Does that mean that whites were being discriminated against? Or are statistics taken seriously only when they back up some preconception that is politically correct?
These are what could be called "Aha!" statistics. If you start out with a preconception and find numbers that fit that preconception, you say, "Aha!" But when the numbers don't fit any preconception -- when no one believes that banks are discriminating against whites and in favor of Asian Americans -- then no "Aha!"
Both this year's study and the one 13 years ago provoked an outburst of accusations of racism from people who are in the business of making such accusations. Moreover, where there is a "problem" proclaimed in the media there will almost invariably be a "solution" proposed in politics.
Often the solution is worse than the problem.
The older study showed that most blacks and most whites who applied for mortgage loans got them -- 72 percent of blacks and 89 percent of whites. So it is not as if most blacks can't get loans.
Apparently the gap has narrowed since then, for the New York Times reports that lenders have developed "high-cost subprime mortgages for people who would have been simply rejected outright in the past on the basis of poor credit or insufficient income."
Of course, the government can always step in and put a stop to these high-cost loans, which will probably mean that people with lower credit ratings can't buy a home at all.