Last Updated on April 23, 2024 by BVN
Overview: A federal judge in Texas has ruled that the Minority Business Development Agency must also serve white people, citing a violation of equal protection under the law. The agency was created to help minority-owned businesses, but despite its efforts, minority businesses still face challenges in accessing loans and paying higher interest rates. This ruling is part of a string of court decisions that undermine progress towards economic equality for minority groups. The author warns of the need to remain vigilant and avoid complacency, as the erosion of rights can lead to chaos.
S. E. Williams
Early this month, a federal judge in Texas, Mark T. Pittman, ruled that the Minority Business Development Agency must also serve white people.
According to Pittman, who was appointed to the bench by former President Donald J. Trump, the presumption that the white business owners were not disadvantaged was a violation of equal protection under the law as guaranteed by 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
In his ruling Pittman wrote an almost unbelievable statement, “If courts mean what they say when they ascribe supreme importance to constitutional rights, the federal government may not violate such rights with impunity.” He then declared, “Time’s up.”
Time’s up for what? The support and assistance offered to minority businesses by this agency? The nation’s quest to level the playing field for those disadvantaged by years of slavery, Jim Crow, lynchings, discrimination, low wages, poor housing, inadequate education and the list goes on.
The Minority Business Development Agency, was created in 1979 to help minority-owned businesses who were not asking for a hand out, just a hand. With his March 6 ruling, Pittman in essence determined minority owned businesses do not need a hand when he declared the agency discriminates against white people and as a result, must now offer its services to people of all races and ethnic groups.
Reality makes it plain that despite the services of this agency, minority businesses, especially Black owned businesses, have less access to loans, and when their loans are approved, they not only usually get less money when they apply but most often they also have to pay more for it due to the higher interest rates they are charged compared to white borrowers.
This ruling is just one more in a string of court decisions that continue to erode progress by rescinding promises made to Blacks and other minority groups in the nation’s tepid efforts to level the economic playing field.
“The agency’s work “to concentrate on the growth of businesses that still remain substantially locked out of the mainstream of the American economy is necessary and needed.”
Marc H. Morial
There were promises made to former slaves in the wake of emancipation that dissipated during the subsequent period of Reconstruction. Initially, Black folks held tight to Reconstruction promises but it wasn’t long before the former slaves recognized the futility found in depending on the fairness of a government that in many ways continued to see them as chattel and contrived covertly and often overtly to deny full citizenship rights let alone any real assistance in building an economic foundation after having labored centuries without compensation.
Following this disappointing period of radical Reconstruction when all military protections for former slaves were withdrawn from Southern states and the 40 acres and a mule never materialized, former slaves were further disadvantaged during years of Jim Crow.
It took nearly a century for the Black community and its allies to raise the consciousness of American citizens with a searing call for the country to make good on the promises of the U.S.Constitution, something Martin Luther King Jr. referred to as a “promissory note” where the proceeds were paid to Black people with a bad check that came back marked “insufficient funds.”
Hard fought progress was made during this era. Yet, despite the progress and the strained political, social, economic, educational, housing, health and other incremental changes that resulted, Blacks are experiencing take-backs reminiscent of the radical Reconstruction era take- backs.
In recent years, the nation’s courts have leveraged a new, radical Reconstruction by pulling back on the promises and progress of the Civil Rights era.
Other examples of this include the 1978 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that a university’s admissions criteria which used race as a definite and exclusive basis for an admission decision, violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
In 2023 the U.S. Supreme Court gutted Section 5 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act for jurisdictions requiring pre-clearance due to discrimination for changes in voting procedures. And the list goes on.
It is no secret that issues related to equity are under attack by right wing extremists and their duly elected and/or appointed leaders at all levels of government. If we’ve learned nothing from history and the erosion of other democracies, it is that the downward spiral to chaos is often incremental … just a little bit taken away here… another small set back there…a slight change in policy over there… until pretty soon… rights are gone and there is no way to retrieve them
It’s like knowing that the earth is simultaneously turning as it revolves around the sun but we never feel the movement so we have a false sense that everything is stable and that we are standing still when in reality, we are not. For this reason it is easy to lulled into a false sense of security. However, it is imperative that we remain vigilant.