Far too few Americans, especially Black ones, are aware of the almost 30-year legal battle Black farmers launched in 1983 against the U.S. government. They claimed that, for decades, the Department of Agriculture (USDA) denied them loans and technical assistance, which it routinely offered to White farmers.
Well, here is how President Obama hailed the settlement of their claims in an all too modest statement last Friday:
This agreement will provide overdue relief and justice to African American farmers, and bring us closer to the ideals of freedom and equality that this country was founded on.
(Whitehouse.gov, October 28, 2011)
His statement is modest because, but for Obama’s decision to order the USDA and the Department of Justice to assess the merits of their claims, the federal government would never have settled.
Not to mention that, if these farmers did not hold out hope that this day would come (i.e., despite being ignored by presidents Reagan, Bush, Clinton and Bush), the USDA would have succeeded in ethnically cleansing them from the ranks of the nation’s farmers. After all, according to the 1997 Census of Agriculture, in 1920 black farmers owned 14 percent of the private farms in America; today they own less than 1 percent.
I won’t bother ascribing motives to Reagan and the Bushes for doing nothing to redress this egregious civil rights injustice during their respective presidencies.
But given the way so many Democrats (and even some Republicans) are waxing nostalgic over Bill Clinton these days, I think it’s important to at least question why even he ignored the desperate pleas of these Black farmers.
In this respect it might be helpful to remember that, among many other dubious achievements:
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It was Clinton who transferred billions in welfare payments from the poor (including single mothers) to big corporations under the guise of welfare reform;
- It was Clinton who – in a cowardly attempt to appease his bigoted military brass – implemented the homophobic “Don’t Ask, Don’ Tell” policy, which treated gays in the military like second-class citizens;
- It was Clinton who – in a shameless attempt to pander to Hispanic voters – implemented the racist “Wet Foot, Dry Foot” policy, which granted sanctuary to Cuban refugees who made it to U.S. shores, but denied it to Haitian refugees who did;
- It was Clinton who gave up on healthcare reform as soon as big pharmaceutical companies began threatening funding for his reelection campaign; and
- It was Clinton who bombed an aspirin factory in Khartoum in what even his supporters in the mainstream media described as a wag-the-dog scenario to detract attention from his Monica Lewinsky affair.
By contrast:
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It is Obama who is demanding that rich individuals and big corporations pay more (i.e., their fair share) in taxes;
- It was Obama who “used up his political capital” to provide access to affordable healthcare for over 40 million poor Americans;
- It was Obama who repealed Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, bringing America one giant step closer to honoring its founding belief that all men and women are created equal;
- It was Obama who implemented the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which made it easier for women to sue for equal pay; and
- It was Obama who got bin Laden … and Gaddafi … with no hint of wagging the dog.
I could contrast these two in this fashion all day long, but I just wanted to illustrate why it comes as no surprise to me that it was Obama, not Clinton, who forged this historic settlement on behalf of Black farmers.