Hello the Internet, and welcome to season three eleven, episode two of Daly's Guys Day production of iHeart Radio. Uh timely three eleven reference, I don't know what was there?
So down an damn? I mean there's also Amber too, season three.
Eleven, going down down, Oh there it is. It is a podcast where we take a deep dap into america Share consciousness, and of course America's share consciousness is shot through with three eleven. Absolutely, it's Tuesday, October thirty first, twenty twenty three. What's that?
And think of something?
What is it like National Corn Dog Day or some shit.
National Girl Scouts Girl Scout Founders Day. Wow the audacity? Yeah? He also National Door National doorbell Day. Also also, I mean that makes sense, National Knock Knock Joke Day, National Magic Day, and Caramel Caramel Apple Day.
However you choose 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 It should not have its national day on October thirty first, And in fact, 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 look that thing around, you.
Can't log that thing around without just, you know, getting dry leaves stuck to it, you know.
Oh, you mean like it's not even in a like yeah, just a loose 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 thirty person, they will think of us, the founders of the Girl Scouts. But anyways, Happy Halloween.
Yeah, every Oh it's it's you know why, Jack, It's the birthday of the founder. 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 p of my pants roller coaster theme daycare. So here we go.
And I don't want my wife to see me because I don't think that she don understand. Sometimes when I ride on a coaster, I get often there's pee in my pants.
That is courtesy of the Brew. Thank you the Brew Zaich gang. Keep them coming, and I'm thrilled to be joined as always by my co host mister Miles.
Grab Miles Great aka Bones in Doll, scales me, bones and do help me, Bones and do might be? I fear this is the end? He is, shout out to eye alone by live. I remember I've alone. He was a huge fan of that song. Shout out to first one five to two on the discord before the high alone can fix it. Yeah and yeah again Bones and Doll. Because I didn't know the thing the movie Bones and Doll again you already heard. I thought it was a movie.
Called Bones in Doll, Bones in Doll. It was much scarier the Chucky movie. If Chucky had bones in him would have been a lot scarier, harder to wrestle with that. That was always my question, that'f this man is two pounds and full of stuffing? How come they can't just boot him?
Clear cross right, right right. Maybe he's as dense as you know, like you know, like a one ton of carbon or someth.
Maybe there is bones in that doll. I actually don't know. Yeah, I get 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 full Bright Fellow, a Fellow with the International Women's Media Foundation, and 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 focuses on the long documented history of government discrimination against black farmers. Please welcome to the show, April Simpson.
April Welcome, April welcomes.
I'm really glad to be here.
Happy Halloween. Happy, Yeah do you celebrate?
I don't, but I have a daughter now and he will be.
Oh yeah, okay, hold thanks six months. Okay, So I'm a nine month old and we're doing the same thing. And part the whole time, I was really conflicted about costumes because I'm like, this child is not select this costume, and we're now reducing it to a live action doll. But but i mean, if seeing him in a woody costume didn't bring a tear to my eye, you know, wow, Yeah, that was the one that was very flammable, by the way, that I was, Okay, 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 Halloween?
Well, first, congrats to you too. I think he's gonna love it. He's going to be a butterfly. Wow, it could be fun. Yeah, but I think you know, babies brings so much joy to other people, so that yeah, 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, A nice try. Yeah, I would have contrived outshit this is It's just it's always like, oh, like I remember I went somewhere else in someone was like, there's a baby here dressed like toy story. 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 they're amazing Halloween costumes. Absolutely, all right, we're going to talk to you April about
the heightst 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's you're up to.
Sorry, I'm still on 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 longer than two to three hour stretch?
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 I don't think that's it's okay?
We give them a lot of room to run around in there, right, even give them crawling tubes?
What anything? Anything good? Have you found anything helpful?
I mean your answer, no, But the only thing that seems to help is like really loading her up with food at night. I mean to the point that it seems a little like this is a little bit much. But 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 comfortable. Yeah, Oh, you mean just feeling. Do you ever do like the dream feed you know? Yeah, that, yeah, and just see how wrong we can pro like prolong the bit of sleep. Yeah, I wish baby, Yeah, I wish for sleep full nights for yeah, because I know that it's it's so disorienting too, like especially early on, and I remember like becoming existential, Like have I made a terrible error in bringing life into this world and being completely unable to like like contend with the schedule.
But it's I'm sure it will even have it always it always Yeah, 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 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 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 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 you go back and listen to this and remind yourself every every fifteen minutes. Right, But yeah, we were surprised that we have a five and a seven year old. And 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 her right, Like, you know, like I felt like every time we were talking to people have given birth and like what is 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? 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.
What is something that you think is overrated?
April candy corn?
Thank you? No, No, we're on a roller. We're on a candy corn roller coaster, and I promise not to pee my pin. But we we have had people saying overrated. We've had people saying underrated. Yeah, but more the first time. Yeah, most people do not like candy corn. I do. I think it's little pebbles of icing, and I like icing. I like a cupcake that has the most icing on.
It, so you feel like you're eating a three week old cake. Yes, sitting out in the sun, You're like, ooh, this is my favorite part, the trusted thrusting. 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 I can just hang out for too long and that's dangerous, right.
Right, You're said there's something unnatural about handy corn. It's not that it shouldn't be.
I should not being it as a vegetable called corn april. That's operative work.
That's a problem too. Yeah, it's deceiving.
Yes, Yeah, I 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 they'll be like, yo, candy Corse sucks. Yeah, And it was just like for me, a little too aggressive. I'm not a fan of candy corn, but 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 fac I took that as an act of violence basically.
Yeah, and I took personally, Yeah, do you got what top three candies? Do you do? You remember your top three candies from trigger Tree and break it down?
Break it down.
I mean I always love Eminem's.
Okay, standards, straight yeah, straightforward eminems.
Just then where are we talking? Put?
No, I like the straightforward ones? And then don't they have ones with like extra chocolate in them?
Now 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 mean?
Oh?
Yeah, double chocolate Eminem's.
What's that? I can see where I could see an eminem where instead of peanuts they have the regular Eminem's in the middle, you know what I mean? Sorry, I just got so excited.
About eminem is inside the peanut Eminem so classic Eminem's like in the yes, yes, Why is this making me so happy?
I think it's so it's so overboard that you're like, yes, yes, go on.
Doubles Company, double candy shell double chocolate.
Comparently it's mixed. It's dark and milk chocolate from what I so? Okay, okay, so Eminem that's one number two.
I like milky way.
It's pretty diment Yeah, no matter that I.
Like ps or the cups, the cps cups.
Yeah, it's funny how we all say we have to say pieces. Yes, even though I do.
This too, it sounds like he's giving you a backhanded like no, no, But we have some of us, but we have all said pieces and they all say pecs because it just feels like, why mess it up when we can 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.
Yeah, I'm pretty.
I think we've covered our rankings before. But I'm gonna I'm gonna say peanut butter cups, I'm gonna say milky way, and I'm gonna say blow pops. I'm gonna throw and blow pops the world up.
Blow pops are definitely the superior non chocolate candy. Wow, any anything. My thing is chocolate above everything else. 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 even like mombos or you know sour like the blow Pop and.
I think it's the same with which you said, mom Ah, I just don't like them, don't like them.
But but the Blowpop commercials from the early nineties, I think that's why, because everybody was like, yo, look at like it was that fell zany.
So you just crunch into that ship soft center.
And then you have April where you at with Tutsi Pops and Tutsi Rolls.
I like Potze Rolls. I'm not such a fan of the pops, but I like the pot cereals.
Do they Do you consider that a chocolate or you consider that like a usurper that is passable?
You know?
I think I considered it a chocolate.
Wow.
I think that's the difference between people who like Tootsy Rolls and don't is 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 gonna speak.
Think you think you've 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 as healing.
Oh okay, good. So many people are like from La that come on the show that everyone's like it's underrated, is like because we need it really, But that part also is the best part is like what just the pitter pattern 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.
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 wish I was just able to like stay inside all the time and like watch movies NonStop. 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, don't pretend to be and Jock.
I can just yeah, watch that's wild 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, 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 you would always when I was playing hockey or other. She's like, you're not playing this because you think I want you to write because I don't. Yeah. He's like, because I don't like waking up at five am to do weird parts of the city.
And I'm like, 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 a Yeah.
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, and 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 it 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. And you know, at that time Trump was president, there were like subsidies basically that were given to farmers when there was a trade war with China, right to help keep them on their feed. And there was you know, 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 role 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 you know, learn more about Pickford versus Clickman was, which was this big class action lawsuit Black farmers were sex s full and the I guess the first installment in the late nineties, nineteen ninety nine, and doing that work, you know, led me to CPI and trying to like not sound super wonky about it but.
Not yet.
Go wonk And hearing a farmer who actually recently passed away. His names Eddie Slaughter.
He's passed away.
Oh yeah, yeah, he passed away, like end of September. It just happened.
Yeah, I'm sad to hear that.
Yeah, that I mean, like this story is so it It like it touches intersex with so many issues that the United States has been the cause of and never the solution to. And it's the whole journey that you sort of take listeners on is really fantastic because, like Jack said, like when I hear like when I hear people talking about big agricaul, 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 one in 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 twentieth 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 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, Nee 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 you know, get 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 four 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, and a lot of those folks. Cotton was huge, so a lot of them were cotton farmers. Some of them were also in cattle farm and Bully ended up and they really you know, paid for Bully, right. Their money was what was making the town prosperous. And Bowley 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
that ended up changing for a number of reasons. But Bullie, it was one of fifty black towns at the time.
Yeah, and it's just so so devastating to the central narrative of white supremacy, like the existence of this thriving town that like, if white supremacists allow this town to exist, is able to thrive and have this amazing community and also like kind of devastating to some of the central tenants of capitalists, like individualism and capitalism where there's this you know, we 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 coordinarrative of the American mainstream in a lot of ways that are probably scary to powerful people.
Right. It's it's also like like hearing about that era too, where you know, these these communities were thriving and here like that the change came once you know, like once statehood occurred and now Oklahoma was going to be like basically get like the other states were like enacting 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 happened that are kind of that begins sort of this momentum even further.
Yeah, so Oklahoma became a state nineteen oh seven, it starts passing these gim Crow laws, and but Bully did thrive for a little bit longer. But then there are a lot of economic things that happened, right There was the Great Depression. There was a bull Levil that you
the cotton. There was the Agricultural Adjustment Act of in the thirties that limited the amount of cotton a farmer could produce those that were sharecropper, and folks 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.
A lot of the folks there, and like the local historians say that even though there was this Jim Crow violence happening outside of Bowley, not even that far outside of Bully, because there were sundowntowns very close, it Bully felt, you know, kind of protected, but it's still that fear, that violence that's happening just outside. All 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 the season is talking about just the decline and discrimination in black farm and black farmers have had to face. Can you
like there's some pretty staggering statistics. I think people should kind of like hear first, like as we dive into this is what, like what was the state of black farmers like in its prime as opposed to right now, just so we can give ourselves an idea of like how aggressive this process has been.
So around the turn of the century when we know, you 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 three hundred and twenty six billion in land and wealth from nineteen twenty to nineteen ninety seven, which is a huge, huge number.
And we know that the number of black farmers has dropped sixty seven percent since nineteen hundred, so that's that's a pretty big one now as well, Black farmers now are only about one point four percent of all farmers, suggests.
A tiny number, and that that was not the case and like leading up to the nineteen twenties was not like one point four percent.
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. We've 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 boll 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, But in this case there's just a differ standard of one to intervene and how easy it is to get government assistants and then like what happens once you get that government assistance.
Yeah, I mean, obviously there's racial violence that had a pardon 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 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 as 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 the 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 sort of how the us like 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 creditworthy, 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 you know, out in the market.
Right.
So that was, you know, one way that affected black farmers. Another is loan officers have a lot of discretion and deciding who gets lows and who doesn't, and how supportive they can be when that farmer is in trouble and they're 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 were like kind of behind the scenes or at least how to 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 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 know that. The trickier question is to what extent is this happening now? Like to what extent has it continued? And people like me, obviously through his experience, feel like it has. You know, other folks would argue that USAA has done a number of things to try to rectify this that I guess the 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 like the transition from the from nineteen twenty to the late nineties. 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 like the us DA just gets to use their own
judgment to make financial decisions. But 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 things outside of the Deep South traditional Deep South, And you know there's stories Oklahoma elsewhere are folks kind of abandoning their property because of fear of racial violence from white farmers, white landowners. So I mean that's that's kind of outside of USDA, but that's something that's functioned to dispossess black farmers as well.
Yeah, USDA, I mainly knew prior to this for like grating my eggs and meat, right kind of my experience with the USDA. But truly like they've set up this Kafka esque like just system like that there's one scene where they discover like that this USDA Civil Rights agency that they've been sending their complaints to the office just
like 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 the letters as evidence because they never open. Like basically the logic is like they never open 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 laa Okay, 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 like it was crazy to hear about. Yeah.
Yeah. During with the Oregan 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 reading them. 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 no one to address them.
Right, And it's again like it feels like the USDA is just like another example of many other agencies or institutions that like after decades of discriminatory behavior, they'll be like, oh, yeah, it turns out we may have been doing some bad stuff.
And then it just kind of feels like it sort of peters out there because it felt like, especially when discussing the Pickford for versus Clickman, right, is the case that there was a moment for this to potentially create some kind of sea change, but it just it just didn't.
And a lot of that, I'm sure too, like as you ex like as the reporting shows, like the in the show is that a lot of it too is also like by design, by like offering these farmers, like when the like 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.
Yeah, So there was a settlement agreement and so this case never went to trial, so farmers never had the opportunity to really like tell their case in court, but they decided on the settlement that didn't actually require USDA to come out and say, you know, 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 paper where they had just proved some level of discrimination and they would get fifty thousand dollars. 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 like a mini trial. They had to show that their damages were greater than fifty thousand dollars, 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 forgive. Now, yes, 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 two percent or less than two percent went with truck b Wow. And in the end, a lot of folks didn't end up who went with TRACKA 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 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 like 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 fifty thousand dollars settlement from the USDA. Like the it just feels like never ending, and like the frustration that comes out in some of these these people's voice is 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 I like to farm, and we're not given this opportunity, And and every other turn, it feels like they have to constantly fight just to not have their their their 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 like the land is,
Like it's sometimes it's not even about the money. It's the fact that 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 I like listening to it, I wanted to like scream half the time.
I would say it made me angry. Necessarily, I think sometimes 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 one hundred years ago. To have it now is like it's huge.
So yeah, it's I mean, 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 you kind of leave things at the end of the show 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, like there's this shift where they feel like they still need to center white farmers, like 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 that the Pickford Settlement, they're actually two. There was a second one for folks who didn't make it to the first. So the first settlement was like nineteen ninety nine. The next one I think was around twenty ten. And there's still this looming issue of the debt. A lot of Pickford claimants that I've spoken to at least they you know, they talk about how Eddie talk about how this debt has really affected them moving forward or in 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 those 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 farm 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 Steven Miller from the Trump administration, and you know, they argued this program is discriminatory against racially discriminatory against US white farmers. A federal judge ended up putting 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 can show discrimination and farmlann 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, is it's funny like when the episode or I'm hearing about like the Pickford Care, Like, Okay, maybe 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, right, and I think like we kind of glossed over this, but so many of the farmers they begin there farming
by receiving a loan to even start this like this business, to get to 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
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 are the farmers looking at do they feel there's progress or even from your perspective from the outside, is there any progress being made on actually addressing this.
I mean, from my reporting, I would argue that there is some progress being made. I mean, the Biden administration did try to do a race based program and it didn't work. It's not in the court. The federal judge blocked it, so it didn't work, and then they changed course and did something that is color blind, but does essentially appear to reach a good number of black farmers.
You know, it's reaching the moneys, are reaching folks who are behind on their loan payments, and then it's paying some of those you know, 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 like, I mean, yes, these things are helpful, but there is an argum meant to be made that because of all this history of discrimination and how multi generational farming is and the depths of my grandfather I might be carrying today, right, that there should be some race based remedy instead.
Right. And again it's like it's 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 was sixteen trillion dollars 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
we're at what point is it going to? Yeah, as 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 is the economist in question. She said the toll of racism against Black Americans economic racism against Black Americans at sixteen trillion dollars over just the past two decades. Like that's just in two decades, right, and are staggering? Yeah?
Yeah, So I mean like at the end, how how like what is the outlook 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. 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 Pastor, I'm like, Eddie passed away, 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 actually humanity of it at that level, the human level is is really like eye opening and inspirational.
But is it like are people like Nate feeling like 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.
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 like helpful some of these more recent changes are going to be. But we also farmers are also operating in like a high inflation environment. The cost of everything that's gone up, A lot of this 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 I mean, Nate is just kind of the type of person that's always gonna 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 others 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 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, 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 are the kinds of things we should keep in mind aside from the ongoing justices 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, but I mean there's some great resources out there with the Environmental Working Group has like a list of all these documents that are really helpful at understanding the plight of black farmers and the
relationship with USDA. There's a wonderful book by Pete Daniel called This Possession that talks about this history as well. And I mean, when you read like 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 like this color blind 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 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 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 Act case and the modern kind of orthodoxy in the mainstream government where it's like, well, we're just color blind and we'll help anyone in need, not just because we now starting now don't see race, right, you know, even though.
If you ask for documents like that was another really frustrating thing, Like you were filing for your request 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 or like you're not gonna 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.
I mean there have been other Foyer requests that I file that I've gotten a response on, but not with that that particular request that where we talk about, which just makes it really difficult to understand the extent black farmers have been getting, you know, specific loans, or the extent that they any amount of those loans, just you know, really how they're operating in this larger and.
Dire 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, if there it's rural spaces, there are 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 guy.
Yeah, so that would be USDA's argument that you know, 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.
Right, 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 public Integrity dot org. You can follow me on Twitter at April Latissia.
I like, thank you for calling on Twitter, if not Twitter or 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 davy quick thing 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 okay, seeing what I can hit.
Oh yeah, nice, sounds about right, sounds about right.
Miles Where can people find you? Is there a worker media you've been enjoying?
Find me Twitter formally x and Instagram. Other at based platforms, Miles of Gray. If you like basketball, you can check out our basketball podcast Miles and jack out mathbost. I feel like ninety day Fiance. Check out my ninety Day Fiance podcast for twenty day Fiance. 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, uh, work of media, Like I just started watching the goose Bumps show that was like
on no as they rebooted it. So as a geriatric millennial, I see the goose Bumps font and I have a reaction because I was like, my one of my favorite book series, and it's kind of it's it's interesting. I'm only a two episodes in, but it's doing something freaky with it. That's 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 ghost bumps 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.
Yeah, that's a squash, that's a lemon.
That's a lemon. Dude, Come on, what hell yellow?
It does? Crack that thing open?
And Ben Rosen at Ben Underscore Rosen tweeted, forget it, Jake, it's giving China Town. You can find me on Twitter at Jack Underscore O'Brian. You can find us on Twitter at daily Zeikeeist for a d Daily Zeitgeist on Instagram. We have a Facebook campage and a website daily zeikeist dot com, where we post our episodes and our footnotes. We link off to the information that we talked about today is so as well as a song that we think you might enjoy. Miles what song on this Halloween.
Oh hallo z E do you think about I 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 said really dope track. She's a I like, I like whispery vocals over like a good backbeat and that's exactly what this provides. So this is Andromeda by Ethyl.
Whispers or Create Our Spooky. The Andromeda Strain is a scary book.
My dad may tried to make me watch that movie as a kid. It was like one of those old people movies.
He's like, you're gonna like this, This one is gonna blow your hairbag.
Son.
I was like, this is gonna make me fall asleep and question whether or not there were actual good movies back then.
Well. The Daily Zey Guy is the production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from My Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio ab Apple podcast or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. That's gonna do it for us this morning, back this afternoon to tell you what is trending and we will touch you out the bight,