Some thoughts on Pigford v Cobell

I recently received an email petition from a friend, forwarded from colorofchange.org which asked me to sign to support black farmers' lawsuit against the Department of Agriculture in the much delayed Pigford II settlement. Interestingly, nowhere in the petition did it mention how in recent news, Pigford II has been publicly linked by Obama to the equally long-standing Cobell settlement involving mismanagement of Indian trusts. At face value it seems that the two cases bear similarities: one involving black farmers whose rights to farming land have been denied through systematic discrimination in preferential loaning by the USDA; the other involving thousands of Indians whose rights to their personal property have been denied through federal mismanagement of trusts. Yet since Obama's public declaration linking these cases, there has been outcry from both sides insisting on the necessity for the cases to be considered separately; in fact, prominent figures in each camp have pointed fingers at the other, suggesting that linking the two cases has prevented their own settlement from moving forward.

How do we make sense of these complicated legal battles? One journalist has argued that Obama's call to consider the cases jointly is a result of mistaking the Cobell case for Keepseagle, another settlement involving Indian farmers, and that the actual terms of each case require individual consideration. It might also be argued that any contestation over property rights with the U.S. government by any other group can never be considered on the same terms as Native people.

At the same time, is there also something to be said for the loss of potential coalition-building between the two groups, despite the specificities of each case? As Carol Estes points out in her article, one major factor stalling the progress of Pigford II was the counterintuitive decree requiring each individual farmer to provide evidence of discrimination in separate "mini-trials," evidence nearly impossible to come by since it involved white farmers willingly providing information on loans they received. In a case like this that deals with systematic discrimination, it seems counterintuitive to rely on a legal process hinged on isolated judgements of individual cases. Bringing the matter back to Cobell and Pigford II, does a complete separation of the cases further support the bureaucratic nightmare of the federal process? Or is the integrity of each case lost in strategic alliance as is sometime inevitable in the coalition-building process?

-CK

Cited:

Estes, Carol. June 30, 2001. "Second Chance For Black Farmers" YES! Magazine. http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/reclaiming-the-commons/second-chance-for-black-farmers

Further Reading:

http://www.indiancountrytoday.com/archive/Black-farmers-turn-away-from-Cobell-Senators-respond-103709079.html

http://legaltimes.typepad.com/blt/2010/07/cobell-pigford-settlements-still-need-a-home.html

http://www.blackfarmers.org/html/100810.html