#JUSTSAYNOTOTHOMASVILSACK

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