Racism has nothing and everything to do with it. The word 'racism' has several very different meanings, depending on which dialect of English you speak. * In m

Racism has nothing and everything to do with it. The word 'racism' has several very different meanings, depending on which dialect of English you speak. * In my hometown, racism would have nothing to do with it. The math doesn't work out for the investment, he was denied, case closed. * In my current town, racism has everything to do with it. We've set up structural barriers to success, which correlate strongly with race. We have a moral duty to remove those barriers. The difference comes down to different definitions of the word 'racism.' It's not a question of precision either. Just as the same sound might mean something different in Italian than in English, the same word will mean something different in Seattle than in Alabama. The differences tend to be more subtle, so people don't recognize that they're talking about completely different things. That goes for a lot of words ("white supremacy" especially). The high-level problem, though, is if we did invest in lower-income communities in the way the author describes, we'd be wealthier as a nation as a whole. Individual investments might not come out ahead (so private banks wouldn't necessarily want to finance that), but the net wealth generated in the community would more than make up for the new risk. If the federal government ran banks, even human element aside and just looking at likely expected impact on taxes, those loans would make sense. That's a problem it makes sense to fix. And the article gets back into reparations. Even if we did come out behind, morally, those risks would probably make sense too -- the multiplier of a loan like this which might be defaulted on is far greater than hand-outs. If nothing else, we've improved a few buildings and a community. But I don't think we would come out behind. Even back-of-the-envelope numbers place us well ahead.