by Christopher Echavarria
At the turn of the last century, there were over 200,000 black farmers cultivating 15 million acres of land. But the federal government has made it impossible for many black farmers to purchase or maintain land.
People that contributed to this factor were the president of the United States, who signed the settlement into law. Black farmers nationwide joined in a class action discrimination suit against the U.S. Department of Agriculture bill signed by President Barack Obama approved by court in October 2011. Racism and discrimination by the U.S. Department of Agriculture are the primary reasons that the number of black farmers is declining.
Through the decades people have been judge because their color not experience they have had in life like farmers. The effect of this discrimination has been the reduction in the number of African-American farmers in the United States. Black farmers were denied government loans, emergency or disaster assistance, and other aid, many black farmers lost their farms and their homes. In an article about this discrimination, Adrian Sainz wrote, “The USDA said it denied the application filed in 1995 because James had inadequate education and didn’t have farming experience”. This proves my argument by people are being judged by their color and race; in my opinion knowing someone’s skin color does not necessarily tell you anything else about them. Another evidence that supports is from the same article is “James said he missed the deadline because he did not find out in time, but he still filed a late claim.” In others words this prove my claim by the organization that is controlled by white people is not trying to get the messages to the black farmers in time for they could miss their meeting and make them look disorganized but James didn’t give up he found other ways, like other farmers.
In conclusion, his movement and association impacted society on a positive way because any black farmers across the nation experienced discrimination in their dealings with U.S. Department of Agriculture agencies in their states. This settlement also gave money/ to the affected black farmers but this for them was not enough, because pretending race doesn’t exist is not the same as creating equality.
The Raven 