The DISH
Unbossed and unbought news and information you can use
Vol. 12 Issue 19…Dedicated to the Dialogue on
Race…May 10, 2009
Bit of History
A Retrospective:
President Obama and Black Farmers
For far too long, this country's hardworking black farmers were
discriminated against by our own government, and this legislation offers a
chance for us to continue righting those wrongs. I am pleased to join my
colleague, Senator Charles Grassley of
Black farmers held a rally and one-day conference in
The 2008 farm bill sponsored by
Sen. Obama covered thousands of farmers excluded from the settlement in Pigford v. Glickman,
a class action lawsuit filed against the USDA by Timothy Pigford,
a black farmer, in 1998. That legislation provided an initial $100 million to
finance payments to farmers who could prove they were discriminated against by
the government but were left out of the original settlement.
Triumph amidst tragedy, Pigford, like thousands of black farmers, has suffered and
continues to suffer egregious discrimination and racism at the hands of the
USDA's farm assistance programs, which began in the 1930s. Mr. Pigford applied for a farm ownership loan from the USDA but
was denied. He lodged a protest before the Agriculture Committee of the US
House of Representatives only to have his operating loans called in. Adding
insult to injury, the Farmers Home Administration (part of the USDA) foreclosed
on his home.
Pigford
persevered and won his class-action suit against the USDA based on its pattern
of farm loan programs discrimination against African-American farmers. As a
result, the court ordered that other black farmers who could show evidence of
discriminatory treatment by the USDA between 1981 and 1996 were entitled to a
cash payment of $50,000, debt forgiveness (and potentially more money in
specific instances), and preferential treatment on future loans. In 1999, USDA
settled the class-action suit, and agreed to pay plaintiffs. However, the USDA
only gave black farmers a brief deadline to file claims. Coupled with the
USDA's failure to adequately publicize the settlement, many farmers missed out
on getting the relief they deserved.
The irony is Pigford
won, but black farmers lost, because according to researcher Rick Cohen, in
The Senate passed the Obama sponsored bill in December 2008. It re-opened the Pigford case and allowed those who missed the filing
deadline to reapply for compensation. This farm bill, known as Pigford II, allowed black farmers who filed claims after
the 1999 deadline to revive those cases. It also included $100 million to
settle those claims, as well as a provision to allow additional appropriations
if those funds were exhausted.
After deadline extensions due to insufficient notice, the results were still
shocking: 94,000 black farmers filed for restitution, but 81,000 were rejected.
Under a court-ordered extension of the time limits for eligibility, nearly
66,000 cases were reviewed, but only 2,131 accepted. Not only have black
farmers received little of the estimated $3 to 4 billion value of the
settlement, patterns of insufficient support to minority farmers continue.
Statistics show that the subsidy gap between black and white farmers continues
to widen post-Pigford. ((Sources: http://colorofchange.org, www.northwestgeorgia.com, and www.themilitant.com)
Talking from Both Sides of Ones
Mouth
By John Burl Smith
Entering the White House with
much fanfare, promise and hope for black people, as well as the rest of the
nation, President Barack Obama, as of late, seems to have given Black Farmers
"buyers' remorse." Things were looking up when Tom Vilsack was appointed Secretary of Agriculture. Taking
office, Vilsack promised to "develop initiatives
that would address the extensive and infamous civil rights problems at the
USDA. I've seen discrimination complaints submitted to the USDA by black
farmers shoved aside, thrown out or not processed. The USDA has a long and ugly
history of discrimination against black people. Some folks refer to the USDA as
the last plantation. Across the South, White local and regional USDA managers
routinely denied black farmers critical farm loans and disaster assistance --
aid that was easily granted to White farmers. This federal assistance often
meant the difference between a thriving, economically viable farm and
foreclosure."
Applauded for his candor, Vilsack's acknowledgment
recognized that there has been unbelievable discrimination against black
farmers at the USDA's Farm Service Agencies across the country and in other
USDA agencies. This includes lack of credit opportunities and access to
programs, which resulted in a tragic loss of land down from a peak of 15
million acres (14% of all farmers) in 1910 to a little over 3 million acres
(1.4%) owned by blacks today.
Vilsack declared he would reverse USDA's history and
change the culture by first giving the Office of Civil Rights at USDA some real
muscle. He pledged to equalize access to services at USDA agencies -
particularly the Farm Service Agency, the Natural Resources Conservation
Service and in Rural Development. Also, adequately review and address the
thousands of civil rights complaints and work with the Department of Justice to
resolve lingering Pigford claims. Establishing a
moratorium on foreclosures some of which included successful claimants in the
black farmers’ lawsuit, Vilsack reversed a Bush
administration denial that let foreclosures go forward even though reviews for
appropriate debt relief in the lawsuit continued.
Although Sen. Obama was very
active in the debate over the Pigford settlement,
citing the case in his
Bitterly upset, Gary Grant,
president of the Black Farmers and Agriculturalists Association in Tillery,
Arguing for the $100 million cap, Obama will give each farmer only $2,000 to
$3,000 of the $50,000 his bill promised. This reversal by President Obama
violates the spirit of the law and makes Vilsack a
hypocrite by undercutting his promise of equity. After spending hundreds of
billions of dollars bailing out banks, insurance and car companies, rewarding
them for years of greed and mismanagement, Obama is pinching pennies going to
black people and reneging on a promise to some deserving poor farmers whose
shoulders he stood on to reach his present heights.
He, who talks out of both sides of his mouth, eventually bites his tongue.
(Sources: www.govexec.com and www.dailyyonder.com)
Foreclosures and Property Taxes
In majority black
A drive through many of the county's established black neighborhoods and one
can see empty houses; some have overgrown lawns and boarded up windows. Many
have foreclosure, for rent or for sale signs; others just show decay and
obvious signs that the properties are unoccupied.
The downside of the kind of predatory lending that was allowed to run rampant
in
On April 18, the DeKalb Board of
Tax Assessors' Property Appraisal Department sent out Assessment Change
Notices, which stated the board would not consider foreclosure sales and even
some bank sales in determining fair market values. However, the board's
position proved contrary to a new state law signed April 14 by Gov. Sonny
Perdue. The new state law changed the definition for determining fair market
value of real property, forcing counties to take into consideration
foreclosures and other distressed properties when determining property values.
On Wednesday, May 6, Gov. Sonny
Perdue also signed into law House Bill 233, which prevents local governments
from increasing assessments used to calculate property taxes for three years,
ending with the 2012 tax year. Since counties must take into consideration
foreclosures and other distressed properties when determining property values,
this new law does not prevent counties from changing assessments due to lower
appraised values.
Thanks to these new state laws, DeKalb's Board of Tax Assessors is sending
Fighting Foreclosure
Consumer Warning Network (CWN)
has developed a strategy called Produce the Note, which can delay a prospective
foreclosure.
To help homeowners fight foreclosure, CWN has created videos, templates, which
include a legal request, a letter to the lender and a motion to compel, and
step by step procedures to guide you through the process. According to CWN,
even in states that allow lenders to foreclose on your home without going to
court, so-called non-judicial foreclosure states, "you can still use the
"Produce the Note" strategy to forestall foreclosure." You
simply have to take a few more steps.
The Produce the Note strategy is
based on homeowners making certain the institution suing them owns the note.
"There is only one original note for your mortgage that has your signature
on it. This is the document that proves you owe the debt.
During the lending boom, most
mortgages were flipped and sold to other lenders or mortgage service companies
or sliced up and sold to investors as securitized packages on Wall Street. In
the rush to turn these over as fast as possible to make the most money, many of
the new lenders did not get the proper paperwork to show they owned the note
and mortgage. This is the key to the produce the note strategy. Now, many
lenders are moving to foreclose on homeowners, resulting in part from problems
they created, and don't have the proper paperwork to prove they have a right to
foreclose."
According to CWN, if homeowners
fail to challenge lenders, the court will simply allow the foreclosure to
proceed, even without proper documentation. "If the lender is allowed to
proceed without that proof, there is a possibility another institution, which
may have bought your note along the way, will also try to collect the same debt
from you again." Thus, it is in the homeowner's interest to make the
lender produce the note.
The produce the note process will not help you get your house for free. Its
primary goal is to delay the foreclosure and put pressure on the lender to
negotiate. For the step by step procedure to fight foreclosure, copies of the
forms to make lenders produce the original note and more, visit www.consumerwarningnetwork.com.
The Financial Fiasco
Contrary to the media perception
that the big banks, which have been showered with hundreds of billions of tax
dollars, were unwitting victims of subprime lenders, according to the Center
for Public Integrity (www.publicintegrity.org),
"Many of the lenders were either controlled by US and European banks, or
could not have indulged in their high-risk lending spree without the connivance
of banks." According to the center's executive director, Bill Buzenberg, "The mega-banks that funded the subprime
industry were not victims of an unforeseen financial collapse, as they have
sometimes portrayed themselves. These banks were deliberate enablers that
bankrolled the type of lending that's now threatening the financial
system."
The center's report shows that most of the top 25 originators, most of which
are now bankrupt, were either owned or heavily financed by the nation's largest
banks, including Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo, JPMorgan
and Bank of America. Together, they originated $1,000 billion in subprime
mortgages in 2005-07 - almost three-quarters of the total.
These same banks, which have received the bulk of the $700 billion in troubled
asset relief (TARP) funds issued since October 2008, also supported a massive
lobbying effort to prevent tighter regulation of the subprime market. In
addition, according to the Centre for Responsive Politics, an independent
watchdog, the financial industry's $2.2 billion in contributions over the past
decade make it one of the largest campaign contributors. In raising a record
$700 million in campaign contributions, President Barack Obama was one of the
financial industry's top recipients, receiving some $14 million.
Despite what it would have us
believe to the contrary, the financial industry caused the financial crisis; it
lobbied to prevent Congress from passing meaningful legislation to restrict its
subprime predatory practices. While we may deny a quid pro quo, the financial
industry's massive infusion of campaign contributions and lobbying efforts
assured Congress complied with its wishes.
Its new wish list apparently
contains more funds to improve its balance sheets. President Obama and Congress
will in all likelihood comply, since these entities, unlike the hundreds of
thousands of individual homeowners that face foreclosure, have been deemed too big
to fail.
On MARTA's Dime
By Dot
In 1971, the citizens of majority
black DeKalb and
The MARTA one-cent sales tax was supposed to last twenty years. However, under
the leadership of former governor Roy Barnes, a Democrat, and without the
benefit of a referendum, the state legislature extended this regressive tax to
2047! None of our black elected officials saw fit to challenge the legality of
imposing taxes on their constituency without the benefit of a referendum.
Moreover, there was no effort to force the surrounding counties to pay the
one-cent tax.
Adding insult to injury, the state legislature created the Georgia Regional
Transportation Authority (GRTA), which uses the MARTA sales tax - the state's
sole dedicated public transportation revenue stream - to float bonds to fund
public transportation systems in counties that do not pay the MARTA sales tax.
In the meantime, MARTA struggles to stay afloat, giving the people that provide
it the most support fare increases and service cuts, while GRTA riders enjoy
express service in modern air-conditioned buses on our dime.
Last week, MARTA commuters staged a protest against more proposed service cuts
and fare increases. Our black elected officials were not among the protestors.
Either our black elected officials do not understand the arguments or they are
complicit in the 3/5 compromise arrangement that forces the citizen of majority
black DeKalb and
For more on the issues
surrounding MARTA, visit www.thedish.org/MARTA_Sucks.Com.html.
Mailbox: E-Mails, Faxes and
Phone Calls
Email nogt33@webtv.net ...Subject: A faint glimmer
of hope...Dear Dot: Hope this finds you and the family well. I just wanted to briefly
comment on one positive observation. I have been so pleased at one aspect of
President Obama's election -- the fact that an African-American sits in the
White House. This is providing daily visuals of the lovely First Lady and the
beautiful daughters, Sasha and Malia
and has given the lie to all the bogus excuses about "there just aren't
enough qualified African-Americans applying for those jobs with high-paying
visibility." I am overjoyed at the 'sudden' appearance of dark-skinned
children in positive news reports and also the 'sudden' plethora of
well-educated Black experts on all the talking heads programs. We are still
light years away from the fair and honest representation of African-Americans
in all aspects of life in
Email www.tampabay.com...The Senate defeated an
amendment last week to give bankruptcy judges the power to alter the terms of
home mortgages. The opponents who sided with the mortgage industry over
homeowners included 12 Democrats and 39 Republicans -- including Florida
Republican Mel Martinez. You would think a senator from the state with the second
highest mortgage foreclosure rate in the country last year would have seen the
wisdom of giving bankruptcy judges more discretion. Florida Democrat Bill
Nelson showed commendable backbone, standing up to the banking lobby and voting
for the amendment. Majority Whip Richard Durbin of
Email FRITZ44R@aol.com ...I agree with
much of what I read; I, too, like to look at what I'm faced with daily in the
places that I live. I presently live 6 months in