Volume 13, Number
5
August 9, 2010
The Farmer
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Sharecropping, White Sheets and the USDA
By Dr. Ridgely Abdul Mu’min Muhammad
In our previous article dealing with the “High Tech Lynching of Mrs.
Shirley Sherrod” we put forward what we called the “New Black Codes” which
included: 1. All whites are deputized to keep Blacks in their place, 2. Blacks
must know their place, 3. Blacks have no rights that a white person has to
recognize, 4. Doing business while Black is illegal, 5. No one shall help
Blacks, 6. Blacks shall not organize except to sing and play and 7. Blacks shall
own no land. In this article we will highlight the New Black Codes “3”, “5”
and “7” and the old Jim Crow Black Code taken from “The Secret
Relationship Between Blacks and Jews, Volume 2” (TSR-2): “Blacks were
prohibited from buying or renting farmland except in designated all-Black (but
white controlled) areas.”
The reason that we must look at the issues of Black farmers in light of these
codes is that once you have these “codes” in the back of your head you can
then make sense out of events that on the surface make no sense. The USDA is not
a “rogue” organization acting alone without guidance and support from all
three branches of government: Executive, Legislative and Judicial.
What we must understand is the Civil War is still being fought and the gains
made by Blacks during Reconstruction are still being systematically reversed but
under the guise of “law and order”. The old “white sheets” which hid the
identity of those who terrorized Black people in the countryside of the South
has been traded in by the “white sheets” of paper that the more slick
afflicters of Blacks use to hurt Blacks while hiding their identity and intent.
Many people had heard over the airways that Black farmers received $1.25
billion in what is called “Pigford II”. The Black farmers’ lawsuit against
the USDA that was filed in 1997 was called “Pigford vs Glickman” (Pigford
I). Dan Glickman was the Secretary of Agriculture under the Clinton
administration. As bad as that lawsuit was handled it still left out thousands
of plaintiffs’ who applied too late to get in on this botched attempt of
addressing Black farmer complaints as a class. So those who filed too late were
given a second chance under “Pigford II” which President Obama endorsed to
the tune of $1.25 billion. The President was able to use the 2009 Farm Bill to
get $100 million to cover this commitment, but he needed Congress to appropriate
the balance of $1.15 billion. Here is where the “white sheets” shuffle games
began.
The Black farmers’ $1.15 billion was not brought to Congress in a separate
stand-alone bill. Instead those who seemed to want to get this money to the
Black farmers developed a strategy to attach authorization for payment within
other bills that they thought would pass. One of these bills was the “Extenders
Bill” which was to extend government unemployment benefits to millions of
American workers out of a job. However, that bill was held hostage until the
Black farmers’ money was taken out of that bill. The “Extenders Bill” was
held hostage by the Republicans in the Senate and finally rejected on June 24,
2010. Rep. Coble then moved the Black farmers’ money from the “Extenders
Bill” to the “War Supplemental Appropriations Bill”.
Once the Black farmers’ money was taken out of the “Extenders Bill”,
that bill was passed on July 21, 2010. The Republicans punished those who might
help Blacks by withholding benefits to thousands of white and Black Americans
(New Black Code 5). On July 22, 2010 the Black farmers’ money was taken out of
the “War Supplemental Appropriations Bill”. Immediately that bill passed the
Senate and went on to the House for approval. The Republicans held the military
hostage until they “took the Blacks out” or took their money out of their
appropriations bill. They were being punished for breaking code “5”: No one
shall help Blacks.
One can ask, “Why don’t they produce a separate bill to pay the Black
farmers?” Answer: If they produce a separate bill, then one could plainly see
who the racists were by their voting against the bill. Instead they chose to use
the “white sheets” of shuffling papers around within other bills so that the
public will not see who the racists are. Just like in the days of Jim Crow where
the racist whites hid under white robes to hide their identity from Blacks who
might retaliate.
However, they did finally bring the Black farmers’ settlement up for
approval as a stand alone bill, but on Thursday, August 4, Sen. Harry Reid had
to sadly report that the measure failed because of “partisan politics”.
Defenders of the Democratic Party like to argue that the Black farmers’ money
got caught up into “partisan politics”. The last time that I checked, the
Democrats held 60 seats in the Senate, which means that they can pass anything
that they want without one Republican vote. However, some Democrats have
switched over to help the Republicans when it has come to paying Black farmers
any money. The issue is not “partisan” politics, but anti-Black political
tricks.
In my struggle to "pin the tail on the donkey" or find the
agricultural policy "smoking gun" pointed at the Black farmer, I
finally came to the "Committee on Economic Development" 1962 report
entitled "AN ADAPTIVE PROGRAM FOR AGRICULTURE." This report was used
to shape agricultural policy for the last half of the 20th century.
A few quotations from this 1962 report are in order:
"Net migration out of agriculture has been going on for 40 years,
and at a rapid rate. Nevertheless, the movement of people from agriculture
has not been fast enough…The adaptive approach utilizes positive
government action to facilitate and promote the movement of labor and
capital where they will be most productive and will earn the most
income."This "adaptive approach" recommended that vocational
agriculture courses in rural areas be scrapped, agricultural prices be
substantially lowered and temporary income programs be instituted to protect
the most suited for survival. In addition, more surpluses should be dumped
on developing nations, consumer prices should be kept low, rural
electrification should be slowed down and rural workers moved to be factory
workers in the cities. These measures, according to this report, would
"Reduce Farm Labor Force by One-third in Five Years."
Remember this was in 1962. What this report failed to tell us was that the
"income protection programs" were to be administered by the USDA on
local levels by "county committees" consisting in the South of
anti-Black white landowners. Therefore as the prices and resources were being
lowered for all farmers, white farmers in the South would be able to determine
who would survive this war of attrition by controlling the government hand-outs.
In other words the USDA decided to give the enforcement of the law to
anti-Blacks which was like throwing the chickens into the fox’s hole. So when
disaster hit or prices fell, the Black farmers would be left out, but still
owing money to local lenders or the USDA. Now the white “foxes”, farmers,
could buy the Black farmers’ land on the courthouse steps the same way that
Blacks were sold on these same steps.
The book, TSR-2, goes into detail to show how “sharecropping” was used to
deprive Black farmers of the rewards of their sweat and toil. TSR-2 points out
that the Jewish money lenders would not loan Black farmers money to grow food
stuffs, but only for cotton production. Even when they produced the cotton, at
the end of the season they would find that their bill payable to these lenders
was more than the value of the cotton that they had to sell back to these same
dealers. They could not sell their crop to anyone else because the Jim Crow
Black Codes prevented them from selling commodities independently on the open
market. They had to sell it to those who lent them the money and supplies to
produce the crop.
“The Secret Relationship Between Blacks and Jews, Volume 2” has cleared
up for me why the USDA required Black farmers to grow only certain commodities
like cotton, field corn, tobacco, wheat and peanuts and not others, like fruits
and vegetables. The USDA also required that the Black farmers sell off their
little livestock operations which they used to feed their families and provide a
flow of income during the crop growing season until harvest. These little
livestock operations were their “bank” which they could cash in at any
moment to pay bills. However, the USDA claimed that the farmers must get rid of
these enterprises because they would take away labor and management time from
the production of the commodities that the loans were given to produce. The USDA
would lend the Black farmers money too late for them to make an adequate yield.
Therefore, at the end of the season they would owe more than they could pay
back. Sounds like “sharecropping” to me.
One last piece of information, the Pigford lawsuit, out of court settlement,
is geared to continue the loss of land by Black farmers. Even if some Black
farmers win the settlement of $50,000 or less, they still have to pay state
taxes. The Black farmers did not go to court to get $50,000 in the first place.
They went to stop the foreclosure of Black farm land by the USDA. They proved
that the USDA had caused them to default on their loans because of how the USDA
allowed anti-Blacks to administer those loans and other government programs.
However, if a Black farmer owed, let’s say $50,000 in 1984, but could not
pay the debt back because of natural disaster or falling crop prices, by the
time of the filing of the lawsuit in 1997 he may now owe $120,000 due to the
accumulation of interest on the debt (usury by the USDA). Now if he is one of
the 60% who were lucky to prevail in Pigford I, his debt was forgiven. However,
the IRS would consider the $120,000 write down on the debt as “income” even
though the farmer did not get an additional $120,000. The IRS would then send
the Black farmer a bill for $37,000. Now if you subtract state taxes and the
$37,000 in Federal taxes from $50,000, what is the take home pay to the Black
farmer?
I was a part of a delegation of Black farmers who in 2006 met with then House
Representative Cynthia McKinney to discuss the historical relationship of the
USDA and Black farmers. At that time she said that she was in communication with
a “whistle blower” at the USDA who reportedly had documents to prove that
the USDA had conspired to help southern whites steal the Black farmers’ land.
Cynthia McKinney lost her bid for reelection in 2006 and the whistle blower
never surfaced.
The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan has made the distinction between “devils”
and “Satan”. One can say that “devils” are overtly evil, while “Satan”
acts like your friend to get close, then leads you down the wrong path, then
leaves you again in the lurch. The devils stick you with a hot pitchfork while
Satan tricks you with his pen. “The Secret Relationship Between Blacks and
Jews, Volume 2” will help you develop “X-ray vision”, so that you can see
through the modern “white sheets” of legal paper and follow the slimy trail
of an arch-deceiver, no matter what he calls himself.