Lisa Donner saw how blame-shifting to borrowers of color was so effective after the crash that it stopped the Obama administration from mounting a full-throated campaign to save black wealth. “People who knew better let that language”—it was the borrowers’ fault; they took out loans they couldn’t afford—“control the politics of the response,” she recalled. “A whole bunch of Obama administration folks let that incredibly racialized story and their fear of the story—even if they didn’t believe the story themselves—give us the recovery that we got. Which was one that increased inequality and
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