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Saturday, May 28, 2022

Derrick Johnson, president of the NAACP, criticized Biden's plan — a $10,000 write-off for those making less than $150,000 per year, according to The Washington Post — on Twitter. Johnson suggested that the plan does not address a meaningful amount of debt, especially for Black borrowers, who are typically burdened by more of it. [...] Johnson cited a 2016 Brookings Institute study that found Black borrowers have, on average, $53,000 in debt after graduation — nearly twice as much as their white counterparts.

The headline is language from within a Business Insider post, which also states: 

Wisdom Cole, NAACP's national director for the youth college division, previously emphasized the significance canceling student debt would have in helping close the racial wealth gap.

"If we are trying to level the playing field in the future, and folks are disproportionately taking out more debt than their white counterparts or their peers, that doesn't sound like a level playing field to me, right?" Cole told Insider in a recent interview.

Insider has previously reported on the burden student debt has on communities of color, and specifically, how the student-loan industry was created to give everyone an equal shot at a higher education but ended up doing the opposite, shouldering minority borrowers with huge debt loads they cannot afford to pay off.

The Education Trust, a nonprofit, launched the National Black Student Loan Debt Study last year and found that 51% of Black borrowers have yet to see positive returns on their debt, and 66% of them regret ever taking out loans, deeming them "unpayable," "not worth it," and a "lifetime sentence."

The unstated ugly question in these truths, Does Joe Biden really care to level the playing field and make black (and white) poor more empowered than they are? Or are we seeing another ugly dimension of Status Quo Joe? Liking it as it is? Fine with Joe, if they get piled on with onerous impossible payments? Less uppity that way? More pliant.

Then, the really big question - wtf can we make of Clyburn having made the move that launched Biden's then faltering campaign into Biden being "the one" instead of Warren or Bernie to get the opportunity to gain from the inevitable ouster of that sick joke in office that was Donald John Trump?

If black "leadership" wanted a foot-dragger they surely got one. Now what might make black "leadership" think to want a foot-dragger? Ask instead, who is bankrolling Clyburn's campaigns to ensure his continued incumbancy, i.e., who is the man's main constituency when it comes to power and status and the paycheck?

Ugly questions. But they have to be asked. 

The Insider item ends:

Data recently obtained by Warren's office and provided to Insider found that $50,000 in relief would zero out balances for 76%, or 30 million, borrowers and would reduce the share of Black people with student debt from 24% to 6%, narrowing the Black-white gap.

The Congressional Black Caucus recently called for "broad-based" cancellation, following the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and Congressional Progressive Caucus' calls for meaningful action on the growing student-debt crisis.

"In order to reduce the racial wealth gap and advance a just and equitable economic recovery for all, we must alleviate the burden of student debt," Black Caucus Chair Joyce Beatty said in a statement. "Nothing is off the table, except inaction."

If Clyburn is anywhere near taking "leadership" of such debt fairness effort it surely has gotten no publicity. Has Clyburn been a politician inartful in gaining publicity? When it is something he wants about something he pursues? He got one damned whole hell of a lot of publicity when he wanted to anoint Status Quo Joe as his Messiah to replace Trump.  Seems as if wanting to is the telling factor.

In that context, Beatty's judgment sings, "Nothing is off the table, except inaction."

And, in that context, where's Nancy?

__________UPDATE_______

Pramila is in there pushing.