Bishop T.D. Jakes, arguably the most well-known Black religious leader in the United States and whose Dallas church, The Potter’s House, ranks among the country’s largest congregations, has announced a new 10-year deal between T.D. Jakes Group and Wells Fargo to build mixed-income communities in underserved neighborhoods. Even though the partnership is not with his church, Jakes is still best known as a pastor, and in working with a financial institution that’s been repeatedly accused of racist lending practices, Jakes will likely be hurting a Black community he says he wants to help. Indeed, his partnership with Wells Fargo is tantamount to his working with the fox to raid the henhouse.
In working with a financial institution that’s been repeatedly accused of racist lending practices, Jakes will likely be hurting a Black community he says he wants to help.
For almost 20 years, Wells Fargo has had an abysmal record in the African American community regarding mortgages and loans. According to federal prosecutors, starting four years before the 2008 financial crisis that caused the Great Recession, Wells Fargo, the fourth largest bank in the U.S., “discriminated by steering approximately 4,000 African-American and Hispanic wholesale borrowers, as well as additional retail borrowers, into subprime mortgages when non-Hispanic white borrowers with similar credit profiles received prime loans.” Baltimore city officials complained at that time that Wells Fargo’s policies had pushed hundreds of borrowers in that city into foreclosure.
Four years later, in 2012, Wells Fargo was ordered by the Justice Department to pay $175 million to settle allegations that it discriminated against African American and Hispanic borrowers between 2004 and 2009. Wells Fargo denied that it had actually discriminated and said in a statement that “Wells Fargo is settling this matter solely for the purpose of avoiding contested litigation with the DOJ.” The $175 million included…
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