OPEN LETTER TO VICE PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN

OPEN LETTER TO VICE PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN 

September 6, 2020

Subject: Civil Rights, Programs, and Employment at the Department of Agriculture (USDA)

It has become very apparent that the working relationship between the Biden Policy Team and USDA Coalition of Minority Employees, Justice for Black Farmers, and Advocacy Groups (rural and urban) has been terminated. However, we had worked vigorously and hoped for a better outcome.

We have found very discouraging the absence of a solution driven civil rights policy similar to that of the Elizabeth Warren plan, Addressing Discrimination and Ensuring Equity for Farmers of Color, August, 2019, located here: https://elizabethwarren.com/plans/equity-farmers-of-color. We have requested on many occasions that you adopt this policy. Our anticipation was to develop a policy that would serve the good of Black farmers, minority farmers, and USDA employees.

Senator Sanders’ commitment to Black farmers and civil rights is similar to Senator Warren’s plan. His plan is found here: https://berniesanders.com/issues/revitalizing-rural-america. Some of these factors are included in his comprehensive plan for Black farmers. His entire plan is found as an attachment below. He was fully committed to systemic change within the USDA. The Biden campaign does not include these issues.

We mistakenly thought that the Biden Policy Team was searching for real solutions. When you presented us with the Biden Team policy on July 28, we expected further discussion. However, we were met with defensive posturing and then silence. Shortly after the Democratic National Convention we discovered published articles that partially contained a false narrative. Here is the policy that you proposed to the Nation: https://joebiden.com/racial-economic-equity.

Additionally, we were insulted by the policy team’s position that our request to address Black farmers issues was unconstitutional. This is a marathon from the truth. Politics, politicians, and others have operated in an “American systems built on the notion that Black lives don’t matter as much as others.” That is what your response is saying to us. To invoke the constitution to deny us opportunity provided to others goes totally against our sense of justice. That is the same constitution that did not include us from it's very beginning.

We actually had surmised that Tom Vilsack’s team was shaping your rural agriculture policy. Since the Clinton administration civil rights at the USDA has continued to deteriorate. Our position is influenced by the following and more. Jillian Hishaw’s book, “The Impact of U.S. Land Theft,” will address Black land loss at the hands of egregious practices within the USDA. The documentary, “I’m Just a Layman in Pursuit of Justice: Black Farmers Fight Against the USDA,” produced by Shoun Hill and Waymon Hinson, chronicles stories of Black farmers who prevailed against the USDA and DOJ between 1997 and 1999.

The investigative reporting of Stucki and Rosenberg’s article, “How the USDA Distorted Data to Conceal Decades of Discrimination Against Black Farmers,” in The Counter which critiques the Vilsack administration is found at: https://thecounter.org/usda-black-farmers-discrimination-tomvilsack-reparations-civil-rights.

Further, this Op-Ed piece from the Kansas City Star addresses the inadequacies of the Vilsack administration: https://www.kansascity.com/opinion/readersopinion/guest-commentary/article240721906.html

Rural America is intricately connected to urban America. Many in rural America have a difficult time believing that the Biden campaign cares about them. Your campaign has a battle in overcoming this real and perceived attitude that you are taking US for granted. Such an obvious rejection of the issues we shared with you and that you ignored…. continues to perpetuate a legacy of discrimination that has long been known by many, both inside and outside USDA. Black farmers and employees deserve justice that is long overdue.

We will continue to demand justice for Black farmers and employees.

Black Lives Matter,

Lawrence Lucas, President Emeritus
USDA Coalition of Minority Employees
Justice for Black Farmers
www.agcoalition.org
Justice for Black Farmers
justice4Bf@gmail.com
856-910-2399

In the end, we will not remember the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends. Martin Luther King, Jr. 

Holy Disruption and Easter

What shall we do with ourselves? Back in the ‘60s, most of us white folks did not have a high regard for Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. We especially did not like him when he troubled us around Civil Rights, plus the poor, and then the Viet Nam war.  Today, we have a national holiday named after him, though most folks I know simply take it as a day off and not a day of service or a day to march or protest or whatever.

He was a “holy disrupter” whether at the National March on Washington in 1963 or in his “Letter From a Birmingham Jail,” or in Memphis. His church, the National Baptist Convention, has pushed him out.  White folk and black folk bought into the move slowly mentality.

Change is painful. Black folk I know want it now. White folk I’ve known for years say that it just takes time. Don’t ruffle our feathers. Bull Conner attacked our sensibilities during that time in Birmingham with those dogs and water hoses.

Black folk are supposed to stay in their places. It’s always been that way since slave days.  It was that way during Reconstruction. That way during Jim Crow south and north. Sadly, in many places that way now.

Jesus was that way.  He upset the political powers of the day. We watched “The Passion of Christ” last night. It lined it out pretty well in all of its political maneuverings and back channel operations and even in the broad daylight.

Pontius Pilate understood what was up.  Our Supreme Court has known what’s up.  The leaders of that day demanded crucifixion. While the SCOTUS in the ‘60s got it right, but it may be unraveling before us. Redlining must stop.  The birth to prison pipeline must stop. Prison sentences for people of color that are far greater than for white people committing the same crimes must stop. The inequalities of wages must be addressed.

The woman who hosted Jesus in Luke 7:39, who insisted upon anointing His feet with oil was transgressing the norms of the day. This woman and other women, and men, crossed political lines in joining the cause of Christ. In that day Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey.  In our day and age, we have elected an immoral man who runs the office of the presidency in a way that gives him and his family economic preference while farmers and others are paying the price for his ill-advised policies.

In the gospel, we read again and again of stories of people who were difference makers alongside Jesus in His ministry.

In our own lives, we have difference makers.  For Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove, and perhaps now for us as we’ve seen the movie, “The Best of Enemies,” Ann Atwater can be a difference maker. For me, Mr. Washington was a difference maker.  In my city today, Rayce Guess is a difference maker.

Perhaps I am way out of the loop, but I wonder if the clergy in my city are behaving like the clergy in Birmingham during MLK’s time? Or, perhaps they are making differences more than I realize.  I know that by and large, ministers in my denomination are more interested in Jesus from the pulpit than Jesus in the political sphere.

Jesus was motivated to challenge the status quo, not for the sake of upsetting the status quo, but for the sake of the Kingdom.  Apparently, so was Ann Atwater, and so are the folks with the Poor People’s Campaign. Jesus rattled the cages of those who marginalized people and privileged the wealthy against the poor.  The prophets did the same.  Check out what those guys said.  Their words were inflammatory.

Personally, I cannot buy in to the story of Jesus of Nazareth without buying in to the stories of His followers. Mary of Bethany was a holy disrupter as was her Lord.

I’d like to meet a current day “Mary of Bethany” of Luke 7. Who is she in Denison, Texas? Who is she in your community?  I know some of them. They are contributing as we speak to the Black farmer documentary and are encouraging their friends to contribute. The contribute time and money to that cause and to other causes as I follow them on Facebook.

I want to be a “Holy Disrupter,” and I’d like for you to join me in that effort, not for the sake of disrupting without a cause, but for the sake of disrupting for important causes.

Evil Exists Across Our Land

In the early morning hours I spent some time in Stride Toward Freedom, Martin Luther King Jr.'s story of the Montgomery bus boycott. I was moved by one of his sentences:  "He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it. He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it."  These words prompted the following words.

In the early morning hours

Not long till the break of day
There are those who are working
Just to torment and have their way.

Politics of the powerful

It sure looks like that to me
I hope I am wrong
It is before us now we see.

In the early morning hours

While people’s hearts are at rest
Some are already plotting harm
Wounding the souls of the best.

Yes, evil exists across our land

It hides in every shadow
It looks and lurches at any moment
Until it finds its prey, no matter.

Destruction is on their lips

Chaos is in their renown
The intent is very clear
To turn things upside down.

In the hearts and in the decisions

Of the one and the many
Spirits of people are at risk
Of malevolence there is plenty.

Our institutions have deserted us

Toward whiteness and maleness
They cast aside all others
Lord, bring back your holiness.

The people in power are jealous

For their positions and fame
While the poor and the homeless
Live with emotional pain.

Racial epithets are hurled through the crowd

The words pierce the soul
Of those who are young
And those who are old.

Racism sexism classism

Just a few
Bigotry and xenophobia
Around things people spew.
 
Policies are made by the powerful
Behind doors that are closed
Things get re-arranged
But evil gets exposed.

We gather up people and send them away

Young and old, bad and the good
Just because their names
Are not understood.

That black woman is in harm’s way

That Muslim teen is at risk
She who is transgendered
They all are summarily dismissed.
 
Acceptance of evil when we see it
Makes out of all of us
Perpetrators and cooperators
Until our bodies are dust.

Causes are righteous

They bring out our best
We will not live at peace
Until the people sleep and rest.