RFK Jr backs Biden admin plan that would prioritize farm aid based on race, give $5 billion in 'reparations' to black farmers

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has come out in support of a provision in the Biden administration's American Rescue Plan that sought to dole out $5 billion in reparations to farmers of color across the United States. The program was administered by the Department of Agriculture, boosted by Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, and overturned by a federal court. The court stated that it is not legally permissible to attempt to remedy past discrimination by discriminating against others in the present.

But for Kennedy, the plan is alright because, he argued, the recipients of the race-based aid were entitled to the money because it had been "stolen" from their ancestors. That was not the perspective of the white farmers that brought suit against the Biden administration nor the court that prevented the plan from being implemented.

During a recent episode of the RFK Jr. Podcast, National Black Farmers Association founder John Boyd explained that after the multi-billion dollar measure was passed as part of the American Rescue Plan, the United States Department of Agriculture "dragged its feet" when it came to distributing the funds to the 16,000 eligible recipients.

Boyd recalled how over the following months, white farmers took issue with the policy, and challenged the policy in court. It was eventually halted by a Wisconsin judge, and repealed by Congress in the Internal Revenue Agency spending bill a short time later.

"When I'm in the White House ... I'm gonna get rid of those people in USDA and get that money," Kennedy replied. "That $5 billion is not money that is an entitlement. It's money that was a loan that black farmers were entitled to way back then and was stolen from them through discrimination."

Kennedy added that the court had found that money was stolen from black farmers, citing Boyd himself as an example of someone who could testify that it happened to them. "It was given to every other farmer," he continued. "If you were white you got it, if you were black you didn't get it, and that's wrong, and I don't think anyone who believes in the values of this country thinks that's a good idea."

Kennedy went on to suggest that the USDA was "broken from the top down," and only operates to "benefit big ag" at the expense of small farmers. He also appears to believe that the federal government should undertake discrimination against white farmers in order to attempt to ameliorate discrimination implemented many decades ago.