Soon the accuser because the accused in a game of "I know you are but - What am I?" - which brings us to Steve King, where I highly doubt this will be one of those times.
First he called the President "Very Very Urban" for no apparent reason, while calling the Pigford II Discrimination Claims "Slave Reparations".
King's essential argument is that not ALL the claims are legitimate, that some are causes of Fraud where the plaintiff is simply seeking an Easy Payday and the entire basis of the Pigford II Settlement is actually an End Run to pay Reparations for Slavery.
(Upate King argues that Reparations have already been paid in Blood by those Northern Soldiers who fought to "End Slavery". But that's not why the North fought the South, the South secceeded and Attacked the North simply because they didn't like who was elected President (Abraham Lincoln). They thought he would fight to end Slavery, even though he promised he wouldn't and actually didn't, the 13 Amendment did that after his death. The North fought and died to keep the Union together, which is why for nearly a century afterward the 14th Amendment, allegedly guaranteeing the "Equal protection of the laws to all persons within the jurisdiction of the U.S." was little more than a set of words on paper, not something that was actually followed and enforced. To show what a sham that was, 90 years later 80-90% of the members of the U.S. Armed Forces still opposed integration of the Army - and clearly not all of them came from the South!)
King says all this despite the fact that these claims date from 1983 to 1997 and involve actual people, many of whom are still living - including former USDA employee Shirley Sherrod - who were clearly discriminated against by the Department of Agriculture and lost their farms Recently - Not One Hundred Years AGO.
In order to support his claims of "Fraud" King then went on to Completely MAKE UP A STORY about the Son of a Farmer named "Johnny" who went to the big city and became a Drug Addict - then joined the Pigford claim when his dad died so he could Get Paid!
First of all, there would be nothing wrong with that claim if his Dad had applied for a loan and been denied for no good reason. SO WHAT if his son, who hypothetically didn't help with the Farm is trying to have access to the funds now that his father is gone?
I thought Republicans were AGAINST the Estate Tax and feel that surviving families should get every dollar from the property of their parents?
Secondly that story is eerily similar to the real life story of Shirley Sherrod who is one of the claimants in the Pigford II, but she didn't "Run off to the City and become a Drug Addict" - and leave her father behind. Her Father Was Shot in the Back and MURDERED by a White Farmer.
Sherrod's father was shot to death by a white farmer.
One night in 1965, "her father, Hosie Miller, a black man and a deacon at Thankful Baptist Church [in rural Georgia], was shot to death by a white farmer in what ostensibly was a dispute over a few cows," reports CNN. "The all-white grand jury didn't bring charges against the shooter." The then Shirley Miller was 17 at the time.
"That summer, when she and several other blacks went to the county courthouse to register to vote, the county sheriff blocked the door and even pushed her husband-to-be, Lester Sherrod, down the stairs," CNN continues. "Activists used that incident to get a restraining order against the sheriff so blacks could register to vote, she said."
This wasn't 100 Years ago - it was 1965, within my lifetime. I actually know some people in the L.A. Reparations Movement and I keep telling them not to focus on Slavery (which at time it occurred was legal and Constitutional) but instead to look at crimes and discrimination that happened after the 14th Amendment was passed. Look at Jim Crow. Look at current occasions of Racial Intimidation, Terrorism, Murder and Discrimination. It's not Reparations you need to seek, it's simple Justice.
Here's an image I made for them myself.
None of this happened during Slavery.
The victim in the upper right corner is one I gave them - it's Michael Donald who was hanged (Lynched) by a mob in 1981 in Alabama. His murder became one of the signature cases for the Southern Poverty Law Center and ended with Michael's Family owning the Klan Compound that had sparked the attack.
Nineteen-year-old Michael Donald was on his way to the store in 1981 when two members of the United Klans of America abducted him, beat him, cut his throat and hung his body from a tree on a residential street in Mobile, Ala.
Angry that an interracial jury had failed to convict another black man for killing a white police officer in Birmingham, the Klansmen selected Michael Donald at random and lynched him to intimidate and threaten other blacks. On the same evening, other Klan members burned a cross on the Mobile County courthouse lawn.
That was 17 years after Shirley Sherrod's father was murdered and her future husband tossed down the courthouse steps for protesting the shooters aquittal by an all-white jury, 12 years before the same thing essentially occurred with the Rodney King Beating, 14 years before the Murder of Jonny Gammage in 1995, and 17 years before the murder of James Byrd in 1998.
When exactly did the Racism Stop? Because to me and many others I didn't Stop it just went underground.
When exactly this kind of discrimination clearly continues to occur as it did in the $1.5 Billion Pigford Settlement - people like King try to play games and dispute it without any evidence what so ever, even with MADE UP stories.
There have only been 3 causes of fraud prosecuted by the FBI, but he has one guy - ONE GUY - who says the cases are "75% Fraudulent", but if so why didn't he provide this information to the defense and the USDA?
Who has real credibility and whose the Real Fraud?
King is playing a Game Here. The "Macacca" Game. See he didn't mean to say anything derogatory about the President just to call him "Very Very Urban" - when the President himself has nothing to do with the Settlement, this is something that Congress has now passed, and Obama being from Urban Chicago is completely irrelevant to the Pigford Case. Yet somehow were not supposed to notice King's NOT veiled, smarmy, smart-assed reference to the President being black (cause "Black" is exactly what they used to call "Urban Cities" and "Urban Radio") and all the plaintiff's being Black and somehow their NOT all in it together to get back door REPARATIONS??
Right, sure. That's convincing.
It's not like Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh haven't said Exactly That before because - They have.
Limbaugh says "Healthcare Reform" is "Reparations".
Beck say Everything Obama does is motived by "Reparations" and "Settling Racial Scores"
So is it any real surprise that Steve King now claims that this settlement is "Reparations" even though we're talking about real harm that has occurred to real living people? I guess it's ok because he imagines that they're all frauds and city-dwelling drug addicts?
Not. Even. A Little.
The thing that drives people like King is that they think that inequality is just fine the way it is. King Supports Racial Profiling, and says using it is "Common Sense" even though by definition it's Institutionalized Racism and oh, by the way - it Doesn't Work. King has said that "Immigrants aren't REAL AMERICANS" if they support paying their taxes. King has shown that he's sympathetic to IRS Suicide Plane Bomber Joe Stack. King has said Obama wasn't helping Louisiana on the BP Oil SPill because "Bobby Jindal is a Republican". King has is we should "Deport a Liberal for every Immigrant Granted Legalized Status".
On what planet does a guy with this track record think he deserves the benefit of the doubt on his verbal diarrhea this time? It's not like we can't tell which side of his bread has butter and which has bile.
Vyan
Bonus from DKOS Comments: Strange Fruit by Billie Holiday
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