Black American Farmers' Class Action Shrugged Off by Biden Admin

• Author: Willis Goldner
• Posted: 2024-04-17

You wouldn't know this if you watched America's mainstream media or read its mainstream publications, but black farmers in America hold more disdain for President Joe Biden than any other group. Out of around 3.5 million farmers, only around 45,000 are black, so it's not as if they're a large group. The federal government has been working against the small percentage of black farmers in America since Biden took office, and they got fed up to the point that they filed a class action lawsuit against his administration. Of course, the Biden admin doesn't even mention this at all on its own, as it would be a negative. And when someone from the press asks about what's happening with the lawsuit, the admin just ignores the question, offers a platitude, and goes back to talking about how awful Russia is or how it's the oil companies' fault that gas prices are so high.

What are black farmers suing the Biden administration over? The federal government, back when Trump was president, promised some form of restitution to black farmers, who claim to have been historically discriminated against by the Department of Agriculture going back decades. They were also promised COVID protections. Civil rights attorney Ben Crump is leading the charge here; and while Crump's name is somewhat of a joke in the world of politics, since he's so incredibly partisan, it's important to keep in mind here that Crump is a partisan Democrat who has always carried water for that one particular political party. So the fact that Crump's heading up this class action suit against a Democratic administration definitely adds some validity to the farmers' claims that the Department of Agriculture is still discriminating against them, even after all this time.

Because black farmers were deemed socially disadvantaged years ago, compared to white farmers, the government signed a new contract with black farmers to basically put them at the forefront until equity could be achieved in farming. Whatever you may think about a move like this by the government, the fact is that the government willingly got into this contract and agreed with black farmers to put them first, above white farmers. As claimed by the members of the class action, however, not only did the government fail to live up to its end, but absolutely nothing was done at all to assist black farmers in America. Biden and the federal government have been busy with infrastructure spending and a revamped version of the Green New Deal they called the "Inflation Reduction Act," and nothing has been done for any farmers, much less black farmers.

 

Farming is Corporate in America Now

All small, independent farmers are struggling, and America lost thousands of them, along with their farms, due to the COVID pandemic. Thousands of acres of farmland had to be sold off, and huge corporations bought them up for housing and strip malls and banks. The only farms that achieve success are government-backed corporate farms, and so farmers went to the federal government under Trump, demanding help through the pandemic. White farmers were ignored and received no relief here, but the government promised that it would provide relief specifically for black farmers, due to the fact that they were historically treated unfairly. Lo and behold, the government seemed to forget entirely about the black farmers, and on the very same day hundreds of farmers joined in a class action lawsuit against the Biden administration, the White House released an official statement that said it was doing great with black farmers.

This lawsuit comes only shortly after white farmers filed a class action lawsuit against the government, claiming that putting black farmers above them in COVID relief was actually a breach of the civil rights act and thus discrimination against white farmers. Due to winning this lawsuit against the government, the $5 billion that was set aside to help black farmers has been frozen, or at least that's the official stance of the government. This sort of thing doesn't seem to exist anywhere else in the government. For instance, aid to Ukraine isn't a zero sum game. If there's $40 billion needed for infrastructure, and $40 billion needed for Ukraine, the government just spends $80 billion. But not with farmers.

Everyone will have to wait and see what happens with this lawsuit, but black farmers have a very strong case and a high likelihood that they will win a large settlement.