James Clyburn, senior Democratic leader, urges Lindsey Graham to ‘go to church’ after comments on compensation

James Clyburn, senior Democratic leader, urges Lindsey Graham to ‘go to church’ after comments on compensation

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“Lindsey Graham is from South Carolina. He knows the history of South Carolina. He knows what the state of South Carolina and this country did to black farmers in South Carolina. They did not do it to white farmers. We “He should be ashamed of the lives and livelihoods of people. He should be ashamed of himself,” Clyburn told CNN’s Alisyn Camerota on ‘New Day’. ‘I think you should go back and maybe go to church. Get in touch with his Christianity. ‘

The $ 1.9 billion stimulus bill, which is expected to hit the House on Wednesday, will provide direct payments of up to 120% of a “socially disadvantaged” farmer’s debt from January 1, 2021. A socially disadvantaged farmer or farmer is someone in a socially disadvantaged group, those who are “subject to racial or ethnic prejudice because of their identity as members of a group without regard to their individual characteristics”, according to a Home Act .
During an interview on Fox News, Graham criticized the bill for including the provision and others he said were not related to the coronavirus pandemic. He also calls the aid to farmers ‘compensation’, a term that refers to compensation to descendants of slaves.

“Let me give you an example of something that really bothers me. If you are a farmer, your loan will be forgiven up to 120% of your loan, not 100%, but 120% if you are socially disadvantaged., If you “African American is another minority. But if you’re a white person, if you’re a white woman, no forgiveness. It’s compensation. What does that have to do with Covid?”, Graham told Morning Futures. . “

Over the years, black farmers were expelled from their land and faced discrimination from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. In 1920, the USDA counted 925,708 black farmers, which accounted for about 14% of all farmers at the time. In 2017, there were only 45,508 black farmers – about 1.3% of all U.S. farmers – in the United States according to the most recent USDA census of agriculture.
John Boyd Jr., founder and president of the National Black Farmers Association, complained about Graham’s remarks during an interview with CNN’s Brianna Keilar on Tuesday, accusing the Republican of not wanting farmers of color to get it right. .

“Here you have a group of people who can hardly defend themselves, and instead of these senators voting to support historic measures like this, where I have been trying for over thirty years to get debt relief for black farmers and other farmers of color , “he told Keilar. . “I never heard Senator Lindsey Graham speak out against discrimination, I was spit on and racially labeled, and my USDA applications were torn up and thrown in the trash. He knows about discrimination … I never spoke out against discrimination but he does not want us to get justice here. ‘

CNN’s Danielle Wiener-Bronner contributed to this report.

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