Here is some insight to "Change." This is a tidbit of the history of racism in the U.S. What most will find after reading this as an injustice is how our President is ignoring one race in favor of another and neither one involved is white.
The USDA delayed loans for farmers until so late in the season the farmers were not able to produce a crop worthy of creating enough money to repay the loan. After several years of this the government would foreclose on the farms. These farmers that received the appealed, then late loans were of the non- white race.
In 1997, then-Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman testified before Congress and conceded a long history of discrimination in the loan program. He talked about "good people who lost their family land, not because of a bad crop, not because of a flood, but because of the color of their skin."
"[Agriculture] Secretary [Tom] Vilsack often talks about how the department is known in some quarters as 'The Last Plantation.' That's a reputation that's unfortunate and one we intend to fix," says Justin Dejong, Vilsack's spokesman. "By empowering the Office of Civil Rights at the USDA, Secretary Vilsack is laying the foundation for people to be treated better in the future."
Soon after President Reagan took office in the early 1980s, the USDA's civil rights division was quietly dismantled. Nevertheless, the agency continued to tell farmers that if they felt they weren't getting loans because of their color or gender, they should file a complaint. But for the next 14 years, those complaints were put into an empty government office and never investigated. By the 1990s, black farmers filed a lawsuit — Pigford v. Glickman. Because the USDA failed to investigate years of discrimination complaints, U.S. District Judge Paul Friedman certified the black farmers' case as a class action. And with that ruling, rather than risk a trial, the federal government settled with 15,000 black farmers for $1 billion.
The next year, Hispanic farmers filed their lawsuit. And although their discrimination complaints had been thrown into the same empty USDA office, the judge in their case decided the Hispanic farmers would not be allowed to sue as a class.
The federal government has opposed them in court for the past nine years. Matthew Miller, spokesman for the Justice Department, is forthright about the government's reasoning.
"Unlike in the Pigford case, the court has rejected the plaintiff's request for class certification," he says. "Which means their claims will all be litigated on an individual basis. Because of that, because of the judge's ruling, we will not be able to negotiate a class wide settlement."
It's the same response from the USDA. The government is open to settling individual claims on a case-by-case basis, but unlike the black farmers, there will be no settlement as a group for Hispanics. This response — that it's not the principle of the thing but the legal ruling that matters most — outrages the Hispanic farmers. What's made them even more furious is that within months after taking office, President Obama decided that the $1 billion the government has already given to the black farmers is insufficient, and he's requesting an additional $1.25 billion for them.
It's been a bitter disappointment to the Hispanic farmers who fought the Bush Justice Department for eight years. They thought it was going be different after Obama was elected.
"It makes no sense legally, morally or even politically to treat these farmers the way they have thus far been treated," says Stephen Hill, lead counsel for the Hispanic farmers. "The claims are exactly the same as the claims as the black farmers, and they're entitled to the same recompense for their injuries."
If the media is going to consider town hall participants that oppose the current administration as racists, then who would this indict?
I am not happy with most of what goes on in the world.
I am happy with my work, wife, family, home and the activites that I pursue in order to remain in a level state of conscience. Racism is all around and if you dont participate then you have done all you can do to stop it, everything else only throws gas on the oppositions fire.
I pray tonight for the people on The Biggest Loser as well as everyone that is battling the war over weight control. Amen.
I have a hard time dealing with others
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