Anti-LGBT+ YouTuber Steven Crowder launches ‘wildly racist tirade’ against Black farmers
Steven Crowder described the COVID-19 relief package as “reparations” for “coloured farmers”. (Twitter/ JasonSCampbell)
Right-wing YouTuber Steven Crowder, known for his racist and homophobic harassment of Vox journalist Carlos Maza, is facing fresh accusations of racism after mocking Black farmers.
Crowder, a former Fox News contributor who has 5.4 million YouTube subscribers, made the comments in Tuesday’s (16 March) episode of Louder with Crowder.
Referencing a COVID-19 relief bill which will provide $5 billion to farmers of colour, who lost most of their land over the last century due to systemic discrimination, Crowder called the stimulus package “reparations” for “coloured farmers”.
The segment, which Media Matters researcher Jason Campbell called “a wildly racist tirade against Black farmers”, saw Steven Crowder make “jokes” about Black farmers planting “Hennessy trees” in soil that has “a high level of meth”. He added: “Are people lining up out in the middle of cornfield Iowa for new dunks?”
On YouTube, Steven Crowder and his co-hosts go on a wildly racist tirade against Black farmers. https://t.co/dbnKNN2Lch pic.twitter.com/iUsm2hjknb
— Jason S. Campbell (@JasonSCampbell) March 16, 2021
However bad you think this is, it's worse. It's just jaw-droppingly blatant racism. https://t.co/OuYdYlFTJ7— David French (@DavidAFrench) March 17, 2021
Steven Crowder’s co-host Dave Landau also chimed in: “I thought the last thing they would want to do is be farmers. Wasn’t that a big problem for hundreds of years?”
In 2019, YouTube insisted in a statement that it would “no longer allow content that maliciously insults someone based on protected attributes such as their race, gender expression, or sexual orientation”, and that the rule would apply “to everyone, from private individuals, to YouTube creators, to public officials”.
According to Media Matters, Crowder’s video has now been removed from YouTube. However, the platform said it was taken down for “violating its COVID-19 misinformation policy”.
Steven Crowder called Vox journalist Carlos Maza a ‘lispy queer’ and a ‘gay Mexican’
In 2019, Vox journalist Carlos Maza spoke out publicly about persistent racist and homophobic abuse from Steven Crowder, in YouTube videos spanning several years.
Crowder described Maza as a “lispy queer”, a “little queer” and a “gay Mexican”, sometimes while wearing a t-shirt bearing the slogan: “Socialism is for fags.”
At the time, YouTube initially said that it had reviewed Crowder’s content, but decided: “While we found language that was clearly hurtful, the videos as posted don’t violate our policies.” Six months later, the platform u-turned and said it was updating its hate speech policy, although many have pointed out that the enforcement of this policy has been patchy at best.
It removed Crowder from its partner programme, meaning he could not monetise his videos, but 14 months later the platform reinstated him.
Maza wrote at the time: “YouTube has reinstated Steven Crowder into its Partner Program, meaning they’ll once again allow him to monetise his videos.
“Demonetising was already insufficient, but this decision proves that YouTube has no real interest in enforcing its anti-hate policies.”
In the past few months, Crowder has:
– published conspiracy theories about COVID
– called BLM a terrorist organization
– made multiple videos about how "TRANSGENDERS ATTACK!"These are all in violation of YouTube's policies. Not a single one has been removed. pic.twitter.com/NXPmPHtqVl— Carlos Maza (@gaywonk) August 12, 2020
In response to Steven Crowder’s latest comments, one Twitter user wrote: “YouTube missed the boat on banning Crowder for homophobic harassment… or any of the hundred other previous times he was very racist, so I hold no hope they’ll do the right thing in this case.
“YouTube loves hate speech, so long as it is profitable.”
