The Daily Zeitgeist - USDA Prime Racism: How America Screws Black Farmers 10.31.23

Episode Date: October 31, 2023

In episode 1573, Jack and Miles are joined by senior reporter covering racial equity at The Center for Public Integrity and host of The Heist, April Simpson, to discuss… The USDA's History of Discrimination Against Black Farmers and more! LISTEN: Andromeda by EthelSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Listen to Rebel Spirit on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. In California during the summer of 1975, within the span of 17 days and less than 90 miles, two women did something no other woman had done before. Tried to assassinate the President of the United States. One was the protege of Charles Manson. 26-year-old Lynette Fromm, nickname Squeaky. The story of one strange and violent summer, this season on the new podcast, Rip Current. Hear episodes of Rip Current early and completely ad-free and receive exclusive bonus content by subscribing to iHeartTrue Crime Plus only on Apple Podcasts. Hi, I am Lacey Lamar. And I'm also Lacey Lamar.

Just kidding. I'm Amber Revin. Okay, everybody, we have exciting news to share. We're back with Season 2 of the Amber and Lacey, Lacey and Amber Show on Will Ferrell's Big Money Players Network. This season, we make new friends, deep dive into my steamy DMs, answer your listener questions, and more. The more is punch each other. Listen to the Amber and Lacey Lacey and Amber Show on Will Ferrell's Big Money Players Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Just listen, okay? Or Lacey gets it. Do it. Hello, the internet, and welcome to Season 311, Episode 2 of

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a podcast where we take a deep dive into america's shared consciousness and of course america's shared consciousness is shot through with 311 references absolutely it's tuesday october 31st 2023 what's that i can't think of something is there what is it like national corn dog day or some shit national girl scout founders day the audacity national door

national doorbell day also I mean that makes sense national knock knock joke day national magic day and caramel caramel apple, however you choose to. No thank you, National Caramel Apple Day. We do not. It's just, it doesn't work for trick-or-treating.

It's a great treat that should not be, should not have its national day on october 31st and in fact i i think part of its problem is that it keeps trying to be a halloween trick-or-treating treat when those days have passed and you can't you can't lug that thing around without just you know getting dry leaves stuck to it you know it's a mess oh you mean like it's not even a in a in like in case you're just yeah just a loose sticky out like orb on a stick yeah yeah you don't want that the audacity of the founders of the girl scouts to be like we got that and when people think october 31st they will think of us the founders of the girl scouts but anyways happy halloween yeah oh it's it's you know why jack it's the birthday of the founder it's like they picked okay pick a different universe picked it yeah pick a different birthday

find a new angle it's halloween it's halloween baby very very excited we'll talk more about it on trends a little later but excited excited to be here yeah my name is Jack O'Brien, aka, seems like I should have like a Monster Mash themed aka, but cannot get up off of the Pee In My Pants roller coaster themed aka. So here we go. And I

don't want my wife to see me, cause I don't think that she'd understand. Sometimes when i ride on a coaster i get off and there's pee in my pants that is courtesy of the brew thank you the brew it's like gang keep them coming yeah and i'm thrilled to be joined as always by my co-host Mr. Miles Gray Miles Gray aka Bones and all scales me Bones and all help me

Bones and all Might be I fear this is the end Shout out to I Alone by Live I remember I alone Was a huge fan of that song Shout out to First Blood 522 On the discord I alone was a huge fan of that song. Shout out to First Blood 522 on the Discord for that. And I alone can fix it.

Yeah. And yeah, again, Bones and Doll, because I didn't know the movie Bones and Doll. Again, you already heard. I thought it was a movie called Bones and Doll. Bones and Doll. And I thought that was much scarier. It was the Chucky movie. If Chucky had bones in him, it would have been a lot scarier, harder to wrestle with.

That was always my question. If this man is two pounds and full of stuffing, how come they can't just boot him clear across the city? Right, right, right, right. Maybe he's as dense as, you know, like one ton of carbon or something. Maybe there is bones in that doll. I actually don't know.

Yeah, I'm sure we find that out. Anyways, Miles, we are thrilled to be joined in our third seat by a senior reporter covering racial equity at the Center for Public Integrity. She's been a Fulbright Fellow, a Fellow with the International Women's Media Foundation, an Innovations in Food and Agriculture Fellow with the National Press Foundation, and she's the host of the third season of The Heist, which is incredible. It focuses on the long documented history of government discrimination against Black farmers. Please welcome to the show, April Simpson! April!

Welcome, April. Welcome. Thanks. I'm really glad to be here. Happy Halloween. Happy Halloween. Do you celebrate? I don't, but I have a daughter now and he will be. Oh, okay. Congratulations.

How old? Six months. Okay, so I have a nine-month-old and we're doing the same thing. The whole time I was really conflicted about costumes because I'm like, this child is not selecting this costume and we're now reducing it to a live action doll. But I mean, if seeing him in a Woody costume didn't bring a tear to my eye. Wow. Yeah, that was the one that was very flammable, by the way, that I was Woody.

OK, dude, this Woody costume. It was that was the one that was like reeking of like petroleum i'm pretty sure it's like the most synthetic fabrics that have ever been made so yeah so how is your daughter liking the first well first congrats to you too oh thank you thank you i think he's gonna love it he's yeah's going to be a butterfly. Wow. I thought it could be fun. Yeah. But I think, you know, babies bring so much joy to other people. So that's kind of the fun of it too.

Yeah, that is true because there's no one sees a cute baby dressed up and goes like, that's so trite. Nice try. Yeah. What a contrived outfit this is. It's always like, oh, like I went somewhere else and someone was like, there's a baby here dressed like Toy Story. I was like, I guess, yeah, we'll take that. Oh, that's so cute. Amazing.

Those sound amazing. Congratulations to you both. And congratulations to every living human with a beating heart that runs into you on Halloween and gets to see your children and their amazing Halloween costumes. Absolutely. Yeah. All right. We're going to talk to you, April about the heist season three,

but before we get to it, we do like to get to know our guests a little bit better. And so we are going to ask you, what is something from your search history that is revealing about who you are, where you are, what you're up to? Sorry. I'm still on the, like the baby, the baby stuff revealing about who you are where you are what you're up to sorry i'm still on the like the baby the baby stuff of course you are we all are my daughter doesn't

sleep very long it's only like every two to three hours and then she needs to be fed and we've been doing this for six months so i'm i'm really run down at this point and like looking for answers so i searched something about like how to get a baby to sleep you know longer than two to three hour stretches yeah oh yeah that's did you find have you found anything there's like i feel like it's one of those things where you feel the answer is out there but so many things are so specific to a child that it's like and people like i swear by this method and it's like yeah for your kid right you just put them in a rabbit cage and put formula in one of those drip bottles

is that humane i don't think that's uh it's okay we give them a lot of room to run around in there right even give them crawling tubes. Anything good? Have you found anything helpful? I mean, short answer, no. But the only thing that seems to help is really loading her up with food at night. Yeah. I mean, to the point that it seems a little like, this is a bit much. The more we give her then we get like maybe

a four-hour stretch which i did last night but wow it's like it's a little uncomfortable yeah oh you mean just feeling do you ever do like the dream feed you know yeah i definitely do those that yeah just see how long we can pro like prolong the bit of sleep yeah uh i i wish baby you got a hungry baby yeah i wish for sleep full nights yeah yeah yeah because i know that that's it's so disorienting too like especially early on and i remember having like becoming existential i'm like have i made a terrible error in bringing life into this world and being completely unable to contend with the schedule. But I'm sure it will even out. It always does.

It always does. It does. And then another one, right? Do you want another one? No. No. We came into this pretty clear. I'm an only child.

My wife has half siblings, but it's her mother's only child, so it kind of has that only child my wife has like half siblings but you know it's like her mother's only child so kind of has like that only child vibe too and we're like i think i think we're okay as long as you have friends in the neighborhood like we did like then you you won't be you won't be like a lonely only child yeah that and just the cost of it all it's just like yeah i think this feels very manageable and i like this and I would like to not compound that any further. And then there's the thing that happens to your brain where you forget about a year and a half on. You forget how hard this part was and you either have another child or go back and listen to this and remind yourself every every 15 minutes.

Right. But yeah, we were surprised that we have a five and a seven-year-old and the when the five-year-old came around it was less than two years later and we were like oh man this is so hard i totally forgot how hard this is but that's kind of like the psychology of it right like you know like i felt like every time we were talking to people have given birth and like what was it like you know and it was like years on like honestly i don't remember yeah truly like because for me i'm like is it like you know how difficult it's like i mean we're here you know we're here but the brain lets you know it's like let's put that to the side so we can continue you know inhabiting the earth i guess yeah yeah what is something that you think is overrated april candy corn thank you no good no good we're we're on a roller we're on a candy corn roller coaster and i promise not to

pee my pants but we we have had people saying overrated we've had people saying underrated yeah but more over time yeah most people do not like candy corn i do i think it's little pebbles of icing and i like icing i i like a cupcake that has the most icing on it so you you feel like you're eating a three-week-old Yes. Exactly. Sitting out in the sun. You're like, ooh, this is my favorite part. The crusted frosting. Yeah. What's your like, break it down for me, April. Flavor wise.

What is it that you, why are we putting it in this category? I mean, it doesn't, to me, it doesn't taste very good. It just looks like something that doesn't expire. You know, like it can just hang out for too long. And that's dangerous, right? Right. You're saying there's something unnatural about candy corn? It's not a, that it shouldn't be, I should not be counting it as a vegetable?

It's called corn, April. That's the operative word. That's a problem too. Yeah. It's deceiving. Yes. Yeah. I tried tried i tried again i was i was just telling a story earlier a friend of mine was dressed as candy corn and got harassed by teenagers yeah like there'd be like yo candy corn sucks yeah and it was just like for me a little too

aggressive i'm not a fan of candy corn but i like i get it it's just it's something that's out there people just feel i think it again for me it just felt like the like the least exciting candy you could give me on Halloween and so when I got it I took that as a I took that as an act of violence basically yeah and I took that personally yeah do you got what top three candies do you do you remember your top three candies from oh yeah trick-or-treating break it down break it down i mean i always love m&ms those are okay standard straight straightforward m&ms just the brown or are we talking peanut no i like the straightforward ones and then wow don't they have ones with like extra chocolate in them now they have extra chocolate in them yeah I think so. Whoa. Really?

I just, I don't know why that hit me like some kind of like revelation I've never heard of. Oh, what do we got here? There's chocolate in the chocolate. Man, okay, now I'm on the hunt. You know what would be it? Oh yeah, double chocolate M&Ms? What's that? I could see where, I could see an M&M where instead of peanuts, they have the regular M&Ms's? What's that? I could see where I could see an M&M where instead of peanuts, they have

the regular M&M's in the middle. You know what I mean? Sorry, I just got so excited about that. Oh, you're just saying an M&M within an M&M? An M&M is inside the peanut M&M? So it's classic M&M's instead of peanuts in the Yes. Why is this making me

so happy? I think because it's so overboard that you're like, yes, yes, go on, Mars Company. Double candy shell, double chocolate? Come on. Apparently it's mixed. It's dark and milk chocolate, from what I'm reading. So, yeah, go on.

So M&M's, that's one. Number two? I like Milky Way. I think Milky Way is pretty delicious. Milky Way's not bad. I'm not mad at that. Number three? I like Milky Way. I think Milky Way is pretty delicious. Milky Way is not bad. Okay. Yeah. I'm not mad at that. Number three.

And I like Reese's Pieces. Or the cups. Not the pieces. The cups. Yeah. Yeah. It's funny how we all say, we have to say pieces. Yes.

Even though it's pieces. I do this too. It sounds like he's giving you a backhanded like, it's funny how some of us, but we have all said Reese's pieces and we all say Reese's pieces because it just feels like why mess it up when we could have a good thing with a rhyming name like that yeah we all found out about it when we were like four so I think it is the four-year-old way to say that candy right yeah what's your sign? I'm a PC. I think we've covered our rankings before, but I'm going to say

peanut butter cups. I'm going to say Milky Way. And I'm going to say Blow Pops. I'm going to throw in Blow Pops. Wow. Blow Pops are definitely the superior non-chocolate candy. Wow, really? My thing non-chocolate candy. Wow.

Really? Anything. My thing is chocolate above everything else. Yeah. Yeah. And then it's, then it's a scrap over the things with chocolate in it. And I don't want to waste everybody's time with that.

But then when we talk about fruit flavored candies, like I'm not eating like mom bows or, you know, sour, but like the blow pop. And I think it's because. The stain with which you said mom bows. I just don't like them. Don't like them. But then them but then but the blow pop commercials from the early 90s i think that's why

because everybody was like oh look at like it was that felt zany so yeah crunch into that shit soft center and then you have where are you april where are you at with tootsie pops and tootsie rolls i like tootsie rolls i'm not such a fan of the pops but i like the tootsie Pops and Tootsie Rolls. I like Tootsie Rolls. I'm not such a fan of the pops, but I like the Tootsie Rolls. Do you consider that a chocolate or you consider that like a usurper that is passable? You know, I think I consider it a chocolate. Wow. I think that's the difference between people who like Tootsie Rolls and don't. If you view it as chocolate or if you view it as gross chocolate flavored taffy, as I do.

And I apologize and I don't mean to be mean, but that's just my truth and I'm going to speak it. Thank you. Thank you. Been working hard on that. April, what's something you think is underrated? Rain. Rain is underrated. Now, what is it about rain? It's, you know, when there's like a rain shower, it feels like everything is fresh and new afterwards when the sun comes out. And if you're inside and you hear the rainfall, it's very relaxing and peaceful.

Yeah. It's like, it's healing. Oh, okay. Good. So many people like from LA that come on the show that everyone's like it's underrated like because we need it right but that part also is the best part is like what just the pitter patter of rain does to you like like into your mind you're like oh no i'm i need to just lay around or just stay inside or something like that and relax so

I need to just lay around or just stay inside or something like that and relax. It's like the earth is shushing you. It's like such a great sound. It's just, yeah, I love because I also was like a, you know, see, I played sports growing up, but I wish I I wished I didn't. I wished I was just able to, to like stay inside all the time and like watch movies non-stop and so there's also like something deep within my brain that when i hear rain i'm like i don't have to go outside and pretend to be a jock a jock i can just yeah oh that's wild oh man are you so now are you one of those parents you're like hey don't play sports because you think i want you to yeah yeah yeah. That's what my dad always said to me because it was like athleticism was kind of currency in my dad's family. And my uncle was like a really good football player. My dad's an artist. So he was the last thing he wanted to do is like put pads on to smash people up. And I remember he would always just like, he would always, when I was playing hockey or other, she's like, you're not playing this because you think I want you to, right?

Because I don't. Yeah. He's like, because I don't like waking up at 5 a.m. to drive to weird parts of the city. And I'm like, I don't know. Hockey is intense, man. Wow. Yeah. I love rain.

I love, and we don't get it. We don't get enough of it out here in LA. Yeah. We need it. We heard about that. We heard about that. Amazing. All right. Well, let's take a quick break and we'll come back and start getting into the heist season three. We'll be right back.

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I felt like I was living in North Korea, but worse, if that's possible. Listen to Spiraled on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And we're back. We're back. We're back. And I guess to kick us off, I'd just be curious to hear a little bit more about your background, April. What kind of stories did you cover prior to this? How do you get to this story? Because I personally hear agriculture and my brain doesn't turn off, but it assumes that's somebody else's story to pay attention to.

But then this one was so good. And it seems like based on some of your credentials, that agriculture is kind of a sweet spot for you. Yeah, I'd say I almost fell into it because at my job prior to coming to Center for Public Integrity, I covered rural issues and really had the opportunity to shape that beat as I saw fit. subsidies basically that were given to farmers when there was a trade war with China to help keep them on their feed. And there was investigative reporting that showed most of that money, nearly all of that money went to white farmers. And some of that just has to do with the way, like the structure of the system. So I got just into rural issues reporting into agriculture as like a beat within my beat while I was at my previous job. And during that time, also learned more about the history of discrimination at USDA. I learned against Black farmers and other farmers of color as well. And learned more about Pickford versus Glickman, which was this big class action lawsuit Black farmers were successful in the

first installment in the late 90s, 1999. And doing that work led me to CPI and trying to not sound super wonky about it, but- No, get wonky, get wonky. Get wonky. Go wonk. And hearing a farmer who actually recently passed away his name's eddie slaughter he passed away oh yeah yeah he passed away like uh end of september it just happened yeah how do you hear that yeah that i mean like this story is so it it like it touches intersects with so many issues that the united states has been the cause of and never the solution to and it's the the whole journey that you sort of take listeners on is

really fantastic because like jack said like when i hear ag like when i hear people talking about big agriculture i hear about big agriculture and factory farming and farm subsidies but i'm like yeah i don't know it's just like that industry, like the government is the one being like, the money hose will never turn off for some of you. Right. And then really beginning to zoom out to really understand the entirety of it. Because in my mind, I'm like, it's probably like you just assume it's like, it's probably like five companies doing everything when you lose sight of sort of what these origin stories are. And you go back to, you know, the early 20th century in Oklahoma and how a lot of these farming, these black farming communities were thriving, you know. And we've talked about like Black Wall Street on this show and just sort of the whole history there.

But can you kind of just like sort of paint this picture? Because I think more than even talking about like when we're going to talk about what's happening now, but I think it's really important for people to understand how prosperous black farming was in the United States to really get an understanding of like the tragedy that has been occurring ever since then. Just to refresh people, Black Wall Street was Tulsa, Oklahoma, like this boom time, like all Black or, you know, prominently Black community where business was just thriving, families were getting rich, and because they're being left to, like, operate a community on their

own without a lot of white supremacy coming in and, you know, using the tools of systemic oppression to crush them. And then people, obviously, this is a simplified way of saying it, but like the, what white supremacy came in and burnt the town to the ground and like raised, like literally raised the community in Oklahoma. But yeah, totally a story that I didn't know was that not far away, also in Oklahoma around the same time, there was a similarly thriving rural community that you talked about, April. Yeah, we talk about Bowley, Oklahoma, which is where the main character of the podcast is from, Nate Bradford. And it was in some ways like a country version of that Tulsa. It was a thriving Black community that was full of folks who came from the deep South, escaping Jim Crow around the turn of the century and trying to get a piece of land and be free. And a lot of those folks ended up settling in Bowley because there was a railroad that was being developed and going from Oklahoma to Arkansas. So it was just, you know,

a good place to be. And that brought a lot of folks through there. So they settled, you know, in and around Bowley. They were able to buy land, be a part of this community that was for Black folks by Black folks. So, you know, answering to local government leadership and everything that was done was in the interest of the people who were there who were majority Black. So a lot of them were cotton farmers. Some of them were also in cattle farming. And Boley ended up, and they really paid for Boley, right? Their money was what was making the town prosperous. And Boley ended up being hugely successful. It had colleges. It had grocery stores.

It had banks. It had what is believed to be the first Black nationally chartered bank in the country, which is huge. And yeah, I mean, that ended up changing for a number of reasons. But Bowley was one of 50 Black towns at the time. Yeah. And it's just so devastating to the central narrative of white supremacy, like the existence of this thriving town, that if white supremacists allow this town to exist, is it able to thrive and have this amazing community and also like kind of devastating to some of the central tenets of capital like individualism and capitalism where there's this you know we've talked about community action and how you know black communities and you know indigenous communities are some of the best models that we have of like how, you know, communities that take care of themselves and start their own, you know, circular communities. And yeah, so it runs against the central core narrative of the American mainstream in a lot of ways that are probably scary to powerful people. that are probably scary to powerful people. Right. It's also like hearing about that era too where these communities were thriving and that the change came once statehood occurred

and now Oklahoma was going to basically get the other states that were out like enacting the Jim, these Jim Crow laws. And now you had these communities that were for the most part able to do whatever they had to mostly free from any kind of like racial interference that suddenly now they're seeing segregation and they're seeing all these laws that are like are completely changing the way they live. What was like from that moment on? Because I

think this is this is what becomes really interesting, too, is this is sort of like the that was sort of like the height of things. And now we begin to see the deterioration of these communities and the dispossession of land. What was like after these Jim Crow laws were enacted? What sort of like the kind of next sort of beats that happen that are kind of that begin sort of this momentum even further? Yeah, so Oklahoma became a state in 1907. It starts passing these Jim Crow laws. But Bowley did thrive for a little bit longer. But then there were a lot of economic things that happened, right?

There was the Great Depression. There was the bull weevil that chewed up the cotton. There was the Agricultural Adjustment Act in the 30s that limited the amount of cotton a farmer could produce. Those that were sharecroppers, and farmers got money to help them through that, but folks that were sharecroppers may not have seen any of that money. And Black folks were kind of limited in what they could grow so all those things led to the decline of bully um a lot of the folks there and like the local historians say that even though there was this jim crow violence happening outside of bully not even that far outside of bully because there were some downtowns very close uh, you know, kind of protected, but it's still that fear, that violence

that's happening just outside. All of these things came together and encouraged folks to move on to other places. Wow. And then like, I guess, you know, part of like the whole, you know, the focus of this season is talking about just the decline and discrimination in Black farming and Black farmers have had to face. There's some pretty staggering statistics I think people should hear first as we dive into this. What was the state of Black farmers in its prime as opposed to right now, just so we can give ourselves an idea of how aggressive this process has been? So around the turn of the century, when we know, obviously coming out of slavery, there were a great number of Black farmers. And we know, for example, there's a study that found

Black farmers lost $326 billion in land and wealth from 1920 to 1997, which is a huge, huge number. And we know that the number of Black farmers has dropped 67% since 1900. So that's a pretty big one now as well. Black farmers now are only about 1.4% of all farmers, so just a tiny number. And that was not the case leading up to the 1920s, was not like 1.4%? No. It was Black folks had, you know, we're much greater in number and we're also, you know, significant landowners as well. Yeah. And the way the government accomplished this is kind of a thing with, you know, the systemic economic forces, economic racism, and it blends in more easily when they can just say, oh, well, you know, there was a bad run of bull weevils or something like that and not focusing on, well, in white communities when there's a, you know, bad string of crops because of bull weevils, the government comes in and turns on the money hose, right? turns on the money hose, right? But in this case, there's just a different standard of when to intervene and how easy it is to get government assistance and then what happens once you get

that government assistance. Yeah. I mean, obviously, there's racial violence that had a part in this, but also subsidies, for example, are more helpful to farmers that are larger landowners or farmers who are growing certain crops. And Black farmers tend to be smaller guys, so they're not going to get as much money from those subsidy programs. The USDA, for example, is a lender of last resort. And that means you had to get rejected from other agencies, other banks, in order to get a loan from them. And there's this long documented history showing that Black farmers have had a tougher time getting those loans. And when they get those loans, they're not as much as they would have wanted them to be. Or maybe they're delayed so that they don't come when the farmer might need it for planting.

They come much later. And then that kind of has a chain reaction to it. Right. planting they come much later and then that kind of has a chain reaction to it right and yeah like in this like in this telling of it or just like this you know examination of the the industry you just realize that the usda is doing some of the most vile shit like in terms of disenfranchising these farmers or putting them essentially into like a debt trap to dispossess their land. And I know like, it's like, you'll never find a document that says, this is our mandate as the USDA. But when you look at how the USDA was interacting with black farmers that were looking for loans and things like that, it's just wild how so many of the

people that you spoke to were sort of saying like, the second I took that loan was basically the end. Like when I began to rely on the USDA. And just the hoops and things that people have to jump through just for the simplest things is really like mind blowing. Like, can you kind of just paint a picture for people of sort of how this game is set up with the USDA of how, like, because I think normal people would be like, oh yeah, what's the problem? You get your

loan. If you have an off year, you tell them, they understand. And then maybe they work with you to make something happen. But that really wasn't the case for Black farmers really ever. Yeah. So like in the past, USDA had a system where county committees who are like local farmers would have a lot of influence deciding who is credit worthy. And so, you know, they could decide like that Black farmer, for example, we don't want to give him a loan. Or one of the experts we talked to says how the county committee person could say, well, I have my eye on that piece of

property that they have. And I know if this loan is delayed or denied, that it's only a matter of time before that piece of property will be out in the market. So that was one way that affected Black farmers. Another is loan officers have a lot of discretion in deciding who gets loans and who doesn't and how supportive they can be when that farmer is in trouble. And there are farmers, older farmers, and then younger farmers like me, who tells us his story of how he felt he didn't get the flexibility that he needed from his loan officer. Right. It's like, do you think, you know, like in looking at it too, because, you know, Nate, the, one of the farmers that you speak with talks about how, when he's asking for his loan to be restructured or something, their solution is basically like,

why don't you just sell your land then? And, or like sell your cattle. And they're like, but that's how I make my living. So if I do that, that renders me like inert from a business standpoint. And like with that, like knowing that, that you had these sort of credit bureaus of like local, like landed farmers who are the ones determining who are like kind of behind the scenes, or at least had a, like a seat at the table to determine who got loans. It feels like that sort of, I got my eye on that property sort of energy has just kind of persisted throughout like the, the, like the decades following it. I mean, I think we know for sure through what mid nineties, because that's what Pickford was based on. Like we, we know that the trickier

question is to what extent is this happening now? Like to what extent is, has it continued? And people like me, obviously, through his experience, feel like it has. Other folks would argue that USDA has done a number of things to try to rectify this, but I guess we're still trying to figure it out. Right. Can you talk about, you did mention that there's racial violence that played a role in this over the course of the transition from 1920 to the late 90s. Can you just talk about what that was, what that looked like? Because I think that's probably helpful when then coming into this and being like, and then this is a world that was like self-policing, where the the the usda just gets to use their own judgment to make financial decisions but what what was what was happening at that at that time yeah i mean outside of the deep south i guess some would consider oklahoma still part of that but oklahoma has like one of the highest documented um things outside of the deep south traditional deep south

and you know there's stories oklahoma elsewhere folks kind of abandoning their property because of fear of racial violence from white farmers white land landowners. So, I mean, that's kind of outside of USDA, but that's something that's a function to dispossess Black farmers as well. Yeah. USDA, I mainly knew prior to this for like grading my eggs and meat. It was kind of my experience with the USDA,

but truly like they've set up this Kafka-esque system. There's one scene where they discover that this USDA civil rights agency that they've been sending their complaints to, the office just doesn doesn't exist their letters have been just like piling up in an office somewhere and when it comes time to like actually look at their complaints and what the usda was doing the court is just like we can't use those letters as evidence because they never opened. Like basically the logic is like, they never opened them.

So what are they supposed to do? But yeah, it's like the judicial historical equivalent of like plugging your ears and saying, la la la la. I can't hear you. So like it doesn't count, but yeah,

it's just a whole different level of like illogic and injustice that I don't know. Like it was crazy to hear about. Yeah. Yeah. During what the Oregon administration, that's when the civil rights office was like pretty much closed. So you had farmers sending in their discrimination complaints and they weren't going anywhere, right? Like nobody was, was reading them. They They were were just kind of piling up in a room that and nobody was monitoring them. So that was one of the things that really fed into the Pickford suit that even when farmers filed complaints of discrimination there, they weren't being addressed. There was there was no one to address them. Right. And it's again, like it feels like the USDA is like another example of many other glickman right is the case that there was a moment for this to potentially create some

kind of sea change but it it just it just didn't and a lot of that i'm sure too like as you like as the like reporting shows like in the in the show is that a lot of it, too, is also by design, by offering these farmers in a settlement that it was just kind of like, pick your poison here, and neither are actually going to fully address all of the injustices that you had to suffer. suffer. Yeah. So there was a settlement agreement. And so this case never went to trial. So farmers never had the opportunity to really tell their case in court. But they decided on a settlement that didn't actually require USDA to come out and say, we did wrong. We're going to change our ways. We're going to fire folks who were involved in this. Like none of that had to happen. And the settlement offered two tracks for folks to follow. One of those tracks, basically they had to show some level of paperwork. They had to prove some level of discrimination and they would get $50,000. But they also had to show like that there was a white farmer in a similarly situated

position, that they suffered an economic loss. That was supposedly the easy track. And then there was track B. And that one, they had to gather more paperwork. They had to present it at a mini trial. They had to show that their damages were greater than $50,000. than $50,000. And then they had to convince an arbitrator of all that, and they could potentially get a substantial amount of money. The farmer that we talked to, Eddie, says that the lawyers really encouraged the farmers to go with track A and not track B. And part of that was because track A offered the possibility of debt forgiveness if they could find discrimination attached to the loan in question. So he argues that's why a bunch of us went with track A, something like, I think like 2% or less than 2% went with track B. And in the end, a lot of folks who went with track A didn't end up getting that loan forgiveness. up who went with track a didn't end up getting that loan forgiveness it's that's what's like really harrowing especially that when you talk about eddie and you know the the never-ending fight with the usda of how it's always him or the farmers trying to prove that they're worthy of

these loans that they're being left out all the while that the usda uses things uh offsets, which is like this practice to say, like, well, if you can't pay some of this debt that you have, we'll just take this out of your $50,000 settlement from the USDA. It just feels like never ending. And the frustration that comes out in some of these people's voices, it's really, really, like it's heartbreaking because at the end of the day, they're trying to do something as simple as just like grow things on the land and have a very simple life. They're not saying like, I'm trying to live outside of my means or do something extravagant. It's like, I like to farm and we're not given this opportunity. And every other turn, it feels like

they have to constantly fight just to not have their finances whittled away at to the point that they are so destitute that the only option is to give up everything and give up land. And they all talk about how important the land is. Sometimes it's not even about the money it's the fact that for especially for uh for black americans that owning that piece of land is such a vital part of your longevity of you being able to have something to give to your your your descendants and things like that and that must have been so difficult to like i mean did you have any i'm sure you had a sense of how like backwards this whole thing was, but like, did it just kind of make you more angry or what was that like? Because like listening to it, I wanted to like scream half the time. when you're like, you're so seeped in it, it's like you lose a little bit of that. But I think, I mean, folks like Eddie are so passionate about this cause. And I think farmers in general,

regardless of race, are really attached to the land. I mean, it's a multi-generational life, right? They're not just thinking about themselves. They're thinking about who's coming up after them because they want the name to be carried on, you know, well after them. And I think the stakes are obviously so much higher for Black farmers, given everything that folks went through to just to hold on to that land with the violence and with the economic issues that they faced a hundred years ago to have it now is, um, like it's, it's huge. So yeah, it's, I mean, it is, it is a sad story when we think about just everything that's involved. Let's take a quick break and we'll come back and talk about just where, where you see things heading and where, where you kind of leave things at the end of the show. This summer, the nation watched as the Republican nominee for president was the target of two assassination attempts separated by two months. These events were mirrored nearly 50 years ago

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Listen to In Our Own World as a part of the My Cultura podcast network available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And don't worry, we promise to avoid any black holes. Most of the time. And we're back. And, yeah, so, I don't know. You mentioned that, like, there's this potential settlement and Nate seems hopeful. And then politically, the USDA, there's this shift where they feel like they still need to center white farmers. The story still needs to be about white farmers for the government to deliver the aid. And this is

under Biden, right? Right. So yeah. Can you talk about that? Yeah. So the Pickford settlement, there were actually two. There was a second one for folks who didn't make it to the first. So the first settlement was like 1999. The next one I think was around 2010. And there's still this looming issue of the debt. A lot of Pickford claimants that I've spoken to, at least, they talk about how, like Eddie, talk about how this debt has really affected them moving forward, ruined their credit score because they didn't get the loan forgiveness that they were expecting in Pickford. And a lot of the advocacy of those folks led to the Justice for Black Farmers Act, which was introduced by Senator Brooker and others that had this provision

to try to relieve some of those farm loan debts of the Pickford claimants. And then that led to what we saw in the Biden administration of trying to relieve the debts of all farmers of color, not just Black farmers. And that was in the American Rescue Plan Act. But there were lots of challenges from white farmers with support from conservative individuals and groups like Stephen Miller from the Trump administration. And, you know, they argued this program is discriminatory against, racially discriminatory against us, this program is discriminatory against racially discriminatory against us white farmers a federal judge ended up putting um like a blocking the program congress had to change course and in the inflation reduction act that passed last year the american rescue plan program was rescinded there's

a couple new programs included one is for anyone that that can show discrimination in farm loan programs, you can get some money for that. And the other is basically like a form of debt relief for economically distressed borrowers, folks who they define as economically distressed. Is there any, I mean, like, because it's funny, like when the episode where I'm hearing about the Pickford case, I'm like, okay, there's some momentum going here. Like maybe this can, this can be built upon, but does it seem like there's any sort of actual progress being made in terms of like really addressing this? Because like to your point, and I think like we kind of glossed over this, but so many of the farmers, they begin their farming by receiving a loan to even start this, like this business to like get the land and things like that. So you're already on the hook

with them from the beginning. And when, and then you add all of the hoops that have to jump through that are made, essentially bringing people to like a very desperate point is like, you know, like with even that, what was the one report that came out of the USDA where they're like, oh yeah, this, this has been kind of bad. It was like the, one of the internal reports. Is there like, what, is there anything that is actually beginning to alter that? Or is, does this feel sort of like, how, how are the farmers looking at it? Do they feel there's progress or even from your perspective from the outside, is there any progress being made on actually addressing this? work. It's not, I mean, the court, the federal judge blocked it, so it didn't work. And then they changed course and did something that is colorblind, but does essentially appear to reach

a good number of Black farmers. You know, it's reaching, the monies are reaching folks who are behind on their loan payments, and then it's paying some of those back loan payments. And then the next installment, Black farmers are highly delinquent in their USDA loans. So we know that it is reaching those folks, but it's also reaching a good number of white farmers too, right? So, I mean, yes, these things are helpful, but there is an argument to be made that because of all this history of discrimination and how multi-generational farming is and the debts of my grandfather I might be carrying today, that there should be some race-based remedy instead. Right. And again, it's like, every time there's any talk of restitution, reparations,

and things like that, the argument is always like, but what about us? And it's like, well, if you do the math, like, you know, some economists have, there is $16 trillion of wealth stolen from black Americans over the centuries. So like, in that sense, like it, the things that are being asked for to try and bring balance to all of this is like such a drop in the bucket. Yeah. But then you have to have like white supremacy rear its head every time and have people say like, well, this is actually discriminating against all the white people that actually benefited from those policies to begin with. And off we go to, I feel like this sort of very circular topic where like, at what point is it going to yeah is the progress can

like actually break through because i feel like that's something that you know many generations people not just farmers look at and think of all the ways their lives could have been different were it not for redlining or were it not for the usda and things like that yeah dana peterson's the economist in question she set the the toll of racism against black americans economic racism against black americans at 16 trillion dollars over just the past two decades like that's just in two decades right and staggering yeah yeah so i mean like at the end how how like what is the outlook for for for people like Nate at the Georgia line ranch? Like here, like, it's just, it's really heartening to hear that just despite the hardships, how still dedicated they are to wanting to realize their dream of being like full, like just doing full-time agriculture. time agriculture are like for him is there like a sense of relief because i hope like because you like do such a good job of connecting us to these people and their stories like in the end like when

you told me like eddie passed i'm like eddie passed away like that's and he had such a difficult life i really want to encourage everybody listening you have to listen to this series because like we're just giving you a very broad outlook on it the actual humanity of it at that level the human level is is really like eye-opening and inspirational but is that like are people like nate feeling like is does he feel like he's turning a corner or does it still feel like this thing of like the never-ending fight with the usda um i don't i don't think Nate feels like he's turning a corner necessarily. And I think it's too soon to tell how helpful some of these more recent changes are going to be. But we also, farmers are also operating in a high inflation environment. The cost of everything has gone up. A lot of the system hasn't changed, right? Like the subsidies and helpful benefits are still going to the largest farmers. There still aren't a whole lot of Black farmers receiving the support that they need from USDA, even though they are trying

to fix that. So I mean, Nate is just kind of the type of person that's always going to find a way, right? Like, regardless of what the circumstances are, he feels so strongly about leaving the land and leaving the business to his kids. And I would argue his kids are, you know, like they're pretty savvy kids, right? Like one of them studying engineering, the other's studying agribusiness and is really passionate about finance and just and also like sharing financial literacy you know encouraging others to become financially literate and sharing his knowledge with others to help his community so i think like they're just starting

in a better place and and maybe that is like that's the hope that we can find in it that they will they'll have a better chance right and i guess I guess what, what do you think, like, I guess for people who are like myself, or just in general, who are learning about the complexities and the injustices that are like, what, what are the kinds of things we should keep in mind aside from the ongoing injustices that are happening, but in terms of like, what, what do you think the people that are on the ground want the rest of America to really understand to try and help contribute to something that's a little bit more equitable? I mean, I think it's always important to have like just a deeper knowledge of what we are hearing and reading about today. And it's like it's I guess it requires a bit of work.

I guess it requires a bit of work, but I mean, there's some great resources out there with the Environmental Working Group has a list of all these documents that are really helpful to understanding the plight of Black farmers and their relationship with USDA. There's a wonderful book by Pete Daniel called Dispossession that talks about this history as well. And I mean, when you read the headlines, it's just important to understand the background and how Black farmers and some other farmers of color have not gotten everything, all the support that they need. So I guess when, in general, when these colorblind arguments are coming up, which is obviously very common and popular right now, just to have this awareness of the past. Yeah, you mentioned that it seems have this awareness of the of the past yeah you you

mentioned that it seems like this colorblind argument of like how to interpret or how to execute on the rural you know help and by the way just to farmers get some of the most help like in the in the world this is like no farm succeeds without a ton of government help and subsidies like that that's just the baseline for anything so just i i felt like that was helpful information to know heading into the overall story but yeah at one point you kind of mentioned that it seems like they're taking their lead from the affirmative action case and the the modern kind of orthodoxy in the mainstream government where it's like, well, we're just colorblind and we'll help anyone

in need, not just because we now, starting now, don't see race, you know, even though- And if you ask for documents, like that was another really frustrating thing. Like you were filing FOIA requests to actually be able to analyze how black farmers were specifically affected by these policies. And it just seemed like even before you even got an answer, like a lot of the people you were talking to that were in the community were like, you're not going to give you anything. It's a black box that will just, those truths are not going to be revealed. Have you, have any of those, has there been any like progress on any of those requests or it's just truly just one of those things where it's like, yeah, sorry, we can give you this very, like a fraction of what you're asking for, but that's it. Not yet. I mean, we did file a lawsuit about it and we're still, you know, waiting and going through that process yeah with i mean there have been other FOIA requests that i filed that i've gotten a response on but not with that that particular request that we're we talk about which just makes it really difficult to understand

the extent black farmers have been getting you, specific loans or the extent that they, any amount of those loans, just, you know, really how they're operating in this larger environment. Right. Because then when you asked for like at a county level or lower, like, so you can actually begin to group the data and see, oh, look at these, like these farmers are here and experiencing this kind of trial and tribulation and you would be able to sort of like put that against what you're seeing like white farms do but that information has been completely just withheld yeah well because of privacy law they don't and you know they're it's rural spaces they're so few like people of color in some of these counties right they don't want to they don't want anyone to be able to look at the data and know who that could be.

Well, like extrapolate from that, right? Got it. Yeah. So that would be USDA's argument that they don't want to disclose anything that they're not supposed to disclose. Of course. Yeah.

They're so concerned. They're so concerned. Well, April Simpson, it's been such a pleasure having you on The Daily Zeitgeist. Where can people find the show, first of all, and then find you, follow you, and read more from you? Yeah, thank you. So you can learn more about our project at publicintegrity.org. You can follow me on Twitter at April Leticia. Thank you for calling it Twitter, not Twitter, or formally formally X or we call it Twitter formally X around here. So, yeah, Twitter for sure.

Is there a work of media that you've been enjoying? I think again, I don't I don't have time. Yeah, I get that. Looking at my child. But I'm going to New Orleans soon. And I saw this list recently of like best New Orleans restaurants. So I'm looking forward to seeing what I can hit. Oh, yeah.

Nice. Sounds about right. Sounds about right. Miles, where can people find you? Is there a work of media you've been enjoying? Find me Twitter, formerly X, and Instagram, other at based platforms. Miles of Gray. If you like basketball, you can check out our basketball podcast,

Miles and Jack got mad boosties. If you like 90 Day Fiancé, check out my 90 Day Fiancé podcast for 20 Day Fiancé. That's how I offset the terrible things that we have to deal with when we talk about our news and our reality every day, so join me there. Work of media,

I just started watching the Goosebumps show that was on Hulu. The original one? No, they rebooted it, so A work of media. I just started watching the Goosebumps show. That was like on Hulu. The original one? No, they rebooted it. So as a geriatric millennial, I see the Goosebumps font and I have a reaction because that was one of my favorite book series. And it's kind of, yeah, it's interesting. I'm only like two episodes in, but they're doing something freaky with it to a point where I'm like, is this for kids?

And it's like, it's not really. It's like young adults, but goosebumps on this spooky day. Amazing. You can find me on Twitter at Jack underscore O'Brien. Tweet I've been enjoying. Jackson at placed underscore onto tweeted there should be, there should only

be one fruit per color. If I see a yellow fruit, I shouldn't have to second guess whether it's not a lemon. That's my level of agricultural thinking. That's a squash. That's a lemon. That's a lemon, dude. Come on. Look how yellow it is. Crack that thing open. And Ben Rosen at Ben underscore Rosen tweeted, forget it, Jake. It's giving Chinatown. at Ben underscore Rosen tweeted,

forget it, Jake. It's giving Chinatown. You can find me on Twitter at Jack underscore O'Brien. You can find us on Twitter at Daily Zeitgeist. We're at The Daily Zeitgeist on Instagram. We have a Facebook fan page and a website, dailyzeitgeist.com, where we post our episodes and our footnotes. We link off to the information that we talked about in today's

episode, as well as a song that we think you might enjoy. Miles, what song on this Halloween, oh, Hallow's Eve, do you think people might enjoy? I didn't even think of trying to think of something spooky. Just something nice to listen to, because not everybody wants to be spooky. This track is called Andromeda by Ethel, E-T-H-E-L. And it's a really dope track. I like whispery vocals over a good backbeat, and that's exactly what this provides.

So this is Andromeda by Ethel. Whispers are spooky. The Andromeda Strain is a scary book. My dad tried to make me watch that movie as a kid. That was one of those old people movies. He's like, you're going to like this. This one's going to blow your hair back, son. I was like, this is going to make me fall

asleep and question whether or not there were actual good movies back then. Well, The Daily Zeitgeist, a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. That's going to do it for us this morning. Back this afternoon to tell you what is trending.

We'll talk to you all then. Bye. Bye. There's so much beauty in Mexican culture, like mariachis, delicious cuisine, and even lucha libre. Join us for the new podcast, Lucha Libre Behind the Mask, a 12-episode podcast in both English and Spanish about the history and cultural richness of Lucha Libre.

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