Prominent environmental lawyer and activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has publicly endorsed a controversial provision of President Biden's American Rescue Plan, which proposed allocating $5 billion in reparations to farmers of color across the United States.
This program, overseen by the Department of Agriculture and championed by Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, was later overturned by a federal court on the grounds that it is unlawful to address past discrimination by implementing discriminatory practices in the present.
Kennedy, however, defended the plan, arguing that the beneficiaries of the race-based aid were entitled to the funds as they were "stolen" from their ancestors. This viewpoint starkly contrasts with the white farmers who filed a lawsuit against the Biden administration and the court that subsequently blocked the plan's implementation.
In a recent episode of the RFK Jr. Podcast, John Boyd, founder of the National Black Farmers Association, detailed the aftermath of the multi-billion dollar measure's passage as part of the American Rescue Plan. According to Boyd, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) was slow to distribute the funds to the 16,000 eligible recipients.
Boyd recounted how white farmers, in the ensuing months, contested the policy in court. The policy was eventually halted by a Wisconsin judge and later repealed by Congress in the Internal Revenue Agency spending bill.
Kennedy responded to Boyd's account by stating, "When I'm in the White House ... I'm gonna get rid of those people in USDA and get that money." He further argued, "That $5 billion is not money that is an entitlement. It's money that was a loan that black farmers were entitled to way back then and was stolen from them through discrimination."
Kennedy also pointed out that the court had acknowledged that funds were illicitly taken from black farmers, citing Boyd as an example of someone who could attest to this discrimination. "It was given to every other farmer," Kennedy continued. "If you were white you got it, if you were black you didn't get it, and that's wrong, and I don't think anyone who believes in the values of this country thinks that's a good idea."
Kennedy further criticized the USDA, suggesting that it was "broken from the top down," and primarily served to "benefit big ag" at the expense of small farmers. He also seemed to advocate for the federal government to discriminate against white farmers as a means to rectify discrimination implemented many decades ago.
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