George Allen’s racism is now front and center in his campaign. This all came to the fore when he used the racist term “macaca” in reference to his opponent’s campaign worker who was attending an Allen event. This word was commonly used by French Tunisians in reference to people of Indian extraction. Allen says he just made up the word but, it was discovered his mother was French Tunisian.

Then, more recently, even more allegations have come forward from associates of Allen who knew Allen as a young man and say his use of the word “nigger” was very much a common thing for him and he has a fondness for Confederate symbols. He issued an apology, of sorts, because he had been “slow to grasp the pain that Old South symbols like the Confederate flag cause black people”.

Well, now that all this is out in the open, Allen has been scrambling to show just how racist he’s not and this may have a silver lining for black farmers.

Several years ago, the U.S. Department of Agriculture agreed to a multi-billion-dollar settlement with black farmers against whom the department had a long-standing history of discrimination. However, thanks in a great part to the Justice Department, then under John Ashcroft, hurdles and legal wrangling kept the farmers from getting word of the settlement in time so, more than 60,000 farmers were told that their claims were submitted “too late” and each missed out on payments of, at minimum, $50,000.

Enter George Allen. Allen is now sponsoring a bill that will give these farmers a second chance at claiming their portions of the settlement.

Allen says the bill will be of benefit “to all African American farmers who suffered the indignity and inequality of being denied financial assistance through USDA.”

Well, as the saying goes: “tell the truth and shame the devil.” In this case, he might have been shamed into doing something meaningful.

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