Thursday, May 27, 2021

Black Farmers have suffered long enough from the decimation of rural America and decades of systemic racism. Help from the USDA finally is long overdue.


You’ve probably heard that $5 billon dollars from President Biden’s $1.9 trillion American Rescue stimulus plan has been dedicated to farmers of color. 

Specifically, that designation is for “socially disadvantaged farmers,” which, according to the (USDA), is anyone who has been subjected to racial or ethnic prejudice because of their identity as members of a group. 

You should also be aware that the Biden administration is being sued by several white farmers for racial discrimination, not for the government’s past actions against people of color, but because the current administration is making an effort to address racism and the historic inequalities inflicted on people of color by the USDA.

Let’s be honest for a minute, if those on the right really cared about agriculture and rural communities, rather than targeting cash payments to large-scale farmers and agribusiness firms as they chose to do these past few years, policy makers would have dedicated adequate resources to those truly in need and made a real attempt to reform the inflexible and wasteful system that currently feeds us.

Senator Warnock in Byromville Georgia with group of black farmers

The lawsuit on behalf of a group of white farmers in Wisconsin, launched by the right-wing Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty, claims that dedicating resources to specific groups to which white farmers may not belong, is racist. 

What such lawsuits really show is not a concern with agriculture, but instead a shallow form of identity politics that is meant to rally poor, rural white people to the political right.

Farmers of color, especially black producers have suffered from both the decimation of rural America as well as decades of systemic racism. 

The USDA and federal government can begin to reverse the racism against Black farmers not only through debt relief, but also the $1 billion in outreach and training from the Biden stimulus bill which is necessary to ensure that current and beginning farmers of color acquire the necessary tools to produce food for themselves and their communities. 

Most importantly, to address racism it must be confronted directly. Lacking that specific intent, history has shown us that Black people are always left behind. 

There is no anti-white racism involved here, only further attempts to perpetuate decades of institutional racism against Black farmers.

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