Dear Senator Vance: You Got This One Very, Very Wrong

August 21, 2024

Senator J. D. Vance
288 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
 
Dear Senator Vance:
 
Words matter. Perspectives matter. Policies matter. I am confident that you know about the importance of these things. That leaves many of us in the Black Farmer Movement decidedly dismayed and even angry at your uninformed comments in the interview on Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan.
 
Your comments seem to come out of left field, were terrifically misguided, and are not grounded in reality. Here is your comment:
 
“The Harris Administration, for example, handed out farm benefits to people
based on skin color. I think that's disgraceful. I don't- I don't think we should say,
you get farm benefits if you're a Black farmer, you don't get farm benefits if
you're a white farmer. All farmers, we want to thrive, and that's certainly the
President Trump and JD Vance view of the situation. But I do think unfortunately,
when our leaders divide us by race, you're going to have hate on the left side
of the political spectrum. You're going to have hate on the right side of the political spectrum. We should just judge people based on individual characteristics and
based on merit, and that's certainly what President Trump and I want to do.”
 
Whether your misstep was intentional or not, it insulted a large group of African American farmers and their families. These families have fought to save their farms and to maintain their chosen way of life since the earliest days of Freedom, and for you as a leader in the Senate and now a candidate for Vice President adds insult to injury. If anyone should know about the pain and suffering it should be you as you represent a constituency that numbers 344 Black farmers according to the Nature Conservancy. This represents a drop from 2,000 in 1900. You, then, Senator Vance, have a vibrant and relatively large number of Black farmers whom you represent.
 
The ease with which you so smoothly spoke of these complicated matters leaves us furious and your devotees and listeners ill-informed. Your assertion that Black farmers got these dollars is partially right and partially inaccurate. Your assertion that farm benefits were “handed out to people based on skin color” is completely wrong. Either way, you managed to insult Black farmers and their families and friends.
 
As a professional who has been involved with Black farmers since 1994, and as a professional whose life has been lived in the academy, I am left with questions as to why you said what you said. I can think of four, and perhaps there are more.
 
One, are you simply uninformed? Two, are you opposed to leveling the playing field when discrimination is clearly evident, or do you believe in drawing distinctions based on skin color? Three, do you harbor ill will toward people of color, Black farmers in particular? Or, four, was it a convenient piece of data useable to take a jab at your opponents in the election, Kamala Harris and Tim Walz?
 
My first foray into the world of Black farmers came in the late ‘90s when I served as expert witness to four of the first fifteen Black farmers who prevailed against the DOJ and USDA. I got my first glimpse of the challenges of working with USDA and the county committee by listening to their stories of pain and suffering. As I continued in this arena, I published two peer-reviewed articles that were informative to me, and perhaps they can be to you and your staff. This article is co-authored in 2008 and this one that was published in 2018.
 
I would recommend that you do some further study into the history of Black farmers in particular and their challenges of dealing with the USDA and its racist orientation. Even if the Biden Administration was offering financial compensation for their years or even decades of discrimination, it would be totally appropriate. The shadows of discrimination and racism reach back into the past, and even USDA admits to it. Many authors chronicle the history of farming while Black in our country all the way back to the brutalities of the Middle Passage and into days of enslavement.
 
Another line of research is that of detailing the history of Black farmers in America versus white farmers. Against all odds, Black farmers became prolific land owners in the early decades of the 20^th century, and then in the third decade Black farmers began to lose their land. It is curious to me that two things overlap: the demise of Black farmers and the rise of government subsidies in the 1930s.
 
The data and historical narratives validate the fact that white farmers have always had the upper hand in programs and services when dealing with the USDA. Black farmers know that they’ll bring up the rear and have learned the hard way to distrust USDA and its employees, especially at the county committee level.
 
Pigford I and Pigford II did not level the playing field. Instead, those class action suits left farmers in far worse shape that before. Government reports indicate that only 371 of the thousands who prevailed under Pigford I actually received debt relief.
 
When the Justice for Black Farmers Act had been introduced in Congress in 2020, authors of the bill knew that it had no chance of passing. Then, the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 offered some degree of hope for Socially Disadvantaged Farmers and Ranchers (the 2501 designation) until white farmers driven by the absurd belief that they were victims of reverse discrimination filed 12 frivolous and racist law suits, the banking industry complained, Secretary Tom Vilsack slow walked the process, and that bill had an untimely death. Had it been passed, it would have offered 120% for eligible SDFR producers, 100% for their loans and 20% for taxes.
 
Congress then realized that nothing was going to pass unless it was “race neutral,” and so the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 was passed, and within it were sections dealing with “distressed borrowers” and those who had been victims of discrimination. The pool of potential candidates for these funds was opened widely such that any victim of discrimination regardless of race, color, creed, sexual orientation, etc., etc.
 
Back to your failure to adequately communicate meaningful numbers and perspectives, it is
true that 58,000 farmers applied, 43,000 prevailed, and according to an upper-level official at USDA, 80% of those prevailing were Black farmers, and they prevailed to the tune of $1.76B of the $2.2B. Without have precise calculations for farmers by group, as Secretary Vilsack refuses to release them, we are left to estimate the characteristics and numbers of those who prevailed. Either way this was sliced, white farmers were a part of the equation, so you cannot truthfully assert that these funds were only for Black farmers. The same goes for the $3.1B allocated by Congress in the IRA for “distressed borrowers,” and as most of those funds have been allocated, we do not know the distribution by race due to Secretary Vilsack’s lack of transparency in providing those numbers.
 
Given these footprints through the sands of time, Senator Vance, you are terribly wrong and
ill-informed about the role of Black farmers. Black farmers have indeed faced brutal discrimination and efforts to make amends for this are justified. However, you are also misguided in failing to assert that other groups were recipients of the DFAP funds under the IRA section 22007 who experienced discrimination and 22006, those farmers who were categorized as “distressed borrowers.”
 
A compelling piece of data is that between 1920 and 1997, Black farmers lost $326B in land. If we add to that figure production from the land, that total number of dollars in losses goes up exponentially. Most of this loss can be attributed to malfeasance within the USDA and the county committee. That is the game. Figure out how to get the land back and into white hands. As the USDA has been largely responsible for these losses, by implication, it is the USDA and the federal government who owe Black farmers the opportunity to start again.
 
It is also the case that Black farmers have faced the most violent of acts of discrimination since the days of enslavement, Freedom, Jim Crow, and to this very day. USDA has had a notoriously wicked reputation for ensuring that white farmers were given the majority of benefits and programs and that Black farmers were kicked to the curb. And that Black farmers faced a higher percentage of foreclosures than white farmers. Previously referenced reports verify these facts.
 
If indeed you would like to know how the USDA treats Black farmers, the film, “I’m Just a Layman in Pursuit of Justice: Black Farmers Fight the USDA,” produced by Shoun Hill and Waymon Hinson will reveal the brutal realities of their efforts to hold on to their land. These nine farmers in this film were nine of the fifteen Black farmers who filed suit against the USDA between 1997 and 1999, just before the certification of Pigford I v. Glickman.
 
So, Senator Vance, when you say it is a “disgrace” that the Harris administration handed out benefits to Black farmers, you are wrong and you are spitting in the faces of Black farmers who legitimately deserved recompense for the malfeasance perpetrated upon them by employees of USDA. You, sir, are also spitting on the graves of those who died in the battle for justice for people who looked like them. I could list them by name, some I only heard about and some I met during my time of working in this area.
 
You are saying things in a public forum that insult the lives and livelihoods of Black farmers and families who have tilled the soil and in doing so, helped to make this country the great country that it is.
 
I ask you, therefore, to study up on these issues, their history, and the legitimacy of these complaints, and that you make a public apology and speak more accurately as to what it means to farm while Black in America. It may be too late to make amends to our people in terms of votes being cast, but it could potentially go a long way toward redeeming you and your message regardless of what happens in November.
 
If a conversation with me would prove helpful, please feel free to contact me.
 
Respectfully,
 
 
Waymon R. Hinson, Ph.D.
Representative
USDA Coalition of Minority Employees
Justice for Black Farmers Group
www.letjusicering.blogspot.com
https://blackfarmersinsearchofjusticefilm.com/
Waymon.hinson@gmail.com
903-271-4654