Thank you, Mr Nordlund, for this important column. I note that you actually understate the history of this despicable practice. It wasn't merely the banks denying loans to minorities going back throughout history, but it was the stated policy of the United States government to do so. The creation of the Federal Housing Administration in the 1930s was designed to help white homeowners only. The regulations used a color-coded system for different "grades" of neighborhoods, and blacks and other minorities were explicitly prohibited from getting mortgages for those grades supposedly above their station. The practice ostensibly ended with housing reforms in the 1960s, but, as this column demonstrates, it still continues off the books. This is the dictionary definition of institutional discrimination, and we suffer from its legacy, all of us, to the present day.