The US is Giving me Stress

It is 8:44 am, on a Monday. I should be planting collard seeds and prepparing to weed one of my grass covered beds. To the contrary, I am in my bed, furious, exhausted, and looking forward to sharnig a word. I will be swearing in this post, so be advised. This post also discribes racist beauracratic systems and probable sexism, homophobia, and anti-Blackness.

I didn’t get to sleep until sometime around 4 am this morning. I was ready for bed back at 10 or so, and got in around their. I was clean, fed, hydrated, I’d worked out earlier in the day. My body was looking forward to the rest and I thought my mind was as well. Until I was up, and up, and still up.

This morning in an internal tussle with feeling guilty for not being awake and a deep desire to claim rest because I want to fucking sleep, I had an epiphany. I am struggling to sleep because I am stressed out. The obvious causes are this pandemic that Americans, overwhelmingly, think is a joke. I don’t have energy to even talk about how much I hate the selfishness here. Next, I have not forgotten how George Floyd was publicly executed and this particular death in a sea of Black genocide at the hands of police had the effect it did. People were fed-up and going off. It has been beautiful, enraging, scary, exciting to see what has come of the momentum. Admitedly, it has been extremely painful due to the reality that other deaths around the same time as Floyd’s have been this dull echo in the background. The clamoring to interview Black farmers, business owners, activists the click-bait lists of which Black owned thing to support this week. The welcome donations even leave a touch of sadness in me. This fad will not last.

Even through it, we are still being murdered by the police and demands for a future that protects Black life is action among few and conversation amongst a handful. Even through these fed-uprisings, which have subsided in many places, there was so much apology from Black people. In my own town of Rocky Mount, there was more of an emphasis on how the protest was peaceful than anything else. So much fear of scaring white people that I do not give a shit about. I feel politically isolated in this little town and I expected that.

Here’s where the personal and political spiral down into my day to day. It has been 10 months and some change since I submitted my application for a farm number to the Nashville FSA office. The Farm Service Agencey, an agency of the US Department of Agriculture, is in charge of agricultural policy, administers credit and loan programs, and manages conservation, commodity, disaster and farm marketing programs. Quite simply, its an agencey that serves farms, no?

I felt like something was up when November 2019 turned into December turned into 2020, turned into spring blah blah. I have called the FSA each month since I submitted the application. “The person in charge of that is not in today, can I take a message? Thanks someone will call you back.”

I’m never called back. I was called back once in the spring when a USDA agent called in ahead of my monthly check up. A woman called me back and said, “You are in a line up of four. We have moved our office location so things are a little backed up. I will call you back on Friday as I move through these other four ahead of you.”

You guessed it, I was never called back. How do millennials deal with being ghosted by a beauracratic system know to Black farmers for its blatant and life ruining racism? Well I run espionage. I reached out to the Black Farmers Nationwide facebook group:

A role call, cuz I can’t believe this

The answers blew my mind and pissed me entirely off. See Below

a matter of hours for these folks.

I appreicate this persons “fuck you” to the feds. I agree girl, but I want those grants.

And this is my frustration y’all; there are DUCKETS in the USDA grant programs. So many dollars I cannot even apply for because someone is on some bullshit at the FSA, by someone I mean the whole system. These responses were virtually the same for about 50 different people mostly across the South. This is not an accurate representation of how Black farmers experience their local FSA, though, so before someone suggests there is no foul play due to race in my case, peep: there are 12.4 thousand people in this FB group. Not all Black, not all farmers. Grain of salt, okay?

At this point I was upset, but did consider the situation of my local FSA changing office and I know the agents are overworked. I bring this up because white supremacy is overworking people due to lack of investment in proper staff numbers to handle the workload. So whether or not Stacey, the agent responsible for my number is racist, I don’t know. I do know she is working in a system that historically slows its operation when it comes to getting Black farmers what they need.

I had one dear sister farmer let me know she’d help me out when I explained my situation after seeing her farm number only took 15 minutes. Shout out to BLACK WOMEN, thanks for existing. This is what she found:

I asked if I could call her auntie, she said no. lol

BUT COME tf Thru sis! A day later, she gave me the tea.

i just want to note also, this woman is busy running a dope farm in TN and doing census training and took the time out to help me. God Bless, definitely trying to pay this forward and show gratitude to her.

Stacey, Stacey, Stacey… Why Stacey, when I called the week before running this recon on FB like a goddamn detective, didn’t you just call me back and say this Stacey? QTNA(questions that need answers)

So, y’all know, I gotta pay Stacey a visit next week cuz. I definitely expect some bullshit. The owner of a farm business in Nash County has been calling the agencey designed to serve farm businesses for TEN months, and y’all don’t know all this specific information that doesn’t affect their business, but you couldn’t do that for me. Make it make sense babe?

The fact that I have even had to expeirence suspicion is a testament to how deep white supremacy and anti-Blackness are. I very much look Black, I very much do not conform to the gender concept of woman, and I’m not a man. Now that I have to go back to that building to probably get more run around and bullshit, I feel unease. Imagine being nearly 30 and feeling like, I should probably bring someone they will respect as an adult with me. The US is giving me stress.

I have reached out for more help, but if you have any advice, if you can confirm this fiscal year split please let me know. Starting a farm alone, is hard. I did expect that, I didn’t expect a pandemic and to still not be able to not live off the land. Managing as best as I can, I’m making for therapy, exercise, and phoning my friends.

Thank y’all for the support. I’m so -so, could use the support so if you have leads on these things please share:

• How to calculate electric load for an off-grid solar power system

• Flower seed collection tips

• Black lesbian Farmer community

• Boxing coaches in Eastern, NC

• Seed Saving techniques

• Mind and Body restoration practices

My goal is to share what I am going through to help the next Black dyke who wants to farm, get through easier than I. My ancestors did this for me, it’s my duty to look out.

Thanks for reading, the land is really lucious right now. I been putting people on to garlic chives and sweet potatoe greens. Love you.