Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) said a lot of wild things during his Sunday morning media blitz. But one of his comments has received far less attention than the others: Vance described a federal program that has distributed nearly $2 billion to mostly Black farmers who experienced discrimination as “disgraceful,” suggesting that it is racist against white people.
And now, the head of the largest group of Black farmers across the country is condemning Vance’s assertions.
“He owes us an apology,” John Boyd, Jr., founder and president of the National Black Farmers Association, told me. The remarks, Boyd added, were “disgraceful, deplorable, dumb, degrading, and disrespectful to the nation’s Black farmers, the oldest occupation in history for Black people.”
or the fact that theres still black Americans who support people like him and the republicans, then have the audacity to act shocked when conservatives go full racist against them again
I frankly think that unfortunately, a lot of people on the left have leaned into this by trying to categorize people by skin color and then give special benefits or special amounts of discrimination. The Harris Administration, for example, handed out farm benefits to people based on skin color. I think that’s disgraceful. I don’t think we should say, you get farm benefits if you’re a Black farmer, you don’t get farm benefits if you’re a white farmer. All farmers, we want to thrive, and that’s certainly the President Trump and JD Vance view of the situation.
But Vance’s assertions here are an inaccurate portrayal of the Discrimination Financial Assistance Program, the federal program established through the Inflation Reduction Act. Contrary to Vance’s claim, applicants were not limited to Black farmers; Any farmer who had experienced discrimination by the US Department of Agriculture—including based on sexual orientation or gender identity, religion, age, or disability—was eligible to apply.
The best part comes before this, when the author asked the Vance campaign for a comment. They didn't give one, but specifically Asked Mother Jones to quote his entire statement.
Which they did, and then the author explained exactly why the statement was bullshit.
You see a feral cat injured in the road so you rush over to see if you can help. Despite your good intentions, it delivers a deluge of deep scratches and medically significant puncture wounds from a few well-placed bites.
Perhaps you feel the cat owes you an apology since your intentions were good and you had hoped to be its friend. I would argue if you expected an apology then you were clearly delusional or willfully ignorant, either way not a good thing.
I suppose what I'm saying is, good luck on getting a sincere apology National Black Farmers Association.
A spokesperson for Vance also did not respond to questions from *Mother Jones *beyond requesting that we include the senator’s full remarks . . .
I frankly think that unfortunately, a lot of people on the left have leaned into this by trying to categorize people by skin color . . . All farmers, we want to thrive, and that’s certainly the President Trump and JD Vance view of the situation.
Ruh roh, Rhaggy! If you’re putting out statements putting yourself on-peer with Donny Two Scoops . . . that’s a paddlin’.
Somebody’s gonna be receiving a burnt ketchup steak frisbee soon.
Correct. JD Vance said a thing on Sunday. The founder of the National Black Farmers Association responded. Mother Jones then wrote an article about it on Friday. This is a fairly standard sequence of events for the news. Except, of course, in that old tv show, Early Edition, about the guy who'd get tomorrow's newspaper today and then have to prevent some tragedy from happening in every episode.
Given that they were closer to the Sunday happening in roughly 3-7 hours from now than the Sunday in question, I think it’d have been handy to say “last Sunday”. Yes, that is the obvious conclusion, but when talking about the trump campaign it’s better to be clear because the most bizarre story or quote has a pretty good chance of being true.
A “fairly standard sequence” would be to have written it last Monday, but apparently the head of the NBFA replied only . . . what, Friday the 16th? It doesn’t say. It says he “told me”, and that’s it.
Yes. The article, published on Friday, is about the founder of the National Black Farmers Association responding to something JD Vance said on Sunday. This should not be confusing you this much.