I don’t know if anyone remembers way back to the early days of the Obama Administration. This is back when Eric Holder squelched information with an iron fist. Some of the information was too big to keep under wraps though, Fast and Furious for example. The Pigford case was another one.  This was a lawsuit against the USDA brought by black farmers. The number of claimants was initially 91 farmers, and was called Pigford 1. This number then grew exponentially. It eventually included blacks, Hispanics, Native Americans, and females. This was as Pigford 2. Eventually over 90,000 claims were filed. This became quite expensive for the American taxpayer:

The judgment fund announced by Agricultural Secretary Thomas Vilsack and Eric Holder in 2010 was expanded from just over $120 million to $1.25 billion, given the expectation of many more filers.

However, the explosion of claimants has caused payouts to reach $4.4 billion and has swelled legal fees to over $130 million.

This turned into a way for the supposedly injured to request easy money from the government.

More importantly, the claim’s process created a rush to get a share of the monies allocated to the judgment fund, even if no real claim existed.  Essentially, the process encouraged people to lie and spawned a cottage industry.  Claimants had only to file applications for a $50,000 payment by stating that they had  “thought about” applying for loans to become a farmer.  Proof of a claimant’s intent to farm also included a statement from that petitioner saying he or she had attempted to farm by planting a batch of tomatoes in his or her backyard and having that statement verified by a family member.

This victory has not been forgotten.  The same play is going to be tried again against another friendly administration.

Black farmers are hoping for a major boost in their decadeslong struggle for racial and economic equity next year, anticipating that aggressive measures by the incoming Biden administration and Congress could expand their access to credit and address their discrimination complaints.

Reparations as a political issue doesn’t play very well to the American populace. An easier way to bring about its goals is to call it by a different name. They may try to avoid using Pigford again though.