Speaker 1: Hello the Internet, and welcome to season three eleven, episode
Speaker 1: two of Daly's Guys Day production of iHeart Radio. Uh
Speaker 1: timely three eleven reference, I don't know what was there?
Speaker 2: So down an damn? I mean there's also Amber too,
Speaker 2: season three.
Speaker 1: Eleven, going down down, Oh there it is. It is
Speaker 1: a podcast where we take a deep dap into america
Speaker 1: Share consciousness, and of course America's share consciousness is shot
Speaker 1: through with three eleven. Absolutely, it's Tuesday, October thirty first,
Speaker 1: twenty twenty three. What's that?
Speaker 2: And think of something?
Speaker 1: What is it like National Corn Dog Day or some shit.
Speaker 2: National Girl Scouts Girl Scout Founders Day. Wow the audacity? Yeah?
Speaker 2: He also National Door National doorbell Day. Also also, I
Speaker 2: mean that makes sense, National Knock Knock Joke Day, National
Speaker 2: Magic Day, and Caramel Caramel Apple Day.
Speaker 1: However you choose no thank you National Caramel Apple Day.
Speaker 1: We do not. It's just it doesn't work for trick
Speaker 1: or treating. It's a great treat that should not be
Speaker 1: It should not have its national day on October thirty first,
Speaker 1: And in fact, I think part of its problem is
Speaker 1: that it keeps trying to be a Halloween trick or
Speaker 1: treating treat when those days have.
Speaker 2: Passed and you can't look that thing around, you.
Speaker 1: Can't log that thing around without just, you know, getting
Speaker 1: dry leaves stuck to it, you know.
Speaker 2: Oh, you mean like it's not even in a like yeah,
Speaker 2: just a loose stick. Yeah. Yeah, you don't want that.
Speaker 1: The audacity of the founders of the Girl Scouts to
Speaker 1: be like, we got that, and when people think October
Speaker 1: thirty person, they will think of us, the founders of
Speaker 1: the Girl Scouts. But anyways, Happy Halloween.
Speaker 2: Yeah, every Oh it's it's you know why, Jack, It's
Speaker 2: the birthday of the founder. Yeah, pick a different birthday.
Speaker 1: Find a new angle. It's Halloween. It's Halloween. Baby, very
Speaker 1: very excited. We'll talk more about it on trends a
Speaker 1: little later, but excited, excited to be here.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: My name is Jack O'Brien AKA. Seems like I should
Speaker 1: have like a Monster Mash themed AKA, but cannot get
Speaker 1: up off of the p of my pants roller coaster
Speaker 1: theme daycare. So here we go.
Speaker 3: And I don't want my wife to see me because
Speaker 3: I don't think that she don understand. Sometimes when I
Speaker 3: ride on a coaster, I get often there's pee in
Speaker 3: my pants.
Speaker 1: That is courtesy of the Brew. Thank you the Brew
Speaker 1: Zaich gang. Keep them coming, and I'm thrilled to be
Speaker 1: joined as always by my co host mister Miles.
Speaker 2: Grab Miles Great aka Bones in Doll, scales me, bones
Speaker 2: and do help me, Bones and do might be? I
Speaker 2: fear this is the end? He is, shout out to
Speaker 2: eye alone by live. I remember I've alone. He was
Speaker 2: a huge fan of that song. Shout out to first
Speaker 2: one five to two on the discord before the high
Speaker 2: alone can fix it. Yeah and yeah again Bones and Doll.
Speaker 2: Because I didn't know the thing the movie Bones and
Speaker 2: Doll again you already heard. I thought it was a movie.
Speaker 1: Called Bones in Doll, Bones in Doll. It was much
Speaker 1: scarier the Chucky movie. If Chucky had bones in him
Speaker 1: would have been a lot scarier, harder to wrestle with that.
Speaker 1: That was always my question, that'f this man is two
Speaker 1: pounds and full of stuffing? How come they can't just
Speaker 1: boot him?
Speaker 2: Clear cross right, right right. Maybe he's as dense as
Speaker 2: you know, like you know, like a one ton of
Speaker 2: carbon or someth.
Speaker 1: Maybe there is bones in that doll. I actually don't know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I get I'm sure we find that out. Anyways, Miles,
Speaker 1: we are thrilled to be joined in our third seat
Speaker 1: by a senior reporter covering racial equity at the Center
Speaker 1: for Public Integrity. She's been a full Bright Fellow, a
Speaker 1: Fellow with the International Women's Media Foundation, and Innovations in
Speaker 1: Food and Agriculture Fellow with the National Press Foundation. And
Speaker 1: she's the host of the third season of The Heist,
Speaker 1: which is incredible focuses on the long documented history of
Speaker 1: government discrimination against black farmers. Please welcome to the show,
Speaker 1: April Simpson.
Speaker 2: April Welcome, April welcomes.
Speaker 4: I'm really glad to be here.
Speaker 1: Happy Halloween. Happy, Yeah do you celebrate?
Speaker 4: I don't, but I have a daughter now and he
Speaker 4: will be.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, okay, hold thanks six months. Okay, So I'm
Speaker 2: a nine month old and we're doing the same thing.
Speaker 2: And part the whole time, I was really conflicted about
Speaker 2: costumes because I'm like, this child is not select this costume,
Speaker 2: and we're now reducing it to a live action doll.
Speaker 2: But but i mean, if seeing him in a woody
Speaker 2: costume didn't bring a tear to my eye, you know, wow, Yeah,
Speaker 2: that was the one that was very flammable, by the way,
Speaker 2: that I was, Okay, dude, this woody costume it was.
Speaker 2: That was the one that was like reeking of like petroleum.
Speaker 2: I'm pretty sure it's like the most synthetic fabrics that
Speaker 2: have ever been made. So yeah, so how is your
Speaker 2: daughter liking the first Halloween?
Speaker 4: Well, first, congrats to you too. I think he's gonna
Speaker 4: love it. He's going to be a butterfly. Wow, it
Speaker 4: could be fun. Yeah, but I think you know, babies
Speaker 4: brings so much joy to other people, so that yeah,
Speaker 4: kind of the fun of it too.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that is true, because there's no one sees a
Speaker 2: cute baby dressed up and goes like that's so trite,
Speaker 2: A nice try. Yeah, I would have contrived outshit this
Speaker 2: is It's just it's always like, oh, like I remember
Speaker 2: I went somewhere else in someone was like, there's a
Speaker 2: baby here dressed like toy story. I guess, yeah, we'll
Speaker 2: take that.
Speaker 1: Oh that's so cute. Amazing those sound amazing. Congratulations to
Speaker 1: you both, and congratulations to every living human with a
Speaker 1: beating heart that runs into you on Halloween and gets
Speaker 1: to see your children and they're amazing Halloween costumes. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: all right, we're going to talk to you April about
Speaker 1: the heightst season three. But before we get to it,
Speaker 1: we do like to get to know our guests a
Speaker 1: little bit better, and so we are going to ask you,
Speaker 1: what is something from your search history that is revealing
Speaker 1: about who you are, where you are, what's you're up to.
Speaker 4: Sorry, I'm still on like the baby the baby stuff.
Speaker 2: Of course you are, we all are.
Speaker 4: My daughter doesn't sleep very long. It's only like every
Speaker 4: two to three hours and then she needs to be fed.
Speaker 4: And we've been doing this for six months. So I'm
Speaker 4: I'm really run down at this point and like looking
Speaker 4: for answers. So I searched something about like how to
Speaker 4: get a baby to sleep longer than two to three
Speaker 4: hour stretch?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Oh yeah, that's did you find? Have you found anything?
Speaker 2: There's like I feel like it's one of those things
Speaker 2: where you feel the answer is out there, but so
Speaker 2: many things are so specific to a child that it's
Speaker 2: like and people like I swear by this method and
Speaker 2: it's like, yeah, for your kid, right, you just put.
Speaker 1: Them in a rabbit cage and put formula in one
Speaker 1: of those drip bottles.
Speaker 2: Is that I don't think that's it's okay?
Speaker 1: We give them a lot of room to run around
Speaker 1: in there, right, even give them crawling tubes?
Speaker 2: What anything? Anything good? Have you found anything helpful?
Speaker 4: I mean your answer, no, But the only thing that
Speaker 4: seems to help is like really loading her up with
Speaker 4: food at night. I mean to the point that it
Speaker 4: seems a little like this is a little bit much.
Speaker 4: But the more we give her then we get like
Speaker 4: maybe a four hour stretch, which I did last night.
Speaker 1: But wow, it's like it's.
Speaker 2: A little comfortable. Yeah, Oh, you mean just feeling. Do
Speaker 2: you ever do like the dream feed you know? Yeah, that, yeah,
Speaker 2: and just see how wrong we can pro like prolong
Speaker 2: the bit of sleep. Yeah, I wish baby, Yeah, I
Speaker 2: wish for sleep full nights for yeah, because I know
Speaker 2: that it's it's so disorienting too, like especially early on,
Speaker 2: and I remember like becoming existential, Like have I made
Speaker 2: a terrible error in bringing life into this world and
Speaker 2: being completely unable to like like contend with the schedule.
Speaker 2: But it's I'm sure it will even have it always
Speaker 2: it always Yeah, and.
Speaker 4: Then another one, right, do you want another one?
Speaker 2: No? No, we came into this pretty clear. I'm an
Speaker 2: only child. My wife has like half siblings. But you know,
Speaker 2: it's like her mother's only child, so kind of has
Speaker 2: like that only child vibe too, And we're like, I think,
Speaker 2: I think we're okay. As long as you have friends
Speaker 2: in the neighborhood like we did, Like, then you won't
Speaker 2: be you won't be like a lonely only child. Yeah.
Speaker 2: That and just the cost of it all. It's just
Speaker 2: like I think this feels very manageable, and I like this,
Speaker 2: and I would like to not compound that any further.
Speaker 1: And then there's the thing that happens to your brain
Speaker 1: where you forget about a year and a half on.
Speaker 1: You forget how hard this part was, and you either
Speaker 1: have another child or you go back and listen to
Speaker 1: this and remind yourself every every fifteen minutes. Right, But yeah,
Speaker 1: we were surprised that we have a five and a
Speaker 1: seven year old. And when the five year old came around,
Speaker 1: it was less than two years later, and we were like,
Speaker 1: oh man, this is so hard. I totally forgot how
Speaker 1: hard this is.
Speaker 2: But that's kind of like the psychology of her right, Like,
Speaker 2: you know, like I felt like every time we were
Speaker 2: talking to people have given birth and like what is it? Like,
Speaker 2: you know, and it was like years on, Like, honestly,
Speaker 2: I don't remember, yeah, truly, Like because for me, I'm like,
Speaker 2: is it like, you know how difficult? Like, I mean,
Speaker 2: we're here, you know, we're here, but the brain lets
Speaker 2: you know, it's like, let's put that to the side
Speaker 2: so we can continue, you know, inhabiting the earth. I guess. Yeah.
Speaker 1: What is something that you think is overrated?
Speaker 4: April candy corn?
Speaker 1: Thank you? No, No, we're on a roller. We're on
Speaker 1: a candy corn roller coaster, and I promise not to
Speaker 1: pee my pin. But we we have had people saying overrated.
Speaker 1: We've had people saying underrated. Yeah, but more the first time. Yeah,
Speaker 1: most people do not like candy corn. I do. I
Speaker 1: think it's little pebbles of icing, and I like icing.
Speaker 1: I like a cupcake that has the most icing on.
Speaker 2: It, so you feel like you're eating a three week
Speaker 2: old cake. Yes, sitting out in the sun, You're like, ooh,
Speaker 2: this is my favorite part, the trusted thrusting. Yeah, what's
Speaker 2: your like? Break it down for me, April flavor wise,
Speaker 2: what is it that you Why are we putting it
Speaker 2: in this category?
Speaker 4: I mean, it doesn't to me, it doesn't taste very good.
Speaker 4: It just looks like something that doesn't expire, you know,
Speaker 4: like I can just hang out for too long and
Speaker 4: that's dangerous, right.
Speaker 1: Right, You're said there's something unnatural about handy corn. It's
Speaker 1: not that it shouldn't be.
Speaker 2: I should not being it as a vegetable called corn april.
Speaker 2: That's operative work.
Speaker 4: That's a problem too. Yeah, it's deceiving.
Speaker 2: Yes, Yeah, I tried. I tried again. I was. I
Speaker 2: was just telling a story earlier a friend of mine
Speaker 2: was dressed as candy Corn and got harassed by teenagers. Yeah,
Speaker 2: like they'll be like, yo, candy Corse sucks. Yeah, And
Speaker 2: it was just like for me, a little too aggressive.
Speaker 2: I'm not a fan of candy corn, but like I
Speaker 2: get it. It's just it's something that's out there. People
Speaker 2: just feel I think it again, for me, it just
Speaker 2: felt like the like the least exciting candy you could
Speaker 2: give me on Halloween. And so when I got it,
Speaker 2: I took that as a fac I took that as
Speaker 2: an act of violence basically.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I took personally, Yeah, do you got what
Speaker 1: top three candies? Do you do? You remember your top
Speaker 1: three candies from trigger Tree and break it down?
Speaker 2: Break it down.
Speaker 4: I mean I always love Eminem's.
Speaker 2: Okay, standards, straight yeah, straightforward eminems.
Speaker 1: Just then where are we talking? Put?
Speaker 4: No, I like the straightforward ones? And then don't they
Speaker 4: have ones with like extra chocolate in them?
Speaker 2: Now extra chocolate in them? Yeah?
Speaker 4: I think?
Speaker 2: So? WHOA really? I just I don't know why that
Speaker 2: hit me like some kind of like revelation I've never
Speaker 2: heard of. Oh what do we got here?
Speaker 1: There's chocolate in the chocolate?
Speaker 2: Man. Okay, now I'm on the hunt. You know what mean?
Speaker 5: Oh?
Speaker 2: Yeah, double chocolate Eminem's.
Speaker 1: What's that? I can see where I could see an
Speaker 1: eminem where instead of peanuts they have the regular Eminem's
Speaker 1: in the middle, you know what I mean? Sorry, I
Speaker 1: just got so excited.
Speaker 5: About eminem is inside the peanut Eminem so classic Eminem's
Speaker 5: like in the yes, yes, Why is this making me
Speaker 5: so happy?
Speaker 2: I think it's so it's so overboard that you're like, yes, yes,
Speaker 2: go on.
Speaker 1: Doubles Company, double candy shell double chocolate.
Speaker 2: Comparently it's mixed. It's dark and milk chocolate from what
Speaker 2: I so? Okay, okay, so Eminem that's one number two.
Speaker 4: I like milky way.
Speaker 2: It's pretty diment Yeah, no matter that I.
Speaker 4: Like ps or the cups, the cps cups.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's funny how we all say we have to
Speaker 2: say pieces. Yes, even though I do.
Speaker 1: This too, it sounds like he's giving you a backhanded
Speaker 1: like no, no, But we have some of us, but
Speaker 1: we have all said pieces and they all say pecs because
Speaker 1: it just feels like, why mess it up when we
Speaker 1: can have a good thing with a rhyming name like that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we all found out about it when we were like four,
Speaker 1: so I think it is the four year old way
Speaker 1: to say that candy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm pretty.
Speaker 1: I think we've covered our rankings before. But I'm gonna
Speaker 1: I'm gonna say peanut butter cups, I'm gonna say milky way,
Speaker 1: and I'm gonna say blow pops. I'm gonna throw and
Speaker 1: blow pops the world up.
Speaker 2: Blow pops are definitely the superior non chocolate candy. Wow,
Speaker 2: any anything. My thing is chocolate above everything else. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and then it's then it's a scrap over the things
Speaker 2: with chocolate in it, and I don't want to waste
Speaker 2: everybody's time with that. But then when we talk about
Speaker 2: fruit flavored candies, like I'm not even like mombos or
Speaker 2: you know sour like the blow Pop and.
Speaker 1: I think it's the same with which you said, mom Ah,
Speaker 1: I just don't like them, don't like them.
Speaker 2: But but the Blowpop commercials from the early nineties, I
Speaker 2: think that's why, because everybody was like, yo, look at
Speaker 2: like it was that fell zany.
Speaker 1: So you just crunch into that ship soft center.
Speaker 2: And then you have April where you at with Tutsi
Speaker 2: Pops and Tutsi Rolls.
Speaker 4: I like Potze Rolls. I'm not such a fan of
Speaker 4: the pops, but I like the pot cereals.
Speaker 2: Do they Do you consider that a chocolate or you
Speaker 2: consider that like a usurper that is passable?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 4: I think I considered it a chocolate.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 1: I think that's the difference between people who like Tootsy
Speaker 1: Rolls and don't is if you view it as chocolate
Speaker 1: or if you view it as gross chocolate flavored taffy,
Speaker 1: as I do. And I apologize, and I don't mean
Speaker 1: to be mean, but that's just my truth, and I'm
Speaker 1: gonna speak.
Speaker 2: Think you think you've been working hard on that April.
Speaker 1: What's something you think is underrated?
Speaker 4: Rain? Rain is underrated?
Speaker 1: Now?
Speaker 2: What is it about rain?
Speaker 4: It's you know, when there's like a rain shower, it
Speaker 4: feels like everything is fresh and new. Afterwards when the
Speaker 4: sun comes out, and if you're inside and you hear
Speaker 4: the rainfall, it's very relaxing and peaceful. Yeah, it's like
Speaker 4: as healing.
Speaker 2: Oh okay, good. So many people are like from La
Speaker 2: that come on the show that everyone's like it's underrated,
Speaker 2: is like because we need it really, But that part
Speaker 2: also is the best part is like what just the
Speaker 2: pitter pattern of rain does to you, Like like into
Speaker 2: your mind, You're like, oh no, I'm I need to
Speaker 2: just lay around or just stay inside or something like
Speaker 2: that and relax.
Speaker 1: It's like the earth is shushing you. It's like such
Speaker 1: a great sound.
Speaker 2: It's just.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I love because I also was like a you know, see,
Speaker 1: I played sports growing up, but I wish I I
Speaker 1: wished I didn't. I wish I was just able to
Speaker 1: like stay inside all the time and like watch movies NonStop.
Speaker 1: And so there's also like something deep within my brain
Speaker 1: that when I hear rain, I'm like, I don't have
Speaker 1: to go outside, don't pretend to be and Jock.
Speaker 2: I can just yeah, watch that's wild man. Are you
Speaker 2: so now? Are you one of those parents. You're like, hey,
Speaker 2: don't play sports because you think I want you to. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: That's what my dad always said to me, because it
Speaker 2: was like athleticism was kind of currency in my dad's family,
Speaker 2: and my uncle was like a really good football player.
Speaker 2: My dad's an artist, so he was the last thing
Speaker 2: he wanted to do is like put pads on to
Speaker 2: smash people up. And I remember he would always just
Speaker 2: like you would always when I was playing hockey or other.
Speaker 2: She's like, you're not playing this because you think I
Speaker 2: want you to write because I don't. Yeah. He's like,
Speaker 2: because I don't like waking up at five am to
Speaker 2: do weird parts of the city.
Speaker 1: And I'm like, hockey is intense, man, Wow. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: love rain. I love and we don't get it. We
Speaker 1: don't get enough of it out here in a Yeah.
Speaker 2: We heard about that.
Speaker 1: Amazing. All right, Well, let's take a quick break and
Speaker 1: we'll come back and start getting into the Heist season three.
Speaker 1: We'll be right back, and we're back. We're back, and
Speaker 1: I guess to kick us off, i'd just be curious
Speaker 1: to hear a little bit more about your background, April.
Speaker 1: What kind of stories did you cover prior to this,
Speaker 1: how do you get to this story? Because I personally
Speaker 1: hear agriculture and my brain doesn't turn off, but it
Speaker 1: assumes that's somebody else's story to pay attention to. But
Speaker 1: then this one was so good, and it seems like,
Speaker 1: based on some of your credentials, that agriculture is kind
Speaker 1: of a sweet spot for you.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'd say it almost fell into it because at
Speaker 4: my job prior to coming to Center for Public Integrity,
Speaker 4: I covered rural issues and really had the opportunity to
Speaker 4: shape that beat as I saw fit. And you know,
Speaker 4: at that time Trump was president, there were like subsidies
Speaker 4: basically that were given to farmers when there was a
Speaker 4: trade war with China, right to help keep them on
Speaker 4: their feed. And there was you know, investigative reporting that
Speaker 4: showed most of that money, nearly all of that money
Speaker 4: went to white farmers. And some of that just has
Speaker 4: to do with the way, like the structure of the system.
Speaker 4: So I got just into role issues reporting into agriculture
Speaker 4: as like a beat within my beat while I was
Speaker 4: at my previous job, and during that time also learned
Speaker 4: more about the history of discrimination at USDA. I learned
Speaker 4: against black farmers and other farmers of color as well,
Speaker 4: and you know, learn more about Pickford versus Clickman was,
Speaker 4: which was this big class action lawsuit Black farmers were
Speaker 4: sex s full and the I guess the first installment
Speaker 4: in the late nineties, nineteen ninety nine, and doing that work,
Speaker 4: you know, led me to CPI and trying to like
Speaker 4: not sound super wonky about it but.
Speaker 2: Not yet.
Speaker 4: Go wonk And hearing a farmer who actually recently passed away.
Speaker 4: His names Eddie Slaughter.
Speaker 1: He's passed away.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, yeah, he passed away, like end of September.
Speaker 4: It just happened.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm sad to hear that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that I mean, like this story is so it
Speaker 2: It like it touches intersex with so many issues that
Speaker 2: the United States has been the cause of and never
Speaker 2: the solution to. And it's the whole journey that you
Speaker 2: sort of take listeners on is really fantastic because, like
Speaker 2: Jack said, like when I hear like when I hear
Speaker 2: people talking about big agricaul, I hear about big agriculture
Speaker 2: and factory farming and farm subsidies. But I'm like, yeah,
Speaker 2: I don't know, it's just like that one in industry,
Speaker 2: like the government is the one being like the money
Speaker 2: hose will never turn off for some of you, right,
Speaker 2: and then really beginning to zoom out to really understand
Speaker 2: the entirety of it, because in my mind, I'm like,
Speaker 2: it's probably like you just assume it's like it's probably
Speaker 2: like five companies doing everything when you lose sight of
Speaker 2: sort of what these origin stories are and you go
Speaker 2: back to, you know, the early twentieth century in Oklahoma
Speaker 2: and how a lot of these farming, these black farming
Speaker 2: communities were thriving, you know, and we've talked about like
Speaker 2: Black Wall Street on this show and just sort of
Speaker 2: the whole history there. But can you kind of just
Speaker 2: like sort of paint this picture because I think more
Speaker 2: than even talking about, like we're going to talk about
Speaker 2: what's happening now, but I think it's really important for
Speaker 2: people to understand how prosperous black farming was in the
Speaker 2: United States, to really get an understanding of like the
Speaker 2: tragedy that has been occurring ever since then.
Speaker 1: Just to refresh people, Black Wall Street was Tulsa, Oklahoma,
Speaker 1: like this boom time, like all black or you know,
Speaker 1: prominently black community where business was just thriving, families were
Speaker 1: getting rich and because they're being left to like operate
Speaker 1: a community on their own without a lot of white
Speaker 1: supremacy coming in and you know, using the tools of
Speaker 1: systemic oppression to crush them and then people Obviously this
Speaker 1: is a simplified way of saying it, but like the
Speaker 1: what white supremacy came in and burnt the town to
Speaker 1: the ground and like raised, like literally raised the community
Speaker 1: in Oklahoma. But yeah, totally a story that I didn't
Speaker 1: know was that not far away also in Oklahoma, around
Speaker 1: the same time, there was a similarly thriving rural community
Speaker 1: that you talked about April.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we talk about Bowley, Oklahoma, which is where the
Speaker 4: main character of the podcast is from, Nee Bradford, and
Speaker 4: it was in some ways like a country version of
Speaker 4: that Tulsa. It was a thriving black community that was
Speaker 4: full of folks who came from the Deep South escaping
Speaker 4: Jim Crow around the turn of the century and trying
Speaker 4: to you know, get get a piece of land and
Speaker 4: be free. And a lot of those folks ended up
Speaker 4: settling in Bowley because there was a railroad that was
Speaker 4: being developed and going from Oklahoma to Arkansas. So it
Speaker 4: was just you know, a good place to be and
Speaker 4: that brought a lot of folks through there, so they settled,
Speaker 4: you know, in and around Bowley. They were able to
Speaker 4: buy land be a part of this community that was
Speaker 4: four black folks by black folks, so you know, answering
Speaker 4: to local government leadership and everything that was done was
Speaker 4: in the interest of the people who were there, who
Speaker 4: were majority black, and a lot of those folks. Cotton
Speaker 4: was huge, so a lot of them were cotton farmers.
Speaker 4: Some of them were also in cattle farm and Bully
Speaker 4: ended up and they really you know, paid for Bully, right.
Speaker 4: Their money was what was making the town prosperous. And
Speaker 4: Bowley ended up being hugely successful. It had colleges, it
Speaker 4: had grocery stores, it had banks, It had what is
Speaker 4: believed to be the first black nationally chartered bank in
Speaker 4: the country, which is huge. And yeah, I mean that
Speaker 4: that ended up changing for a number of reasons. But Bullie,
Speaker 4: it was one of fifty black towns at the time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's just so so devastating to the central
Speaker 1: narrative of white supremacy, like the existence of this thriving
Speaker 1: town that like, if white supremacists allow this town to exist,
Speaker 1: is able to thrive and have this amazing community and
Speaker 1: also like kind of devastating to some of the central
Speaker 1: tenants of capitalists, like individualism and capitalism where there's this
Speaker 1: you know, we we've talked about community action and how
Speaker 1: you know, Black communities and you know, indigenous communities are
Speaker 1: some of the best models that we have of like
Speaker 1: how you know communities that take care of themselves and
Speaker 1: start their own you know, circular communities. And yeah, so
Speaker 1: it runs against the central coordinarrative of the American mainstream
Speaker 1: in a lot of ways that are probably scary to
Speaker 1: powerful people.
Speaker 2: Right. It's it's also like like hearing about that era too,
Speaker 2: where you know, these these communities were thriving and here
Speaker 2: like that the change came once you know, like once
Speaker 2: statehood occurred and now Oklahoma was going to be like
Speaker 2: basically get like the other states were like enacting these
Speaker 2: Jim Crow laws. And now you had these communities that
Speaker 2: were for the most part able to do whatever they
Speaker 2: had to mostly free from any kind of like racial
Speaker 2: interference that suddenly now they're seeing segregation and they're seeing
Speaker 2: all these laws that are like are completely changing the
Speaker 2: way they live. What was like from that moment on
Speaker 2: because I think this is this is what becomes really
Speaker 2: interesting too, is this is sort of like the that
Speaker 2: was sort of like the height of things, and now
Speaker 2: we begin to see the deterioration of these communities and
Speaker 2: the dispossession of land. What was like after these Jim
Speaker 2: Crow laws were enacted, what sort of like the kind
Speaker 2: of next sort of beats that happened that are kind
Speaker 2: of that begins sort of this momentum even further.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so Oklahoma became a state nineteen oh seven, it
Speaker 4: starts passing these gim Crow laws, and but Bully did
Speaker 4: thrive for a little bit longer. But then there are
Speaker 4: a lot of economic things that happened, right There was
Speaker 4: the Great Depression. There was a bull Levil that you
Speaker 4: the cotton. There was the Agricultural Adjustment Act of in
Speaker 4: the thirties that limited the amount of cotton a farmer
Speaker 4: could produce those that were sharecropper, and folks farmers got
Speaker 4: money to help them through that, but folks that were
Speaker 4: sharecroppers may not have seen any of that money. And
Speaker 4: black folks were kind of limited in what they could grow.
Speaker 4: So all those things led to the decline of Bully.
Speaker 4: A lot of the folks there, and like the local
Speaker 4: historians say that even though there was this Jim Crow
Speaker 4: violence happening outside of Bowley, not even that far outside
Speaker 4: of Bully, because there were sundowntowns very close, it Bully felt,
Speaker 4: you know, kind of protected, but it's still that fear,
Speaker 4: that violence that's happening just outside. All these things came
Speaker 4: together and encouraged folks to move on to other places.
Speaker 2: Wow. And then like I guess you know, part of
Speaker 2: like the whole you know, the focus of the season
Speaker 2: is talking about just the decline and discrimination in black
Speaker 2: farm and black farmers have had to face. Can you
Speaker 2: like there's some pretty staggering statistics. I think people should
Speaker 2: kind of like hear first, like as we dive into
Speaker 2: this is what, like what was the state of black
Speaker 2: farmers like in its prime as opposed to right now,
Speaker 2: just so we can give ourselves an idea of like
Speaker 2: how aggressive this process has been.
Speaker 4: So around the turn of the century when we know,
Speaker 4: you know, obviously coming out of slavery, there were a
Speaker 4: great number of black farmers, and we know, for example,
Speaker 4: there's a study that found black farmers lost three hundred
Speaker 4: and twenty six billion in land and wealth from nineteen
Speaker 4: twenty to nineteen ninety seven, which is a huge, huge number.
Speaker 4: And we know that the number of black farmers has
Speaker 4: dropped sixty seven percent since nineteen hundred, so that's that's
Speaker 4: a pretty big one now as well, Black farmers now
Speaker 4: are only about one point four percent of all farmers, suggests.
Speaker 1: A tiny number, and that that was not the case
Speaker 1: and like leading up to the nineteen twenties was not
Speaker 1: like one point four percent.
Speaker 4: No, it was black folks had you know, we're much
Speaker 4: greater in number, and we're also you know, significant landowners
Speaker 4: as well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And the way the government accomplished this is kind
Speaker 1: of a thing. We've you know, the systemic economic forces,
Speaker 1: economic racism, and it blends in more easily when they
Speaker 1: can just say, oh, well, you know, there was a
Speaker 1: bad run of boll weevils or something like that, and
Speaker 1: not focusing on well, in white communities, when there's a
Speaker 1: you know, bad string of crops because of bull weevils,
Speaker 1: the government comes in and turns on the money hose. Right,
Speaker 1: But in this case there's just a differ standard of
Speaker 1: one to intervene and how easy it is to get
Speaker 1: government assistants and then like what happens once you get
Speaker 1: that government assistance.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, obviously there's racial violence that had a
Speaker 4: pardon this, but also subsidies, for example, are more helpful
Speaker 4: to farmers that are larger landowners or farmers who are
Speaker 4: growing certain crops, and black farmers tend to be smaller guys,
Speaker 4: so they're not going to get as much money from
Speaker 4: those subsidy programs. The USDA, for example, is a lender
Speaker 4: of last resort, and that means you had to get
Speaker 4: rejected from other agencies other banks in order to get
Speaker 4: a loan from them. And there's this long documented history
Speaker 4: showing that black farmers have had a tougher time getting
Speaker 4: those loans. And when they get those loans, they're not
Speaker 4: as much as they would have wanted them to be,
Speaker 4: or maybe they're delayed so that they don't come when
Speaker 4: the farmer might need it for planting, they come much later.
Speaker 4: And then that kind of has a chain reaction to right.
Speaker 2: And yeah, like in this, like in this telling of
Speaker 2: it or just like this you know, examination of the
Speaker 2: the industry, you just realize that the USDA is doing
Speaker 2: some of the most vile shit, like in terms of
Speaker 2: disenfranchising these farmers or putting them essentially into like a
Speaker 2: debt trap to dispossess their land. And I know, like
Speaker 2: it's like you'll never find a document that says this
Speaker 2: is our mandate as the USDA. But when you look
Speaker 2: at how the USDA was interacting with black farmers that
Speaker 2: were looking for loans and things like that, it's as
Speaker 2: wild how so many of the people that you spoke
Speaker 2: to were sort of saying, like, the second I took
Speaker 2: that loan was basically the end, Like when I began
Speaker 2: to rely on the USDA and the just the hoops
Speaker 2: and things that people have to jump through just for
Speaker 2: the simplest things is really like mind blowing. Like can
Speaker 2: you kind of just paint a picture for people sort
Speaker 2: of how the us like how this game is set
Speaker 2: up with the USDA, of how like because I think
Speaker 2: normal people would be like, oh, yeah, what's the problem.
Speaker 2: You get your loan, if you have an off year,
Speaker 2: you tell them, they understand and then maybe they work
Speaker 2: with you to make something happen. But that really wasn't
Speaker 2: the case for black farmers really ever.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So, like in the past, USDA had a system
Speaker 4: where county committees, who are like local farmers would have
Speaker 4: a lot of influence deciding who is creditworthy, and so
Speaker 4: you know, they could decide like that black farmer, for example,
Speaker 4: we don't want to give him a loan. Or one
Speaker 4: of the experts we talked to says how the county
Speaker 4: committee person could say, well, I have my eye on
Speaker 4: that piece of property that they have, and I know
Speaker 4: if this loan is delayed or denied, that it's only
Speaker 4: a matter of time before that piece of property will
Speaker 4: be you know, out in the market.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 4: So that was, you know, one way that affected black farmers.
Speaker 4: Another is loan officers have a lot of discretion and
Speaker 4: deciding who gets lows and who doesn't, and how supportive
Speaker 4: they can be when that farmer is in trouble and
Speaker 4: they're farmers, older farmers and then younger farmers like me
Speaker 4: who tells us his story of how he felt he
Speaker 4: didn't get the flexibility that he needed from his loan officer.
Speaker 2: Right, it's like, do you think you know, like in
Speaker 2: looking at it too, because you know, Nate, the one
Speaker 2: of the farmers that you speak with, talks about how
Speaker 2: when he's asking for his loan to be restructured or something,
Speaker 2: their solution is basically like, why don't you just sell
Speaker 2: your land then and or like sell your cattle, and
Speaker 2: they're like, but that's how I make my living, So
Speaker 2: if I do that, that renders me like inert from
Speaker 2: a business standpoint. And like with that, like knowing that
Speaker 2: that you had these sort of credit bureaus of like
Speaker 2: local like landed farmers who are the ones determining who
Speaker 2: were like kind of behind the scenes or at least
Speaker 2: how to like a seat at the table to determine
Speaker 2: who got loans. It feels like that sort of I
Speaker 2: got my eye on that property sort of energy has
Speaker 2: just kind of persisted throughout like the like the decades
Speaker 2: following it.
Speaker 4: I mean, I think we know for sure through what
Speaker 4: mid nineties, because that's what Pickford was based on. Like
Speaker 4: we know that. The trickier question is to what extent
Speaker 4: is this happening now? Like to what extent has it continued?
Speaker 4: And people like me, obviously through his experience, feel like
Speaker 4: it has. You know, other folks would argue that USAA
Speaker 4: has done a number of things to try to rectify
Speaker 4: this that I guess the we're still trying to figure
Speaker 4: it out, right.
Speaker 1: Can you talk about you did mention that there's racial
Speaker 1: violence that played a role in this over the course
Speaker 1: of like the transition from the from nineteen twenty to
Speaker 1: the late nineties. Can you just talk about what that was,
Speaker 1: what that looked like, because I think that's probably helpful
Speaker 1: when then coming into this and being like and then
Speaker 1: this is a world that was like self policing, where
Speaker 1: like the us DA just gets to use their own
Speaker 1: judgment to make financial decisions. But what was what was
Speaker 1: happening at that at that time?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean outside of the Deep South. I guess
Speaker 4: some would consider Oklahoma still part of that, but Oklahoma
Speaker 4: has like one of the highest documented things outside of
Speaker 4: the Deep South traditional Deep South, And you know there's
Speaker 4: stories Oklahoma elsewhere are folks kind of abandoning their property
Speaker 4: because of fear of racial violence from white farmers, white landowners.
Speaker 4: So I mean that's that's kind of outside of USDA,
Speaker 4: but that's something that's functioned to dispossess black farmers as well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, USDA, I mainly knew prior to this for like
Speaker 1: grating my eggs and meat, right kind of my experience
Speaker 1: with the USDA. But truly like they've set up this
Speaker 1: Kafka esque like just system like that there's one scene
Speaker 1: where they discover like that this USDA Civil Rights agency
Speaker 1: that they've been sending their complaints to the office just
Speaker 1: like doesn't exist. Their letters have been just like piling
Speaker 1: up in an office somewhere, and when it comes time
Speaker 1: to like actually look at their complaints and what the
Speaker 1: USDA was doing, the court is just like, we can't
Speaker 1: use the letters as evidence because they never open. Like
Speaker 1: basically the logic is like they never open them, so
Speaker 1: what are they supposed to do? But yeah, it's like
Speaker 1: the judicial historical equivalent of like plugging your ears and
Speaker 1: saying la la laa Okay, I can't hear you, so
Speaker 1: like it doesn't count. But yeah, it's just a whole
Speaker 1: different level of like illogic and injustice that like it
Speaker 1: was crazy to hear about. Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah. During with the Oregan administration, that's when the Civil
Speaker 4: Rights Office was like pretty much closed. So you had
Speaker 4: farmers sending in their discrimination complaints and they weren't going
Speaker 4: anywhere right, like nobody was reading them. They were were
Speaker 4: just kind of piling up in a room that and
Speaker 4: nobody was monitoring them. So that was one of the
Speaker 4: things that really fed into the Pickford suit that even
Speaker 4: when farmers filed complaints of discrimination there they weren't being addressed,
Speaker 4: there was no one to address them.
Speaker 2: Right, And it's again like it feels like the USDA
Speaker 2: is just like another example of many other agencies or
Speaker 2: institutions that like after decades of discriminatory behavior, they'll be like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 2: it turns out we may have been doing some bad stuff.
Speaker 2: And then it just kind of feels like it sort
Speaker 2: of peters out there because it felt like, especially when
Speaker 2: discussing the Pickford for versus Clickman, right, is the case
Speaker 2: that there was a moment for this to potentially create
Speaker 2: some kind of sea change, but it just it just didn't.
Speaker 2: And a lot of that, I'm sure too, like as
Speaker 2: you ex like as the reporting shows, like the in
Speaker 2: the show is that a lot of it too is
Speaker 2: also like by design, by like offering these farmers, like
Speaker 2: when the like in a settlement that it was just
Speaker 2: kind of like pick your poison here and neither are
Speaker 2: actually going to fully address all of the injustices that
Speaker 2: you had to suffer.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So there was a settlement agreement and so this
Speaker 4: case never went to trial, so farmers never had the
Speaker 4: opportunity to really like tell their case in court, but
Speaker 4: they decided on the settlement that didn't actually require USDA
Speaker 4: to come out and say, you know, we did wrong,
Speaker 4: We're going to change our ways, we're going to fire
Speaker 4: folks who were involved in this, like none of that
Speaker 4: had to happen, and the settlement offered two tracks for
Speaker 4: folks to follow. One of those tracks basically they had
Speaker 4: to show some level of paper where they had just
Speaker 4: proved some level of discrimination and they would get fifty
Speaker 4: thousand dollars. But they also had to show like that
Speaker 4: there was a white farmer in a similarly situated position
Speaker 4: that they suffered an economic loss. That was supposedly the
Speaker 4: easy track. And then there was Track B, and that
Speaker 4: one they had to gather more paperwork, they had to
Speaker 4: present it at like a mini trial. They had to
Speaker 4: show that their damages were greater than fifty thousand dollars,
Speaker 4: and then they had to convince an arbitrator of all
Speaker 4: that and they could potentially get a substantial amount of money.
Speaker 4: The farmer that we talked to, Eddie, says that the
Speaker 4: lawyers really encouraged the farmers to go with Track A
Speaker 4: and not Track B, and part of that was because
Speaker 4: Track A offered the possibility of debt forgive. Now, yes,
Speaker 4: if they could find discrimination attached to the loan in question.
Speaker 4: So he argues, that's why a bunch of us went
Speaker 4: with track A, something like I think like two percent
Speaker 4: or less than two percent went with truck b Wow.
Speaker 4: And in the end, a lot of folks didn't end
Speaker 4: up who went with TRACKA didn't end up getting that
Speaker 4: loan forgiveness.
Speaker 2: It's that's what's like really harrowing, especially that when you
Speaker 2: talk about Eddie and you know, the never ending fight
Speaker 2: with the USDA of how it's always him or the
Speaker 2: farmers trying to prove that they're worthy of these loans,
Speaker 2: that they're being left out all the while that the
Speaker 2: USDA uses things like offsets, which is like this practice
Speaker 2: to say like, well, if you can't pay some of
Speaker 2: this debt that you have, we'll just take this out
Speaker 2: of your fifty thousand dollars settlement from the USDA. Like
Speaker 2: the it just feels like never ending, and like the
Speaker 2: frustration that comes out in some of these these people's
Speaker 2: voice is it's really really like it's heartbreaking because at
Speaker 2: the end of the day, they're trying to do something
Speaker 2: as simple as just like grow things on the land
Speaker 2: and have a very simple life. They're not saying like
Speaker 2: I'm trying to live outside of my means or do
Speaker 2: something extravagant. It's like I like to I like to farm,
Speaker 2: and we're not given this opportunity, And and every other turn,
Speaker 2: it feels like they have to constantly fight just to
Speaker 2: not have their their their their finances whittled away at
Speaker 2: to the point that they are so destitute that the
Speaker 2: only option is to give up everything and give up land.
Speaker 2: And they all talk about how important like the land is,
Speaker 2: Like it's sometimes it's not even about the money. It's
Speaker 2: the fact that especially for uh, for Black Americans, that
Speaker 2: owning that piece of land is such a vital part
Speaker 2: of your longevity of you being able to have something
Speaker 2: to give to your your your descendants and things like that.
Speaker 2: And that must have been so difficult to like, I mean,
Speaker 2: did you have any I'm sure you had a sense
Speaker 2: of how like backwards this whole thing was, but like,
Speaker 2: did it just kind of make you more angry or
Speaker 2: what was that like? Because I like listening to it,
Speaker 2: I wanted to like scream half the time.
Speaker 4: I would say it made me angry. Necessarily, I think
Speaker 4: sometimes when you're like you're so seeped in it, it's
Speaker 4: like you lose a little bit of that. But I think,
Speaker 4: I mean, folks like Eddie are so passionate about this cause,
Speaker 4: and I think farmers in general, regardless of race, are
Speaker 4: really attached to the land. I mean, it's a multi
Speaker 4: generational life, right. They're not just thinking about themselves, They're
Speaker 4: thinking about who's coming up after them, because they want
Speaker 4: the name to be carried on, you know, well after them.
Speaker 4: And I think the stakes are obviously so much higher
Speaker 4: for black farmers given everything that folks went through to
Speaker 4: just to hold on to that land, with the violence
Speaker 4: and with the economic issues that they faced one hundred
Speaker 4: years ago. To have it now is like it's huge.
Speaker 4: So yeah, it's I mean, it is a sad story
Speaker 4: when we think about just everything that's involved.
Speaker 1: Let's take a quick break and we'll come back and
Speaker 1: talk about just where where you see things heading and
Speaker 1: where you kind of leave things at the end of
Speaker 1: the show and we're back and yeah, so I don't know,
Speaker 1: you mentioned that, like there's this potential settlement and Nate
Speaker 1: seems hopeful and then politically the USDA, like there's this
Speaker 1: shift where they feel like they still need to center
Speaker 1: white farmers, like the story still needs to be about
Speaker 1: white farmers for the government to deliver the aid. And
Speaker 1: this is under Biden, right, right, So yeah, can you
Speaker 1: talk about that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So that the Pickford Settlement, they're actually two. There
Speaker 4: was a second one for folks who didn't make it
Speaker 4: to the first. So the first settlement was like nineteen
Speaker 4: ninety nine. The next one I think was around twenty ten.
Speaker 4: And there's still this looming issue of the debt. A
Speaker 4: lot of Pickford claimants that I've spoken to at least
Speaker 4: they you know, they talk about how Eddie talk about
Speaker 4: how this debt has really affected them moving forward or
Speaker 4: in their credit score because they didn't get the loan
Speaker 4: forgiveness that they were expecting in Pickford. And a lot
Speaker 4: of the advocacy of those folks led to the Justice
Speaker 4: for Black Farmers Act, which was introduced by Senator Brooker
Speaker 4: and others that had this provision to try to relieve
Speaker 4: those some of those farm loan debts of the Pickford claimants.
Speaker 4: And then that led to what we saw in the
Speaker 4: Biden administration of trying to relieve the debts of all
Speaker 4: farm of color not just black farmers, and that was
Speaker 4: in the American Rescue Plan Act. But there were lots
Speaker 4: of challenges from white farmers with support from conservative individuals
Speaker 4: and groups like Steven Miller from the Trump administration, and
Speaker 4: you know, they argued this program is discriminatory against racially
Speaker 4: discriminatory against US white farmers. A federal judge ended up
Speaker 4: putting like a blocking the program. Congress had to change course,
Speaker 4: and in the Inflation Reduction Act that passed last year,
Speaker 4: the American Rescue Plan Program was rescinded. There's a couple
Speaker 4: new programs included. One is for anyone that can show
Speaker 4: discrimination and farmlann programs, you can get some money for that.
Speaker 4: And the other is basically like a form of debt
Speaker 4: relief for economically distressed borrowers folks who they define as
Speaker 4: economically distressed.
Speaker 2: Is there any I mean, like, is it's funny like
Speaker 2: when the episode or I'm hearing about like the Pickford Care, Like, Okay,
Speaker 2: maybe there's some momentum going here, like maybe this can
Speaker 2: this can be built upon, But does it seem like
Speaker 2: there's any sort of actual progress being made in terms
Speaker 2: of like really addressing this because like to your point, right,
Speaker 2: and I think like we kind of glossed over this,
Speaker 2: but so many of the farmers they begin there farming
Speaker 2: by receiving a loan to even start this like this business,
Speaker 2: to get to the land and things like that. So
Speaker 2: you're already on the hook with them from the beginning
Speaker 2: and when and then you add all of the hoops
Speaker 2: that have to jump through that are made essentially bringing
Speaker 2: people to like a very desperate point. Is like you know,
Speaker 2: like with even that, what was the one report that
Speaker 2: came out of the USDA where they're like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 2: this this has been kind of bad. It was like
Speaker 2: one of the internal reports. Is there like what is
Speaker 2: there anything that is actually beginning to alter that? Or
Speaker 2: is does this feel sort of like how are the
Speaker 2: farmers looking at do they feel there's progress or even
Speaker 2: from your perspective from the outside, is there any progress
Speaker 2: being made on actually addressing this.
Speaker 4: I mean, from my reporting, I would argue that there
Speaker 4: is some progress being made. I mean, the Biden administration
Speaker 4: did try to do a race based program and it
Speaker 4: didn't work. It's not in the court. The federal judge
Speaker 4: blocked it, so it didn't work, and then they changed
Speaker 4: course and did something that is color blind, but does
Speaker 4: essentially appear to reach a good number of black farmers.
Speaker 4: You know, it's reaching the moneys, are reaching folks who
Speaker 4: are behind on their loan payments, and then it's paying
Speaker 4: some of those you know, back loan payments, and then
Speaker 4: the next installment. Black farmers are highly delinquent in their
Speaker 4: USDA loans, so we know that it is reaching those folks,
Speaker 4: but it's also reaching a good number of white farmers too, right,
Speaker 4: So like, I mean, yes, these things are helpful, but
Speaker 4: there is an argum meant to be made that because
Speaker 4: of all this history of discrimination and how multi generational
Speaker 4: farming is and the depths of my grandfather I might
Speaker 4: be carrying today, right, that there should be some race
Speaker 4: based remedy instead.
Speaker 2: Right. And again it's like it's every time there's any
Speaker 2: talk of restitution, reparations and things like that, the argument
Speaker 2: is always like, but what about us? And it's like, well,
Speaker 2: if you do the math, like you know, some economists have,
Speaker 2: there was sixteen trillion dollars of wealth stolen from Black
Speaker 2: Americans over the centuries. So like, in that sense, like
Speaker 2: it the things that are being asked for to try
Speaker 2: and bring balance to all of this is like such
Speaker 2: a drop in the bucket. Yeah, but then you have
Speaker 2: to have like white supremacy rear its head every time
Speaker 2: and have people say like, well, this is actually discriminating
Speaker 2: against all the white people that actually benefited from those
Speaker 2: policies to begin with. And off we go to I
Speaker 2: feel like this sort of very circular topic where like
Speaker 2: we're at what point is it going to? Yeah, as
Speaker 2: the progress can like actually break through, because I feel
Speaker 2: like that's something that you know, many generations people not
Speaker 2: just farmers, look at and think of all the ways
Speaker 2: their lives could have been different were it not for
Speaker 2: redlining or were it not for the USDA and things
Speaker 2: like that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Dana Peterson is the economist in question. She said
Speaker 1: the toll of racism against Black Americans economic racism against
Speaker 1: Black Americans at sixteen trillion dollars over just the past
Speaker 1: two decades. Like that's just in two decades, right, and
Speaker 1: are staggering? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Yeah, So I mean like at the end, how how
Speaker 2: like what is the outlook for for people like Nate
Speaker 2: at the Georgia Line ranch like here, Like it's just
Speaker 2: it's really heartening to hear that just despite the hardships
Speaker 2: how still dedicated they are to wanting to realize their
Speaker 2: dream of being like full like just doing full time agriculture.
Speaker 2: Are like for him, is there like a sense of
Speaker 2: relief because I hope, like because you like do such
Speaker 2: a good job of connecting us to these people and
Speaker 2: their stories. Like in the end, like when you told
Speaker 2: me like Eddie Pastor, I'm like, Eddie passed away, that's
Speaker 2: and he had such a difficult life. I really want
Speaker 2: to encourage everybody listening, you have to listen to this
Speaker 2: series because like we're just giving you a very broad
Speaker 2: outlook on it. The actually humanity of it at that level,
Speaker 2: the human level is is really like eye opening and inspirational.
Speaker 2: But is it like are people like Nate feeling like
Speaker 2: does he feel like he's turning a corner or does
Speaker 2: it still feel like this thing of like the never
Speaker 2: ending fight with the USDA.
Speaker 1: I don't.
Speaker 4: I don't think Nate feels like he's turning a corner necessarily,
Speaker 4: And I think it's too soon to tell how like
Speaker 4: helpful some of these more recent changes are going to be.
Speaker 4: But we also farmers are also operating in like a
Speaker 4: high inflation environment. The cost of everything that's gone up,
Speaker 4: A lot of this system hasn't changed, right, Like the
Speaker 4: subsidies and helpful benefits are still going to the largest farmers.
Speaker 4: There still aren't a whole lot of black farmers receiving
Speaker 4: the support that they need from USDA, even though they
Speaker 4: are trying to fix that. So, I I mean, Nate
Speaker 4: is just kind of the type of person that's always
Speaker 4: gonna find a way, right, Like, regardless of what the
Speaker 4: circumstances are. He feels so strongly about leaving the land
Speaker 4: and leaving the business to his kids. And I would
Speaker 4: argue his kids are, you know, like they're pretty savvy kids, right,
Speaker 4: Like one of them studying engineering, the others studying agribusiness,
Speaker 4: and is really passionate about finance and just and also
Speaker 4: like sharing financial literacy, you know, encouraging others to become
Speaker 4: financially literate and sharing his knowledge with others to help
Speaker 4: his community. So I think like they're just starting in
Speaker 4: a better place. And maybe that is like that's the
Speaker 4: hope that we can find in it, that they will
Speaker 4: they'll have a better.
Speaker 2: Chance, right And I guess, what what do you think?
Speaker 2: Like I guess for people who are like myself or
Speaker 2: just in general who are learning about the complexities and
Speaker 2: the injustices that are like, what are the kinds of
Speaker 2: things we should keep in mind aside from the ongoing
Speaker 2: justices that are happening, But in terms of like what,
Speaker 2: what do you think the people that are on the
Speaker 2: ground want the rest of America to really understand to
Speaker 2: try and help contribute to something that's a little bit
Speaker 2: more equitable.
Speaker 4: I mean, I think it's always important to have like
Speaker 4: just a deeper knowledge of what we are hearing and
Speaker 4: reading about today. And it's like it's I guess it
Speaker 4: requires a bit of work, but I mean there's some
Speaker 4: great resources out there with the Environmental Working Group has
Speaker 4: like a list of all these documents that are really
Speaker 4: helpful at understanding the plight of black farmers and the
Speaker 4: relationship with USDA. There's a wonderful book by Pete Daniel
Speaker 4: called This Possession that talks about this history as well.
Speaker 4: And I mean, when you read like the headlines, it's
Speaker 4: just important to understand the background and how black farmers
Speaker 4: and some other farmers of color have not gotten everything
Speaker 4: all the support that they need. So I guess when
Speaker 4: in general, when these colorblind arguments are coming up, which
Speaker 4: is obviously very common and popular right now, just to
Speaker 4: have this awareness of the past.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you mentioned that it seems like this color blind
Speaker 1: argument of like how to interpret or how to execute
Speaker 1: on the rural you know help and by the way,
Speaker 1: just to farmers get some of the most help, like
Speaker 1: in the world. This is like no farm succeeds without
Speaker 1: a ton of government help and subsidies like that. That's
Speaker 1: just the baseline for anything. So just I felt like
Speaker 1: that was helpful information to know heading into the overall story.
Speaker 1: But yeah, at one point you kind of mentioned that
Speaker 1: it seems like they're taking their lead from the Affirmative
Speaker 1: Act case and the modern kind of orthodoxy in the
Speaker 1: mainstream government where it's like, well, we're just color blind
Speaker 1: and we'll help anyone in need, not just because we
Speaker 1: now starting now don't see race, right, you know, even though.
Speaker 2: If you ask for documents like that was another really
Speaker 2: frustrating thing, Like you were filing for your request to
Speaker 2: actually be able to analyze how black farmers were specifically
Speaker 2: affected by these policies, and it just seemed like even
Speaker 2: before you even got an answer, like a lot of
Speaker 2: the people you were talking to that were in the
Speaker 2: community or like you're not gonna give you anything. It's
Speaker 2: a black box that will just those truths are not
Speaker 2: going to be revealed. Have you have any of those
Speaker 2: Has there been any like progress on any of those requests,
Speaker 2: or it's just truly just one of those things where
Speaker 2: it's like, yeah, sorry, we can give you this very
Speaker 2: like a fraction of what you're asking for, but that's it.
Speaker 4: Not yet. I mean, we did file a lawsuit about it,
Speaker 4: and we're still you know, waiting and going through that process.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I mean there have been other Foyer requests that I
Speaker 4: file that I've gotten a response on, but not with
Speaker 4: that that particular request that where we talk about, which
Speaker 4: just makes it really difficult to understand the extent black
Speaker 4: farmers have been getting, you know, specific loans, or the
Speaker 4: extent that they any amount of those loans, just you know,
Speaker 4: really how they're operating in this larger and.
Speaker 2: Dire right because then when you asked for like at
Speaker 2: a county level or lower like so you can actually
Speaker 2: begin to group the data and see, oh, look at
Speaker 2: these like these farmers are here and experiencing this kind
Speaker 2: of trial and tribulation, and you would be able to
Speaker 2: sort of like put that against what you're seeing, like
Speaker 2: white farms do, but that information has been completely just withheld.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well because of privacy law, they don't and you know,
Speaker 4: if there it's rural spaces, there are so few like
Speaker 4: people of color in some of these counties, right, They
Speaker 4: don't want to They don't want anyone to be able
Speaker 4: to look at the data and know who that could be.
Speaker 2: Well like extrapolate from that, right guy.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so that would be USDA's argument that you know,
Speaker 4: they don't want to disclose anything that they're not supposed
Speaker 4: to disclose.
Speaker 2: Of course. Yeah, they're so concerned, they're so concerned.
Speaker 1: Right, Well, April Simpson, it's been such a pleasure having
Speaker 1: you on the daily Zeitgeist. Where can people find the
Speaker 1: show first of all and then find you, follow you
Speaker 1: and read more from you?
Speaker 4: Yeah, thank you. So you can learn more about our
Speaker 4: project at public Integrity dot org. You can follow me
Speaker 4: on Twitter at April Latissia.
Speaker 2: I like, thank you for calling on Twitter, if not
Speaker 2: Twitter or formally X or we call it Twitter formally
Speaker 2: X around here. So yeah, Twitter for sure.
Speaker 1: Is there a work of media that you've been enjoying?
Speaker 4: I davy quick thing again, I don't I don't have time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I get that looking at my child.
Speaker 4: But I'm going to New Orleans soon and I saw
Speaker 4: this list recently of like best New Orleans restaurants, So okay,
Speaker 4: seeing what I can hit.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, nice, sounds about right, sounds about right.
Speaker 1: Miles Where can people find you? Is there a worker
Speaker 1: media you've been enjoying?
Speaker 2: Find me Twitter formally x and Instagram. Other at based platforms,
Speaker 2: Miles of Gray. If you like basketball, you can check
Speaker 2: out our basketball podcast Miles and jack out mathbost. I
Speaker 2: feel like ninety day Fiance. Check out my ninety Day
Speaker 2: Fiance podcast for twenty day Fiance. That's how I offset
Speaker 2: the terrible things that we have to deal with when
Speaker 2: we talk about our news and our reality every day.
Speaker 2: So join me there, uh, work of media, Like I
Speaker 2: just started watching the goose Bumps show that was like
Speaker 2: on no as they rebooted it. So as a geriatric millennial,
Speaker 2: I see the goose Bumps font and I have a
Speaker 2: reaction because I was like, my one of my favorite
Speaker 2: book series, and it's kind of it's it's interesting. I'm
Speaker 2: only a two episodes in, but it's doing something freaky
Speaker 2: with it. That's to a point, where I'm like, is
Speaker 2: this for kids? And it's like it's not really, it's
Speaker 2: like young adults, but ghost bumps on this spooky day amazing.
Speaker 1: You can find me on Twitter at Jack Underscore O'Brien
Speaker 1: tweet I've been enjoying Jackson at Placed Underscore Onto tweeted,
Speaker 1: there should be there should only be one fruit per color.
Speaker 1: If I see a yellow fruit, I shouldn't have to
Speaker 1: second guess whether it's not a lemon. That's my level
Speaker 1: of agricultural thinking.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a squash, that's a lemon.
Speaker 1: That's a lemon. Dude, Come on, what hell yellow?
Speaker 2: It does? Crack that thing open?
Speaker 1: And Ben Rosen at Ben Underscore Rosen tweeted, forget it, Jake,
Speaker 1: it's giving China Town. You can find me on Twitter
Speaker 1: at Jack Underscore O'Brian. You can find us on Twitter
Speaker 1: at daily Zeikeeist for a d Daily Zeitgeist on Instagram.
Speaker 1: We have a Facebook campage and a website daily zeikeist
Speaker 1: dot com, where we post our episodes and our footnotes.
Speaker 1: We link off to the information that we talked about
Speaker 1: today is so as well as a song that we
Speaker 1: think you might enjoy. Miles what song on this Halloween.
Speaker 1: Oh hallo z E do you think about I enjoy?
Speaker 2: I didn't even think of trying to think of something spooky,
Speaker 2: just something nice to listen to, because not everybody wants
Speaker 2: to be spooky. This track is called Andromeda by ethel
Speaker 2: E t h e L. And it said really dope track.
Speaker 2: She's a I like, I like whispery vocals over like
Speaker 2: a good backbeat and that's exactly what this provides. So
Speaker 2: this is Andromeda by Ethyl.
Speaker 1: Whispers or Create Our Spooky. The Andromeda Strain is a
Speaker 1: scary book.
Speaker 2: My dad may tried to make me watch that movie
Speaker 2: as a kid. It was like one of those old
Speaker 2: people movies.
Speaker 1: He's like, you're gonna like this, This one is gonna
Speaker 1: blow your hairbag.
Speaker 5: Son.
Speaker 2: I was like, this is gonna make me fall asleep
Speaker 2: and question whether or not there were actual good movies
Speaker 2: back then.
Speaker 1: Well. The Daily Zey Guy is the production of iHeartRadio.
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Speaker 1: That's gonna do it for us this morning, back this
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Speaker 1: touch you out the bight,