November 20, 2008

Bush's Zero Down Payment mural

Here's the official mural, entitled "Stepping Into the American Dream," that Javier Cortada was commissioned to paint for President Bush's October 15, 2002 White House Conference on Minority Homeownership, in which Bush denounced down payments as the chief barrier to adding 5.5 million additional minority homeowners. Bush orated:

Two-thirds of all Americans own their homes, yet we have a problem here in America because few than half of the Hispanics and half the African Americans own the home. That's a homeownership gap. It's a -- it's a gap that we've got to work together to close for the good of our country, for the sake of a more hopeful future. We've got to work to knock down the barriers that have created a homeownership gap.

I set an ambitious goal. It's one that I believe we can achieve. It's a clear goal, that by the end of this decade we'll increase the number of minority homeowners by at least 5.5 million families. (Applause.)

Some may think that's a stretch. I don't think it is. I think it is realistic. I know we're going to have to work together to achieve it. But when we do our communities will be stronger and so will our economy. Achieving the goal is going to require some good policies out of Washington. And it's going to require a strong commitment from those of you involved in the housing industry.

Just by showing up at the conference, you show your commitment. And together, together we will work over the next decade to enable millions of our fellow Americans to own a piece of their own property, and that's their home.

I appreciate so very much the home owners who are with us today, the Arias family, newly arrived from Peru. They live in Baltimore. Thanks to the Association of Real Estate Brokers, the help of some good folks in Baltimore, they figured out how to purchase their own home. Imagine to be coming to our country without a home, with a simple dream. And now they're on stage here at this conference being one of the new home owners in the greatest land on the face of the Earth. I appreciate the Arias family coming. (Applause.)...

To open up the doors of homeownership there are some barriers, and I want to talk about four that need to be overcome. First, down payments. A lot of folks can't make a down payment. They may be qualified. They may desire to buy a home, but they don't have the money to make a down payment. I think if you were to talk to a lot of families that are desirous to have a home, they would tell you that the down payment is the hurdle that they can't cross.

Here's the HUD press release about the mural:
Miami-based Cuban-American artist Xavier Cortada today unveiled his mural, Stepping into the American Dream, in a ceremony hosted by Housing and Urban Development Secretary Mel Martinez.

Cortada painted the mural at the White House Conference on Minority Homeownership, held on October 15 in Washington, DC. The painting illustrates the Blueprint for the American Dream Partnership, a collaborative effort of the Bush Administration and members of the housing industry to meet the President’s goal of 5.5 million new minority homeowners by the year 2010.

prez-message.jpg (62960 bytes) “The Bush Administration is committed to helping people across the country realize the American Dream,” Martinez said at the unveiling ceremony. “We are proud to work with our partners in the private sector to achieve the President’s ambitious goal. This mural is a visual representation of our strong mutual commitment.”

Stepping into the American Dream, 96”x96”, is acrylic and mixed media on canvas. Images in the mural are meant to represent the various avenues through which individuals and families can achieve homeownership – homebuyer education, adequate supply of affordable homes, down payment assistance, and mortgage financing.

The mural features short messages from new homeowners throughout the country, as well as from President Bush, Martinez, and other members of the Blueprint Partnership.

Cortada has exhibited his works in museums, galleries and cultural venues around the world. He has served as Artistic Director of various efforts sponsored by Miami-Dade Art in Public Places, including Master Peace (a school-based art project in Miami-Dade County Public Schools) and PATH (Public Art Transforming Housing).

HUD is the nation’s housing agency committed to increasing homeownership, particularly among minorities, creating affordable housing opportunities for low-income Americans, supporting the homeless, elderly, people with disabilities and people living with AIDS. The Department also promotes economic and community development as well as enforces the nation’s fair housing laws.


Mypublished articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer

28 comments:

Anonymous said...

The latest issue of "Commentary" has an article on the financial crisis that is consistent with the Sailer Diversity Recession thesis. The author knows quite a bit about previous financial crises as well.

Anonymous said...

Who says fine art is dead? A couple days ago you asked what art is...

Anonymous said...

Feh, I can draw better than that...where's my fat gubbermint paycheck?
Oh wait...I'm a white male!

Anonymous said...

The top picture is interesting, it seems to show a black couple with two Mexican children.

Bush may actually have come close to his goal of increasing minority owndership of homes by close to 5.5million, even if a lot of those minorities only owned their homes for a brief while.

Halfbreed

Mark Presco said...

This is a great representation of the “American Nightmare”.

Anonymous said...

The aesthetic quality of the mural matches the quality of the ideas behind Bush's initiative. It's truth in advertising.

I wish more things in life worked that way.

Jim O said...

It's always amused me that the left hates Bush so much, since, well, he's one of their own. Sometimes I think somebody should tell them.

Anonymous said...

Well, at least it's politically-correct primitive art, painted without any of that nasty dead white male refinement of, you know, technique.

It's art that truly imitates life, art that shows the artist identifies with his subjects, a painting crudely made from sophisticated materials (acrylic paint) produced by the advanced technology of despicable white people, which depicts crude people moving into a house produced by the advanced technology of despicable white people. This art delivers a powerful message: despicable white people provide everything for crude brown people. Just look at the joy on those faces!

Anonymous said...

I read that it's rumored Obama is considering Jim Clyburn, a black congressman from South Carolina, as his HUD secretary, James Jones, a white Marine general, as his security head, and Larry Summers, a Jew, as his Treasury secretary. Perhaps Obama's great achievement will be to demostrate a black president can be just as predictable as all those other presidents on the dollar bills.

Anonymous said...

Vincent said...
Feh, I can draw better than that...where's my fat gubbermint paycheck?
Oh wait...I'm a white male!


Move to Alaska. Palin will cut a fat check.

Anonymous said...

Have you noticed that these Latino political murals are always incredibly ugly?

A bit off topic, but Stanford has a Latino political mural in its Latino themed house in the Stern dormitory.

It features a naked Latino man and woman flying through the air.

Another part of the mural features various Latinos sitting and standing around a cafeteria table, some of whom are cafeteria workers. The caption reads something like "You fought for us, cried for us, scrubbed floors for us..." Etc.

It is reviled by *everybody* as hideous.

B322 said...

It's always amused me that the left hates Bush so much, since, well, he's one of their own. Sometimes I think somebody should tell them. - Jim O.

*sigh* I tell them all the time. They tell me, "No, Bush passed No Child Left Behind! He's a nation-builder who intervenes wherever the media say there are human rights violations! He refuses to cut government waste! He's not a leftist."

*sigh*

Grumpy Old Man said...

That is the most hideously ugly mural I have ever seen.

By rights, the artist should be taken out and hung . . .

Anonymous said...

Steve, I hate to kill a meme you love and are running with, but:

The bubble was not just poor minorities buying houses, indeed subprime mortgages are an increasingly small part of the economic crisis.

The real estate bubble also affected nearly all white parts of the world such as the Spainish coast, Portland, Seattle, Dubai, the Czech Republic, Bulgaria, and most severely 99.9% white Iceland.

It also included, besides real estate, such things as oil, potash, gold, silver, rice, fine art, tin, copper, and midwestern farm land. As a matter of fact, the prices of many of these things went up much more than California real estate, and have gone done much more as well.

Furthermore, as an article you linked to noted, demand for subprime mortgages was so gigantic that synthetic subprime mortages that did not involve giving anyone an actual loan were created and sold to eager demand.

Anonymous said...

I wonder if the Arias family of Baltimore is legal

Anonymous said...

I am Lugash.

Off topic idea here. Does anyone think it is likely that Detroit the City's dismal track record contributed to Detroit the Auto Industry's downfall? Any young business hotshot just out of college wouldn't consider living in Detroit. Anyone with any talent would pack up his bags and leave if they joined by mistake. You're left with pod people like Rick Wagoner as a result. Detroit the Auto Industry seems to have the same lassitude and diffused incompetence that most government agencies do.

I am Lugash.

Anonymous said...

AS --

Hahaha. That's the mural which has the picture of the old crone which makes her look like a monster. Another own goal for the diversitoids. Good to see another sane Stanford person here.

Anonymous said...

Here's the official mural, entitled...

Titled, titled! Let's not further the culture of entitlement!

From the ravenous look on the subjects' faces, this particular opus could be subtitled-- subentitled?-- There Goes the Neighborhood. Why do they expect us to dispense with stereotypes, if they won't?

By rights, the artist should be taken out and hung . . .-- Grumpy Old Man

Hanged, hanged!

Sorry to be Miss Grundy tonight. Maybe Grumpy and I should check in to the Anderson House for the weekend, where they give you a live cat to make you feel better. (Though Mini Morris kept us awake.)

Of course, this is in the town where they set-- what else?-- Grumpy Old Men.

Anonymous said...

The mural is grotesque. It induces a kind of nausea. But then, given the unpromising subject, I guess the artist had to abolish perspective and tilt the world at unpleasant angles to provide some interest. (Or perhaps it was an intuitive recognition on his part of the fundamental instability of the sub-prime mortgage market!).

The people look rapacious rather than happy ... although I like the world-weary expression on the piggy bank's face.

Anonymous said...

I think that the author of that mural and ones like him are displaying a certain kind of honesty. They're tacitly acknowledging that perspective, realism, subtlety and a striving for elegance are all hallmarks of European art. With which they want nothing to do.

John Craig said...

Interesting that the top painting seems to represent an adult black couple with two Mexican children. The girl could be a light-skinned black, it's not clear, but the boy is unquestionably Mexican. anybody have the statistics on black parents adopting Mexican children?

John Craig said...

Sorry Steve, scratch that last post if you can (and thi sone as well), I had thought that I had screwed up last night in sending it, but I see that I didn't.

Anonymous said...

I for one appreciate the symmetry of "dreadful art to celebrate dreadful government policy".

Anonymous said...

It's always amused me that the left hates Bush so much, since, well, he's one of their own. Sometimes I think somebody should tell them.

It's always amused me that the right hates Clinton so much, since, well, he's one of their own. Sometimes I think somebody should tell them.

Anonymous said...

Steve,

You have not addressed the other part of the Great Diversity Crusade: executive incompetence.

In my role as web developer for several corporations, I have been repeatedly asked to write online management courses. Each time, I used standard contemporary college management textbooks as the source for these courses.

As I read these textbooks, it became clear to me that our managers have been taught very little except for the administration of racial and sexual quotas. Traditional management issues and techniques don't seem to figure much in modern management.

So, I think we have not yet seen the other shoe drop. We've educated several generations of managers in PC... and little else.

Truth said...

"The real estate bubble also affected nearly all white parts of the world such as the Spainish coast, Portland, Seattle, Dubai, the Czech Republic, Bulgaria, and most severely 99.9% white Iceland..."

You severely underestimate the power of the American black. Luckily you have found this blog!

Anonymous said...

HUD is the nation’s housing agency committed to increasing homeownership, particularly among... people living with AIDS.

WTF?

Anonymous said...

Wheee, there we go, lofting through the vapors of diversity!