news
THE MICHIGAN CHRONICLE
August 4-10, 2010
Page A-3
Second Front Despite Sherrod case, Black farmers still get the shaft BLACKAMERICAWEB —
Black farmers, due $1.2 billion for a legacy of discrimination by the Agriculture Depart- ment, suffered a new and dis- heartening setback this week, despite the national spotlight provided by the quickly dis- avowed firing of a Black de- partment worker.
The Senate refused again to
pay the bill. Opponents say it’s a ques-
tion of where the money would come from, and that’s a a major issue with an election nearing and voters up in arms about federal spending.
Late Thursday, the Senate
stripped $1.2 billion for the claims from an emergency spending bill, along with $3.4 billion in long-overdue funding for a settlement with Ameri- can Indians who say they were swindled out of royalties by the federal government.
Even the attention the Shir-
ley Sherrod case brought to the issue of discrimination at the Agriculture Department couldn’t bring lawmakers together on a deal. Instead, Republicans and Democrats alike proclaimed their support for the funding — appeasing important constituencies — while blaming the other side for not getting anything done.
The result: Thousands of Black farmers and Indian land-
owners will keep waiting for checks that most lawmakers agree should have been writ- ten years ago.
“If you say you support
us, then, damn it, do it!” said John Boyd, a Virginia farmer and the lead organizer for the Black farmers’ lawsuits.
Sherrod’s resignation
under pressure from the Ag- riculture Department over her comments about race, and the subsequent White House apol- ogy, brought fresh attention to the Black farmers’ claims. In explaining why he acted so hastily in asking her to resign, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vil- sack said he and the depart- ment were keenly sensitive to the issue of discrimination and race given the agency’s dismal track record on civil rights.
It’s a record that Vil-
sack routinely describes as “sordid.”
For decades, minority farm-
ers have complained of being shut out by local Agriculture offices, well after the days of blatant segregation. African- Americans, for example, com- plained that loan committees across the rural South were dominated by White “good ol’ boys” networks that gave the vast majority of loans and di- saster aid to Whites while of- fering scraps to Blacks.
Sherrod herself was a
claimant in a case against the department. She had been part of a cooperative that won a $13 million settlement just last year.
The department also has
faced persistent complaints of racism and discrimination in its own hiring, and gov- ernment audits going back two decades have found that complaints often sit for years without attention. The Gov- ernment Accountability Office — an independent federal watchdog — reported in 2008, for example, that the Agri- culture Department was still issuing misleading reports about discrimination and still didn’t have a firm handle on how many complaints were outstanding or how they were resolved.
The auditors said their find-
ings raised questions about whether the department took the issue seriously.
Vilsack and his boss
— President Barack Obama — say they do, and they have acted far more aggressively than the Bush administration to resolve minority settle- ments.
The blockade has come in
Congress. Leaders in both parties say
they support the funding but things break down when they
try to hash out how to pay. The money for both the
black farmers and the Indian landowners was stripped from the Senate war-funding bill Thursday after the House had passed it earlier this month. Senate Republicans objected to a variety of other Democrat- ic priorities as well, insisting they be paid for rather than adding to the federal deficit.
Democrats have offered a
variety of proposals, including one package that included tax increases on oil companies and multinational companies. Republicans have objected, calling instead for spending cuts elsewhere.
“This is an interesting game
we’re playing around here,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said Thursday when asked about the Black farmers’ money, arguing that Republicans are simply stall- ing the funding.
A spokesman for Senate
Republican Leader Mitch Mc- Connell (R-Ky.) disagreed that Republicans are stalling and noted that several Democrats also voted against consider- ation of the whole package of add-ons, including the black farmers’ money. The final bill was passed by unanimous consent.
“There was no game, only an unanimous, bipartisan
Bust of First Lady Obama to be shown in New York
An artist’s bust of First Lady Michelle Obama, her hair shaped
into a wavy crown adorned with a stone-encrusted Afro pick, is set to debut this fall in New York.
Leo Kesting Gallery in Manhattan, where the sculpture will
be displayed from Oct. 1 - 10, in its press release, says, “First Lady Michelle Obama receives an ‘Inaugural Ball’ makeover for providing a makeover to the face of the US. The sexy, bare-shoul- dered style-enhancement highlights Obama’s ethnicity to create a new fashion template for the 21st Century first lady.”
Called “Michelle Obama’s Makeover for America,” the bust
also depicts Obama with an American flag engraved into her chest, large hoop earrings hanging above it.
“The goal is to create a look for Michelle Obama that elimi-
nates excessive comparisons to Jackie Kennedy,” Edwards has said, “like supermodel Tyra Banks’ photos in Harper’s Bazaar, or the puzzling comment from CBS’s Byron Pitts that recom- mended ‘less Jackee, more Jackie O.’”
The bust is the latest installment of sculptor Daniel Ed-
wards’s “Inspire America” series. The Indiana-born provocateur is also known for his bust of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and life-sized statue of pop singer Britney Spears nude, giving birth on her hands and knees atop a bearskin rug. Among his less controversial works are sculptures of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy for the Landmark for Peace Memorial in Indianapolis.
President Barack Obama visited Detroit last Friday to tout the success of his administration aiding the automotive indus-
President Obama in Detroit
vote,” said McConnell spokes- man Don Stewart.
The Black farmers’ settle-
ment is the second round of damages stemming from a class-action lawsuit the gov- ernment originally settled in 1999. The new money is in- tended for people who were denied earlier payments be- cause they missed deadlines for filing. Individual payments will depend on how many claims are successfully filed.
The Agriculture Depart-
ment also faces further law- suits from Hispanic and Indian farmers.
In the Indian landowners’
case, the plaintiffs claim they were swindled out of royal- ties overseen by the Interior Department since 1887 for things like oil, gas, grazing and timber. The settlement,
14 years in the making, must be approved by Congress.
Boyd said the farmers he
works with don’t care about the machinations of Congress. All they see is a dysfunctional body that can’t get a broadly supported goal accomplished. The farmers don’t have the lob- byists and fat campaign con- tributions that get lawmakers’ attention, he said.
Willie Adams, a 60-year-
old farmer who’s been raising chickens all his life in Greens- boro, Ga., said he’s had to let his farm sit idle in recent months because he doesn’t have money to invest and can’t get loans.
“I don’t like it one bit,” he
said of the latest delay. “Basi- cally they just don’t want to pay the farmers.”
STATE OF MICHIGAN
BEFORE THE MICHIGAN PUBLIC SERVICE COMMISSION
NOTICE **** OF HEARING
FOR THE CUSTOMERS OF MICHIGAN CONSOLIDATED GAS COMPANY CASE NO. U-16400
BASED UPON A $51.1 MILLION REQUEST, A TYPICAL RESIDENTIAL CUSTOMER’S AVERAGE NATURAL GAS BILL MAY INCREASE BY ABOUT $2.28 PER MONTH.
DATE/TIME:
BEFORE: LOCATION:
try. These are photo highlights from internationally known pho- tojournalist Monica Morgan.
PARTICIPATION:
michigan.gov/mpscedockets;
mpscedockets@michigan.gov
mpscedockets@michigan.gov
michigan.gov/mpscedockets;
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28