Banking for the Culture: Black-owned banks as cultural assets during the subprime lending boom.

Today, black-owned banks are important financial resources challenging economic exclusion. Nevertheless, they do not associate strongly with building black wealth. Some scholars argue this signals black-owned banks are ornamental, or ineffective responses to legacies of economic exclusion in black segregated neighborhoods. To engage these critiques, I draw on the dialectical theoretical frames of cultural assets and structural deficits to examine the effectiveness of black-owned banks during the subprime lending boom-a period when bank practices exploiting a history of economic exclusion in black segregated neighborhoods intensify. Specifically, I analyze administrative data from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) and the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) to assess whether black-owned banks associate with access to mortgage credit when the subprime lending boom peaks in 2006. Using propensity score matching with inverse probability weighting, I find black-owned banks do not associate with mortgage originations in 2006; but neighborhoods with black-owned banks receive fewer subprime mortgage loans, compared to matched ones without them. As such, black-owned banks appear to effectively shield black segregated neighborhoods from the time period's predation. Overall, findings imply black-owned banks support protective credit markets during periods of intensifying economic exclusion and exploitation.

How Incarceration Influences Native-Born Black Men's Risk of Obesity.

Objective: To build upon research that investigates the health significance of familial and former incarceration with special emphasis on obesity risk among native-born Black (ie, African American) men. Methods: We analyzed data from the 2001-2003 National Survey of American Life (NSAL), focusing on native-born Black men (n=1140), the demographic group that bears the brunt of mass incarceration. The outcome of interest was obesity as measured by body mass index (BMI)>30. Principal predictors were familial and former incarceration, and their statistical interaction. Results: In survey-adjusted binomial logistic regression models, familial incarceration appeared an unimportant predictor; whereas, former incarceration associated with a lower risk of obesity. However, former incarceration modifies the association between familial incarceration and obesity, such that native-born Black men experiencing both familial and former incarceration were significantly more likely to be obese. Conclusions: Public health researchers should treat former incarceration with greater care in studies including native-born Black men because time spent incarcerated has lingering physical health significance.