By L Williams
It says a lot about a nation when it’s quicker to feel sorry for farmers on another continent than to make amends with its own. That’s exactly what happened during the Trump administration, when the plight of white South African Afrikaners became a cause célèbre for conservative politicians and media—while Black American farmers continued to be shut out of aid, ignored, and denied justice.
Let’s be clear: Black farmers in America have endured decades of state-sanctioned land theft, discriminatory loan practices, and bureaucratic indifference. Their numbers have dwindled from nearly 1 million in the early 20th century to just over 45,000 today. It’s not a coincidence. It’s the result of policy choices.
And yet, when $28 billion in trade-war relief was handed out under Trump, over 99% of it went to white farmers. That’s not just an oversight—that’s a continuation of economic apartheid.
Now contrast that with Trump’s response to the perceived plight of Afrikaner farmers in South Africa. In 2018, he tweeted about the “large-scale killing” of white farmers—a false and grossly exaggerated narrative pushed by white nationalist groups. Suddenly, the administration was interested in “protecting farmers”—but only those who looked like them.
Some Afrikaners were even welcomed by sympathetic U.S. communities, hailed as “victims of reverse racism.” Meanwhile, Black immigrants from Haiti and Africa were detained, deported, and disparaged.
So let’s not pretend this was about farmers. This was about who gets to be seen as a victim in the American imagination—and who doesn’t.
Black farmers, in their own country, are still fighting for recognition, justice, and survival. The same government that turned its back on them rolled out the red carpet—figuratively, if not literally—for white foreign farmers from halfway around the world.
This isn’t just a double standard. It’s a moral failing.
