“From our youth shameful gods have consumed

the fruits of our ancestors’ labor—

their flocks and herds,

their sons and daughters.” 

Jeremiah 3:24 NIV

The history of discrimination against people of color in the United States is rarely as pervasive and coordinated as in the real estate and mortgage fields. I managed to successfully navigate an MBA in Real Estate Development with a focus on Affordable Housing and receive licenses as both a Realtor and a Mortgage Lender without skimming the surface of the depth of racial discrimination, historical and institutional, during my studies.

Where was our voice?

In an era where the voice of Negro mothers who walked to work rather than wait at a public bus stop in fear of white rapists or of Black landowners who saw their property stolen under the pervasive threat of lynching when urban planning wasn’t used to deprive Blacks and Hispanics of land ownership is being silenced as reactionary or extreme, BlackAndBrownFolk.com seeks to serve as a calm voice of reason. These things did happen. Black and Brown folk have been systematically denied ownership of the land they’ve worked for generations.

Malcolm X spoke of, “a good religion. That old-time religion Ma and Pa spoke about.” His view is not mine. His religion allowed a violence my Christian understanding doesn’t agree with. But he was right about many things. It’s insanity to think that the very people and institutions that have benefited so generously from our second-class citizenship will just give back the gains their children have amassed over the centuries of our beloved country’s existence. That, we should not expect.

Like Thurgood Marshall and the talented attorneys of his era concluded, the law and the constitution , the very weapons twisted to keep our subjugation are the best weapons in our arsenal. Sauce for the goose …

BlackAndBrownFolk.com is an open forum for trained professionals to share what we’ve learned in and from corporate America to balance the scales toward justice in righting the historical wrong of land ownership and distribution in the United States. Part of that is educating ourselves and our children on the exact methods and history of de jure racial discrimination against Black and Brown folk in the United States. Once you know your history, you can intelligently plot your future.