Lee Stranahan
Patterico’s Pontifications
4/27/2011
…I spent three months recently on the road in the South and doing interviews about the Pigford case. Almost all of the interviews were with black Americans who have an involvement with the case. I spoke to attorneys, farmers, activists and politicians with a variety of viewpoints. During this trip, I was struck time and again with just how poisonous our political climate has turned our views of race.
And if there’s one aspect of Pigford I consider the most important, it’s how this one case has played a significant role in hurting the state of race relations. When things stagnate, dangers soon follow. Just as stagnant water brings insects and disease, our stagnant politics of race has brought genuine hardships to our entire nation…
…What I did not know when I started on the road was the extent to which “liberal” groups like Media Matters for America would fight to defend Pigford even when it was clear that the injustices in Pigford were often most unfair to the black community. I naïvely assumed that people on the left would see the unfairness being heaped upon black folks in this case and at least give the facts a fair hearing. Instead, I’ve seen people on left time and again bend over backwards to ignore the truth in Pigford, knowing full well that black farmers are being harmed…
…Not once – not one single time I’m aware of — has any critic of the Pigford investigation taken me up on this and spoken to the farmers.
Here’s what eats at me; I can walk away from the Pigford story. At the end of the day, it’s a project for me. But for these farmers, it’s their life. When Pigford defenders like Eric Boehlert and Media Matters, James Rucker and Color of Change, Anderson Cooper, and Ta-Nehisi Coates attack (or worse, ignore) the video interviews with these farmers, it’s really not me or Andrew Breitbart who they are hurting or demeaning – it’s those men who have been trying to bring the truth about Pigford to light for over a decade.
The Pigford story has had a much wider effect because it bolsters the feelings of both black people and white people that our political system is rigged against them…
Read the entire article at Patterico’s Pontifications.
