Focusing Too Hard on Black-White Conflict?

Recent articles in The Times point to the fact that fewer blacks, in relation to their numbers, are granted loans than is true of whites. The inference is that this occurs because of racial prejudice.

Loans are based on economics. They are granted on the basis of the ability to repay. In the past, The Times has noted that 25% of black males are in trouble with the law at any given time; a greater percentage of blacks than whites are welfare-dependent, and the rate of unemployment and poverty is higher among blacks than whites.

Under these conditions, isn’t it just possible that there are fewer blacks than whites who can qualify for loans? Fewer who are credit-worthy? And that this fact has nothing whatsoever to do with racial prejudice or skin color?

Articles like these, with their unwarranted intimation of racial bias, create a friction between the races. I’m sure that is not what The Times had in mind.

AMOS HOAGLAND

Pasadena