Pigford: It's the Fraud, Stupid (Not Race)

The whole Pigford affair brings up a host of issues that need to be addressed. Was there racial discrimination at the U.S. Department of Agriculture? All the sources we talked to said yes. Was there a need to redress the issue when necessary? Again, all the sources we talked to said yes. Has there been massive fraud? Everyone we spoke with said yes. Estimates of how bad it is range from 50% of claims to 90%.

Recently Anderson Cooper on CNN reported and accepted Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack’s claim that there were only three cases of fraud in Pigford. Where did Vilsack get his numbers? He must have Googled for them. Obviously his office isn’t capable of even basic research. Nor apparently is CNN, which didn’t challenge him on the question. There are FBI files in Little Rock, Arkansas, which demonstrate instances of fraudulent claims. We’ve spoken with an FBI agent who say the files are there and available. Even black activist organizations that support Pigford have acknowledged that many of the people signing up and receiving Pigford checks never farmed. Eddie Slaughter, with the Black Farmers and Agriculturalists Association, has looked at the USDA numbers which show that there are far more claims than there were black farmers in America. He has said, “What that means is that most of these people were never farmers, because the farmers had loans.” Another organization, Concerned Black Farmers of Tennessee, tracked 70 individual Pigford claims in Tipton County and found that 63 percent of those that were approved had no records to establish that they had ever even farmed. Yet, each of those individuals received a check from the USDA for $50,000.

So why has this massive fraud been ignored? Politicians have used Pigford to curry favor with constituents and their voters. Activist groups have used it to gain a financial advantage. Activists such as Black Farmers and Agriculturalists of America’s Gary Grant say it’s okay if non-farmers get checks. “If you are an African-American, you deserve $50,000 because your roots are in farming and your folks have already been cheated,” he says. “You are collecting what your grandparents didn’t have the opportunity to.” Where do I sign up? There must be something that happened to my ancestors a long time ago that warrants U.S. taxpayers people giving me checks now.

Pigford is not about race–it’s about fraud and justice. We do an injustice to the real victims by allowing fraudulent claims get equal treatment. And we do an injustice to hardworking taxpayers if we don’t investigate these matters thoroughly.