Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
If there are only 39,697 African-American farmers grand total in the entire country, then how can over 86,000 of them claim discrimination at the hands of the USDA? Where did the other 46,303 come from?
Now, if you’re confused over what the heck I’m even talking about, let’s go back to the beginning of the story: Pigford v. Glickman
In 1997, 400 African-American farmers sued the United States Department of Agriculture, alleging that they had been unfairly denied USDA loans due to racial discrimination during the period 1983 to 1997. The farmers won the case, known asPigford v. Glickman, and in 1999 the government agreed to pay $50,000 each to any farmer who had been wrongly denied an agricultural loan. By then it had grown into a class action case, and any black farmer who had filed a complaint between 1983 and 1997 would be given at least $50,000 — not limited to the original 400 plaintiffs. It was estimated at that time that there might be as many as 2,000 beneficiaries granted $50,000 each.
According to the summary of the case linked above,
Seventy-thousand+ applicants in addition to the 16,000 already compensated now means that over 86,000 people are slated to be paid. The U.S. Senate and Shirley Sherrod
Which brings us up to today, when two current events suddenly thrust this otherwise little-known case into the spotlight. First, the Senate stripped funding for the settlement out of an unrelated war appropriations bill, as they had done several times in the past. Second, it was revealed today that “A farm collective founded by Shirley Sherrod and her husband that was forced out of business by the discriminatory practices received a $13 million settlement as part of Pigford last year, just before she was hired by the USDA.”
No one can take away her comments that came right out of her mouth but yet some people believe she is such a saint. She is clearly a racist bigot who used the system to gain employment and money.
Out of about $1 billion paid out so far — reportedly the biggest civil rights settlement in history — the largest amount went to New Communities, which got some $13 million, with $330,000 awarded to Shirley and Charles Sherrod for mental suffering alone. "Thirteen million sounds like a lot, but it was not nearly enough. The land itself is probably worth at least $9 million," says the lawyer for New Communities, Rose Sanders (also known as Faya Toure).
No one can take away her comments that came right out of her mouth but yet some people believe she is such a saint. She is clearly a racist bigot who used the system to gain employment and money.
Thank you for the exposure, Andrew Breitbart. That was crafty reporting on his part, having to come in another way in order to expose what really was behind the scenes.
Interesting. Even more so the way this thread is being dismissed.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
