Thomas Vilsack, former Ag Secretary under President Obama, and now President-Elect Joe Biden's nominee for what appears to be a third term in office, a rather rare thing.
His supporters are
lining up left and right, and there should be no surprises here. No, not any
surprises, unless, of course, we have been hiding under rocks the last few
weeks and months, and maybe even years. You’ll notice from the list that it is
the big whoevers who are most likely to endorse him. These are the groups who
represent folks who are most likely to gain from his ascending to the chair
inside USDA.
Here is the
lengthy list: United Food and Commercial Workers, Iowa farmers and ranchers,
American Farm Bureau Foundation, Wisconsin Farm Groups, American Seed Trade
Association, Major farm and nutrition groups, National Milk Producers, American
Ethanol, National Grange, Hemp Advocates, Farm Credit Corporation, United Fresh
Produce, National Potato Council, National Farmers Union, National Pork
Producers, National Association of Manufacturers, Native American Agriculture
Fund, North American Meat Association, Feeding America, Food Research Action
Center, North Dakota Farmers Union, US Dairy Export Council, and more. There will
be more.
In short, “Big Ag”
supports Vilsack. Industrial agriculture supports Vilsack.
Who, on the other
hand, does not support Vilsack? First of all, there are numerous Black farmers
who know the way this man led USDA and marginalized them. These farmers are
found individually and in groups of farmers. They are nested in civil rights
groups, animal advocates, farm workers, and anti-monopoly groups. Women who
were woefully mistreated and kicked to the curb during his two terms in office
are speaking out now, and they have been. They are women who filed class action
suits against USDA for violence, sexual assaults, and rapes that he left
unaddressed.
Here is a brief listing
of groups opposed to Vilsack: Environmental Working Group, NAACP, small farmers,
food safety and labor groups, Food and Water Watch, Independent Black Farmers,
Black Farmers and Agriculturalists Association, Family Farm Action Alliance,
Mercy for Animals, Center for Food Safety, Real Organic, USDA Coalition of
Minority Employees, Justice for Black Farmer Group, Acres of Ancestry, and over
100 individual and farmer groups supporting the USDA Coalition of Minority
Employees and Lloyd Wright and his efforts. There are more. There are many
more.
In short,
justice-oriented people do not support Vilsack.
We are those who
speak of environmental justice. We speak of safety for employees in the meat
and poultry plants. We speak of justice and equity for loans and services at
USDA on behalf of Black farmers and other minority farmers.
Thomas Vilsack,
former governor of Iowa, left his state with a class action suit of 6,000 employees
hanging over his head. It still remains unsettled. He had his opportunities to
advance civil rights issues within USDA for eight years. While his
communications team apparently did a slick job of making him look good, a key
investigative report plus the perspectives of an insider turned outsider, Lloyd
Wright, former director of Civil Rights, at USDA, say otherwise.
Wright, Rosenberg,
and Stucki expose the five myths of USDA under Thomas Vilsack. Those myths are
as follows: first, that USDA resolved a backlog of civil rights complaints from
the Bush years; second, new civil rights complaints fell to record lows; third,
USDA reduced funding disparities between Black and White farmers; fourth, the
number of Black farmers increased; and fifth, the Pigford settlement closed a
painful chapter in our collective history. Those myths are compelling and are
thoroughly explored in Rosenberg and Stucki’s 2019 publication. I’d encourage
you to read it.
In early December,
2020, Lloyd Wright published a blistering three-page report on Vilsack’s terms
in office and his own assessment of those myths. Less than a week later, a
letter pushing back on Wright’s letter was published under Joe Leonard’s
signature. It is our considered opinion that Vilsack’s team developed the
document and that endorsements are currently being secured for it. Wright’s
letter has numerous individual and group endorsers. We have no idea who is
endorsing Leonard’s letter.
In addition to
these accusations, Vilsack also failed women employees of USDA. Women in the
forestry service were sexually traumatized, raped, and assaulted according to
several who have spoken on the record in recent radio interviews. One woman
recently told of her rape and her being ignored and shuffled off by Vilsack to
someone who never did anything. These and other egregious behaviors were
addressed during a December 1, 2016 hearing before the Committee on Oversight
and Government Reform, House of Representatives. The culture of violence
continues unabated.
Vilsack is making
the rounds these days, speaking before various Zoom panels and groups of a
number of people, including those involving many of us who are in the civil
rights advocacy business on behalf of Black farmers. Many of us, however, have
not been invited to those tables for discussion. And I often wonder why, but I
think I know the answer.
Back during the
summer, 2020, a group of us had engaged the Biden Policy Team. We thought we
were making significant progress. Then, in late July we were given a page and a
half policy statement by the team. We assumed that this was a work in progress,
so we pushed back on a couple of paragraphs that specifically spoke to
improvements under Vilsack. We could not in good conscience affirm those
paragraphs. In that same conversation, one of Biden’s lead policy experts
asserted that what we were asking for was unconstitutional. We were astonished
by such an egregious and fallacious assertion. Then, the meetings abruptly
ended. Within the week, the policy that we thought was a work in progress was
published on the Joe Biden for President web page, though hidden deeply within
it, and not terribly well paginated. Simultaneously, two other articles were
published, one by Glickman and Vilsack, and another by four representatives
from the South.
We have ample reasons to oppose Vilsack’s nomination. We know who he is. He had eight years
to prove to us otherwise. When someone tells you who they are the first time,
believe them, said Maya Angelou. Now, Vilsack is pleading for understanding,
that he grasps more fully the issues, and that he will take care of them.
We know who
Vilsack will take care of, and it is not Black or other minority farmers, and
it is not women employees of USDA.
#JUSTSAYNOTTOTHOMASVILSACK
