Critical race theorists hold that the law and legal institutions in the United States are inherently racist insofar as they function to create and maintain social, economic, and political inequalities between whites and nonwhites, especially African Americans.
Here is a real life example.
Donald Trump initiated a number of tariffs in his trade war with China that resulted in retaliatory tariffs on American agricultural goods. Farmers’ overseas markets for agricultural products were decimated, with potentially long-term displacement from those overseas markets.
In order to keep farmers voting Republican, Donald Trump devised a “farm bailout,” i.e. subsidies (welfare) for their losses resulting from his trade war and tariffs. Trump Funnels Record Subsidies to Farmers Ahead of Election Day: “Federal payments to farmers are projected to hit a record $46 billion [in 2020] as the White House funnels money to Mr. Trump’s rural base in the South and Midwest ahead of Election Day.”
As you might imagine, Trump’s “farm bailout” was not equitably designed. It benefitted mostly large agribusiness over small family farmers, As small U.S. farms face crisis, Trump’s trade aid flowed to corporations: “The top half of recipients collected 95% of total payments in the $28 billion Market Facilitation Program, which came after retaliatory actions against the Trump administration led to steep drops in demand for U.S. agriculture. The average payment for the top tenth of recipients was $164,813, a stark contrast from the average payment of $2,469.49 for the bottom half of recipients.”
And Trump’s “farm bailout” benefitted mostly white farmers over minority farmers. White Farmers Got 97 Percent of Last Year’s Ag Bailout. Now Some Are Mad Black Farmers Are Getting Debt Relief.
Okay, now for a bit of context. For decades, the US Department of Agriculture systematically denied Black farmers access to the loans and other aid lavished on their white peers, contributing to foreclosures and millions of acres of lost land for tens of thousands of farm families. According to the Land Loss and Reparations Project—a team consisting of Texas A&M’s Thomas Mitchell; University of Massachusetts, Boston, economist Dania V. Francis; the New School’s Darrick Hamilton; Harvard’s Nathan Rosenberg; and journalist Bryce Stucki—the USDA’s historical injustice helped trigger a loss of Black wealth worth at least $300 billion, contributing to a massive and persistent racial wealth gap.
Latino, Asian American, and Native American farmers have faced similar hurdles—to speak nothing of the ongoing exploitation of migrant farmworkers from Mexico and Central America, or the fact that our entire nation is built on stolen land and labor.
[I]n 2020, while the presidential election heated up, the federal government basically parachuted cash into farm country. Agricultural subsidies reached an all-time annual recordof $46.2 billion that year, after hovering at around $11 billion during pre-Trump years. The extra payments originated mainly from two sources: a program ginned up by former President Donald Trump in 2018, without Congressional input, seeking to shield “our Great Patriot Farmers” from the fallout of his trade war; and from Congressionally mandated COVID-relief acts passed last year.
The two sources had one thing in common: Upwards of 97 percent of each went to white farmers. The great bulk of conventional farm subsidies also flow to that group.
While eye-popping at first glance, the white-dominated nature of of federal agriculture support is hardly a surprise. Farm-subsidy demographics largely track farm ownership demographics—and white people own nearly all of the country’s farmland. And they do so largely because of overt and covert racism within the USDA.
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The recently passed $1.9 trillion COVID-relief bill set aside $5 billion in aid, mainly debt relief, directed to farmers of color. That provision didn’t land well in some quarters.
“What happened to equal protection under the law?” U.S. Rep. Sam Graves (R-Mo.) fumed on Facebook. “This is wrong and un-American. I’m sure there are a lot of Americans out there that would love to have our tax dollars pay off all their debts. This is targeted to a very select few.”
“Just because you’re a certain color you don’t have to pay back money? I don’t care if you’re purple, black, yellow, white, gray, if you borrow money you have to pay it back,” Tennessee farmer Kelly Griggs told Fox News last week. She also lamented the hit to taxpayers such as herself: “I’m going to have to pay for that.”
Griggs later doubled down on her white grievances in an interview for Sean Hannity’s Fox News TV show along with her husband Matt, presenting herself as part of a group of “forgotten” farmers who won’t benefit from the bill’s provisions, which are directed at socially disadvantaged growers. Matt Griggs expressed concern that the bill might generate interracial tension: “I think this bill could not only divide—promote division in the farming community, [but also] just in people in general.”
White farmers who received 97% of the $46.2 billion (in 2020) “farm bailout,” i.e. subsidies (welfare) sued over the measly $5 billion set aside for minority farmers historically disadvantaged in the American Rescue Plan.
You guessed it. A white Republican judge, William C. Griesbach, a Senior United States District Judge for the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin, appointed to the federal court in 2002, by President George W. Bush, ruled in favor of the white farmers.
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports, Judge suspends debt relief program for farmers of color after conservative law firm, white farmers sue Biden:
A federal judge halted payments for a loan forgiveness program that provides relief to agricultural producers of color.
A temporary restraining order was handed down Thursday afternoon by Judge William Griesbach of Wisconsin’s Eastern District, in response to a lawsuit filed by the conservative Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty in April. (A misleading name if there ever was one.)
The group alleged that the Biden administration used an unconstitutional program in an effort to end systemic racism and should make the relief available to white farmers, too.
“The Court recognized that the federal government’s plan to condition and allocate benefits on the basis of race raises grave constitutional concerns and threatens our clients with irreparable harm, said Rick Esenberg, president and general counsel for WILL. “The Biden administration is radically undermining bedrock principles of equality under the law.”
I believe you meant to say “white privilege.”
The group is representing 12 farmers, two of whom live in Wisconsin. Calumet County dairy farmer Adam Faust, who farms with both legs amputated after being born with spina bifida, and Christopher Baird, who owns a dairy farm near Ferryville in Crawford County.
The group is also representing farmers from Minnesota, South Dakota, Missouri, Iowa, Arkansas, Oregon and Kentucky.
Faust said at the time the lawsuit was filed that the economic impact didn’t hurt any one race more than another in agriculture.
But Trump’s inequitable “farm bailout,” i.e. subsidies (welfare) DID, “big time,” as he would say.
“There should absolutely be no federal dollars going anywhere just based on race,” he said.
I could argue under equal protection principles that “there should absolutely be no federal dollars going to farmers as political bribery to keep them voting Republican.” It is American consumers who are paying Trump’s tariffs, not China. No one bailed out American consumers for the higher cost of purchasing goods. Farmers, in particular white corporate agribusiness farmers, were treated as a “special class” to receive this political bribery from the Trump administration.
The plaintiffs allege that because race discrimination is barred under the U.S. Constitution, the federal government “must prove that its discriminatory benefit is narrowly tailored and serves a compelling government interest.”
IT IS. Black farmers never got that “40 acres and a mule” they were promised in Reconstruction, and what farms they did manage to scrape together from their own hard work, millions of acres of Black-owned farmland has reverted to large corporate agribusinesses with white owners because of USDA policies. $5 billion in COVID relief is just a drop in the bucket for the estimated loss of Black wealth worth at least $300 billion. Let’s talk reparations.
In the suit, WILL asked that Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and Zach Ducheneaux, administrator of the Farm Service Agency, not consider race when determining recipients of the relief funds.
Since the filing of the lawsuit, the U.S. Department of Agriculture officials have continued to implement the program and is currently reviewing what the restraining order means for the program.
“We respectfully disagree with this temporary order and USDA will continue to forcefully defend our ability to carry out this act of Congress and deliver debt relief to socially disadvantaged borrowers,” said a USDA spokesperson. “When the temporary order is lifted, USDA will be prepared to provide the debt relief authorized by Congress.”
The Biden administration created the loan forgiveness program for socially disadvantaged farmers and ranchers earlier this year under the American Rescue Plan Act. The program paid up to 120% of direct or guaranteed farm loan balances for producers who are Black, American Indian or Alaskan native, Hispanic or Latino, and Asian American or Pacific Islander.
Officials said that they recognized those groups of farmers and ranchers faced systemic discrimination, resulting in cumulative effects that have led to a substantial loss in the number of socially disadvantaged producers, reduced the amount of farmland they control and contributed to a cycle of debt, exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, among other consequences.
Since the outbreak of COVID-19, socially disadvantaged communities also saw higher rates of infections, hospitalizations, death, loss of property and economic hurt, officials said.
Currently, 17,000 farmers and ranchers qualify for the assistance, from all 50 states.
FYI, the Trump “farm bailout,” i.e. subsidies (welfare) is still going to corporate agribusiness, and mostly white farmers. This year’s farm bill is still being drafted.
Another George W. Bush appointed Republican judge has ruled in favor of the white farmers. “Judge Blocks $4 Billion U.S. Debt Relief Program for Minority Farmers”, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/23/us/politics/biden-debt-relief-black-farmers.html
A federal judge on Wednesday temporarily blocked the Biden administration from making loan forgiveness payments to minority farmers as part of a $4 billion program intended to address a long history of racial injustice in American farming.
The judge, Marcia Morales Howard of U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida, in Jacksonville, found that Scott Wynn, a white farmer in Jennings, Fla., who had challenged the program in a lawsuit in May, was likely to succeed on his claim that the program violates his right to equal protection under the law.
Known as Section 1005, the program was created as part of the $1.9 trillion stimulus package that Congress passed in March. It was intended to provide debt relief to “socially disadvantaged farmers” — defined by the government as those who are Black, American Indian/Alaskan Native, Hispanic, Asian and Pacific Islander.
“Section 1005’s rigid, categorical, race-based qualification for relief is the antithesis of flexibility,” Judge Howard wrote. “The debt relief provision applies strictly on racial grounds irrespective of any other factor. Every person who identifies him or herself as falling within a socially disadvantaged group who has a qualifying farm loan with an outstanding balance as of January 1, 2021, receives up to 120 percent debt relief — and no one else receives any debt relief.”
In defending the program, the Biden administration had said that the government had a compelling interest in remedying a well-documented history of discrimination against minority farmers in Department of Agriculture loan and other programs and in preventing public funds from being allocated in a way that perpetuates the effects of discrimination.
(See post above)