Rep. Sam Graves complains about COVID-19 aid for farmers — but only if they’re Black?

Hypocrisy and doublespeak are old traditions in Congress. Sometimes, though, the contradictions are so egregious they have to be brought to the public’s attention.

The COVID-19 relief bill now working its way through the Senate includes $5 billion set aside to help Black farmers. Some of the money would go to direct relief, and some would go to improve the practices of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

There can be no doubt that Black farmers need the help. There were more than 925,000 of them in 1920, according to the Black Farmers’ Network. There are fewer than 36,000 today. Those numbers have plummeted largely because of decades of racist practices at the USDA and from private entities.

Black farmers have been denied access to credit, cheated of their land, humiliated and otherwise discouraged from agriculture as a career.

“These farmers went through decades of discrimination,” said Dan Glickman, who should know — he’s a former U.S. secretary of agriculture, and heavily involved in prior lawsuits addressing the bigotry.

“It was neglected at the highest levels,” he said. “I was on the Agriculture Committee for 18 years in the House. Not one hearing on this issue.”

The COVID-19 bill makes a belated, and underfunded, attempt to right those wrongs.

So imagine the reaction Thursday when Rep. Sam Graves of Missouri’s 6th District went to Facebook to complain about money set aside in the bill to help Black farmers.

“What happened to equal protection under the law? This is wrong and un-American,” Graves’ post said.

Where to begin?

The whole reason for the measure is to provide relief for thousands of Black farmers and their families who have been denied equal protection under the law for decades. “Forty acres and a mule. The government broke that promise to African American farmers,” U.S. District Judge Paul Friedman wrote in 1999.

Racism is wrong and un-American, too. The nation tried to correct the injustice in 1999 when it settled a discrimination lawsuit filed by Black farmers, but it wasn’t nearly enough.

But the hypocrisy doesn’t stop there. Records compiled by the Environmental Working Group show Graves’ farming family has taken more than $660,000 in federal agriculture subsidies since 1995 alone. More important, the database shows taxpayers have shelled out $5 billion in subsidies to farmers in Graves’ 6th District since 1995.

That’s right. In 25 years, the mostly white farmers just in Graves’ district took as much taxpayer money as the COVID-19 bill would send to Black farmers in the entire United States.

Where is the equal protection in that? Graves’ office did not answer a request for comment.

We get it. Sam Graves voted against the COVID-19 relief bill. Apparently, sending $5 billion to the nation’s overwhelmingly white farmers is fine, but $1,400 for you is socialism. Also, a Democrat is now president, so deficits matter.

But he should not attack an obvious, belated attempt to shore up Black farmers, who have suffered for decades. Graves claims to support farmers, but this incident suggests those farmers must be of a certain color.

This story was originally published March 5, 2021 at 10:37 AM.