Far-right pundit mocks Black farmers in racist tirade over provisions in Dem COVID relief bill

The American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, the $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief bill that has been signed into law by President Joe Biden, includes billions of dollars in agricultural support — and roughly half of it has been set aside for non-White farmers. Far-right pundit/comedian Steven Crowder and several associates, on the March 16 broadcast of his "Louder With Crowder" show, responded with a racist segment attacking and mocking Black farmers.

Dave Landau, one of Crowder's co-hosts, scoffed, "I thought the last thing they would want to do is be farmers. Wasn't that a big problem for hundreds of years? Isn't that why Arsenio Hall called himself the urban man's Johnny Carson?"

Crowder and his colleagues acted as though no Africans-Americans live in rural areas. The host asked, "Are people lining up out in the middle of cornfield Iowa for new dunks?," and Landau — mockingly — said, "I planted a Hennessy tree, but it's not growing…. I planted a VSOPXO tree. I'm getting into some niche esoteric cognac humor, motherfucker."

Media Matters' Jason Campbell, reporting on the March 16 "Louder With Crowder" segment, explains, "Out of the 3.4 million farmers in the United States, only about 45,000 are Black. The purpose of the aid in the American Rescue Plan is to lessen the racial gap in the farming community and correct decades of discrimination from the U.S. Department of Agriculture toward Black farmers. Conservative media have been, predictably, smearing this aid provision, framing it as 'reparations' and discriminatory to White people."