On YouTube, Steven Crowder uses racist stereotypes to attack Black farmers

Update (3/17/21): Bloomberg News reports that YouTube removed Crowder’s video, citing its violation of the platform’s coronavirus content policies. A YouTube spokesperson stated: “This video violates our Covid-19 misinformation policy, which prohibits content claiming that the death rates of Covid-19 are less severe or equally as severe as the common cold or seasonal flu.” YouTube also said that the video was blocked from running ads and that Crowder himself did make any money from the video.

On the March 16 YouTube edition of Louder with Crowder, Steven Crowder and his co-hosts engaged in a wildly racist bit on Black farmers, employing racist stereotypes and offensive language. Co-host Dave Landau remarked, “I thought the last thing they would want to do is be farmers. Wasn’t that a big problem for hundreds of years?”

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.

Video file

Citation From the March 16, 2021, edition of Louder with Crowder, streamed on YouTube

STEVEN CROWDER: Joe -- former vice president Joe Biden -- his America Rescue Plan includes farmer reparations. Now, what does that mean? It means -- and I don't know where you find this many farmers of color, but they did. And 5.2 billion are being allocated exclusively for colored farmers -- farmers of color, farmers of color. Roll the tape.

...

CROWDER: Most happy about the new policy, these people. So, yeah. I'm gonna buy a plow man.

CO-HOST: I'm going buy corn.

CROWDER: I'm going to buy a John Deere. Barack Obama mother -- I'm the president of plowing that ass.

DAVE LANDAU (CO-HOST): I thought the last thing they would want to do is be farmers. Wasn't that a big problem for hundreds of years?

CROWDER: Isn't that why Arsenio Hall called himself the urban man's Johnny Carson?

LANDAU: I think so.

CROWDER: Yeah, I don't know, I don't know. Are people lining up out in the middle of cornfield Iowa for new dunks?

...

LANDAU: I planted a Hennessy tree, but it's not growing.

CROWDER: Well, technically it did grow, but that shit ain't XO --

LANDAU: I put it in the ground.

CROWDER: I planted a VSOPXO tree. I'm getting into some niche esoteric cognac humor motherfucker.

Crowder has a history of using racist and bigoted language on his show. Last week, he used a racist slur to describe Meghan Markle, Duchess of Sussex. YouTube claims to have a policy against racist bullying and hate speech.