a time as the Bettina Network journal goes out.

Bettina Network Foundation, inc. announces the addition of a project which is sorely needed in this world!

Sunday, February 13th, 2022

                                                        Much has been made of the push to pass the Voting Rights Bill.  We think a larger push needs to be made over real estate and over how venture capitalists have used their money and other resources to infect this society with extreme racism.

The issue in voting rights centers around redistricting.  This is the work which many take on to make sure their group has the edge over another group in voting before anyone shows up to vote.         

If we work to remove the core – the root – the life of White Nationalism, maybe we can take away the sustenance of the extreme bigotry we are facing which is today and has always infected the right of many Americans to vote. 

We need to look at this in two parts: Real Estate and Venture Capitalists. Those are the two parts which make up this project:

Real Estate – Part One of the Project.

We are asking real estate companies to sign a pledge that they will make their listings known to all. Today, listings are known in particular stratified segregated communities consisting of whites or blacks or browns, or etc.

When one looks at this society let us look at white neighborhoods . They was created as the structure in which we all live because such areas lead to white schools – white churches white friendship groups – white social clubs, substantial futures and opportunities for white children living in these neighborhoods.  

They are the living arrangements in these United States where an investment in real estate – even your private home – would today be worth 100 to 500% more than what you invested.  Those are, of course, white-Americanized -Northern-European neighborhoods where everything is kept under tight control. Banks have redlined; racism prevails; neighbors make it difficult to impossible for non-whites to live in those neighborhoods and so much more. Real estate brokers help to institutionalize this living arrangement as they pay attention to some, ignore others, choose which leads to follow and which to ignore.

In other neighborhoods we may see some appreciation in value, but not of the magnitude described above.  A modest increase.  

And then there are the African American neighborhoods where your home may only be worth a fraction of what you paid even when other homes, sometimes within a few blocks of your home or other real estate, are sky rocketing.    Mostly, however, in the minority neighborhoods the value of homes goes down from when you first purchased.

Going along with that,  schools are guaranteed, in the white northern european neighborhoods, to provide the children of those living in those neighborhoods with a very good education in beautiful buildings equipped with as much as can be put into those buildings.  Even in 2022 you will not receive mortgages to purchase homes in these Americanized-Northern-European neighborhoods. If you do slip through there are ways this society uses to make sure such people are moved out of those neighborhoods and generally in some very crude ways.

As a society, we have spent blood, sweat, tears and tons of money to maintain this structure and it is way past the time to dismantle it.  

We passed a voting rights bill decades ago, which today has been almost completely dismantled needing another such effort.  If your effort is spent working at the core of the problem  your time and resources will result in positive results beneficial to the entire society – including those trying to make sure it remains white and your results will be much longer lasting.

There are neighborhoods in these United States where an investment in real estate – even your private home – would today be worth 100 to 500% more than what you invested.  Those are, of course, white-Northern-European neighborhoods which patrol their neighborhoods making sure only those like them are allowed to purchase homes.

In other neighborhoods we may see some appreciation in value, but not of the magnitude described above.  A modest increase.  And then there are the African American neighborhoods where your home may only be worth a fraction of what you paid even when other homes, sometimes within a few blocks of your home or other real estate, are sky rocketing.   

As a society, we have spent blood, sweat, tears and tons of money to maintain this structure and it is way past the time to dismantle it.   One reason we have spent so much of ourselves maintaining this structure, one important reason, is power and control. When where a person lives is institutionalized to bring about political control and to dictate part of their ability to earn a substantial living and denigrate others living in lesser neighborhoods – that is the ultimate.

We passed a voting rights bill decades ago, which today has been almost completely dismantled needing another such effort.  If your effort is spent at the core of the problem  your time and resources will result in positive results more beneficial to the entire society – including those trying to make sure it remains white and your results will be much longer lasting.

 We are further asking real estate companies to advertise more broadly. Media is ghettoized so their outlets will have to step out and step up to the challenge of making sure their real estate listings are seen across the entire spectrum of race, creed, color, culture, religious, sexual preference and so much more.

This will put realtors on the front line of change. That is as it should be since their ancestors – those who went before – were on that front line making sure neighborhoods were strictly segregated. The advantage the realtors will have will come from their businesses appreciating dramatically and they benefitting personally and through their businesses.

We are asking the media to step up and step out. Different media outlets cater to very different groups of people.  We are asking the media to become adept at making their real estate listings known across the board.  Initially, that might be a problem.  Lack of know-how will make the first steps fraught with distress, upheaval and more.  Why continue?  Over time that will be an advantage to bring in more commissions to the realtors as their results will be judged by new criteria. And to bring in more income across the board to the media.

We are asking civil rights groups to add a real estate component to what they do.

Once upon a time civil rights groups worked in real estate areas. They brought suit against particular real estate owners for not selling nor renting to minorities. That has either disappeared or taken a back seat to other priorities and we can see the results as equality in voting has taken a dive and redistricting is coming up with no thought except that it will create and maintain separatism to produce the political power and control needed.

We will support those who take on living in neighborhoods which just might be hostile to them so the people making that move are supported.  We will support whites, blacks, latinx, asians, whoever needs that support.

Our research has shown some unbelievably imaginative and evil structures in place to maintain the racial, cultural, religious, etc. separation of people in these United States. We have uncovered several people who have been fired when they moved into the wrong neighborhood. It took a bit to discover that because no one thinks their firing has come from their choice of housing. We have seen people whose jobs were capped and downward pressure put on them so they have to move into ‘lesser’ neighborhoods.

We will develop programs to get this going to make sure we are able to break down the tall thick walls created from our need to be better than which separates us and makes us see the faults in others without seeing the part we played in creating those fault lines.

We do not want to make us one people, but to make sure we are well represented in many communities which  have been closed for generations.

We will be in touch with banks and other lending institutions to make sure they get the message and the “redlining”  and other forms of discrimination stops.  Financial Institutions have been very imaginative in how they attempt to tear down someone to force them out of a particular neighborhood. Our president, Marceline Donaldson, experienced heavy racism from her bank when one of the many things they did was to refuse to send her monthly statements of her account for over two years, in spite of many phone calls to the bank. The answer was always – “when you send us a new address we will restart your statements.” Her statements were not restarted until she went to the Banking Commission and then it still took time. These kinds of institutional racist activities are today alive and well, living in most American cities growing fat on the support such receives.  Which bank? Chase Bank in Boston, MA.

Those working within banks and other institutions are quite imaginative about how they go about such bigoted behavior. It is what they bring into the bank when they are hired from how they were raised, schooled, learned at their particular religious institutions and so much more. It becomes lethal when the bank accepts and defends such behavior. That is when it becomes institutional racism.

We will support the institutions which want to see all of this change and we will publicize and in many other ways make sure the institutions which continue to support the separation of people into pens based on color, race, religions etc. feel the ire of those trying to bring our lives together in more positive ways.

To make clear – We are not trying to bring about a society in which we are all the same.  We are trying to highlight and bring together actual “diversity” in our living locations, our living styles, our different cultures and religions so we can live better lives than we have been able to in the past.  

We and our ancestors – no matter who – have paid high prices to maintain this exclusivity based on color, race, religion, sexual orientation, culture and so much more.

It is time to acknowledge the roots of such and to pull up those roots replacing them with much better. Not only do we do this where we live, but we also do it where we eat, what we eat, where we worship, the names and trappings of the God we worship or the fact that we don’t believe in any God. Ever stood at the door of an elegant restaurant with a reservation watching others come in and be seated without reservations while you still stood? In elegant, northern, supposedly none bigoted locations?

The second part of this will be dealing with the bigotry in the billionaire/millionaire classes. We will especially look at those who are funding the bigotry we are seeing grow hugely. We will be looking at the Venture Capitalists and such groups who have used their assets to change this society into one which is becoming a more fascist – racist – sexist society, which they control and in some instances where they are attempting to create new facets to this society where their control-over is substantial .

We will be especially looking at this group to attempt to help rectify and return to others what they have stolen as these Venture Capitalists elbowed each other to steal the ideas and hard work of entrepreneurs developing great ideas into the billionaire business categories. These entrepreneurs were stopped because the Venture Capitalist groups wanted to fund the businesses, but not the people who developed them so the VC group resorted to theft. This kind of theft has been going on in these United States – with no stopping them – for decades. The numbers of people negatively affected are in the thousands. We have been researching and have discovered the beginnings of many such stolen businesses which today are into the top financial categories and which had their beginnings in the minority/female communities.

Join us.  You can join the Bettina Network Foundation, inc. by indicating your interest in board membership; involvement in different projects set up to bring about our goals; other committee grouping; and/or you can subscribe to Bettina Network Journal to keep up with what we are doing, thinking, achieving to keep this channel open for another day.

You can contribute money which is tax deductible – we are a 501(c)3 organization – you can give of your time to help others as we find those who ‘but for…’   Or let us know what other ways you feel your talents can be used.

Don’t let your geographical location stop you. We meet and work in different locations and we communicate and meet often by Zoom. (and/or a similar communication facilitator.)

Call us if you have suggestions, questions, or want to explore joining/working with us.

AND – please note the other projects we started which are moving ahead very successfully. They will still be a part of our work load. If you are more interested in working with one of these, please let us know.

Hopeful for the future

Marceline Donaldson, president Rev. Dr. Robert Bennett, vice president

Bettina Network Foundation, inc.

P. O. Box 380585

Cambridge, MA. 02238

bettinanetwork@comcast.net

617 497 9166

Keep in touch with a great community of people through Bettina’s Blog < www.bettinanetworkblog.com>/


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