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Is Steven Crowder racist? Comedian's tirade against Black farmers has Internet calling out 'blatant racism'

Crowder's latest comments follow a series of homophobic comments leaving many on social media wondering why YouTube hasn't banned him or his channel yet

WARNING: DISTURBING CONTENT

Political commentator and comedian Steven Crowder has found himself in another storm after fresh comments about African-American farmers went viral. In a YouTube video, Crowder is seen poking fun at President Joe Biden's "America Rescue Plan" provision that allots around $5 billion for farmers of color. The clip was first shared by researcher Jason Campbell and has since been retweeted and reshared multiple times.

Many users blasted Crowder's comments, but this is far from his first time in the spotlight for the wrong reasons. Crowder does seem to have a history of homophobic behavior, once harassing journalist Carlos Manza. Yet, his social media accounts are still active and he has been allowed to make repeatedly controversial comments targeting minorities. Is this the last straw for Crowder? So far, it doesn't look like it.

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Crowder hosts the podcast 'Louder With Crowder' and is the origin of the "change my mind" meme, a table he frequently sets up at Texas Christian University to debate with students. He is also a former contributor at Fox News.

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

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 US Department of Agriculture toward Black farmers, a report added.

Crowder's controversial past

Crowder first came to light at CPAC 2012, where he debuted a rap video 'Mr America'. The video allegedly featured the "N-word", first highlighted by two small websites — Gawker and Wonkette. However, he defended the video in a 2012 HuffPost article, saying that the word was "knickers" and not the N-word.

According to Crowder, "the verse was used to point out the hyper-PC, disingenuous liberals who today seek for a reason to be offended under every rock." The controversy earned Crowder a lot of backlash but eventually died down after careful listeners found that the word used was reportedly indeed knickers.

Then in 2019, Crowder kicked off a major firestorm after allegedly harassing journalist Carlos Manza. Manza, an openly gay journalist has been the subject of attack for a few years before things really blew up. The Verge reported, "he’s (Manza) been dealing with Crowder since 2017 when the YouTube creator first started 'debunking' Strikethrough episodes."

In a now-deleted tweet, Manza claimed "every single video has included repeated, overt attacks on my sexual orientation and ethnicity." A viral thread from Manza was picked up by YouTube, who investigated the incident and demonetized Crowder's channel for nearly a year.

The company faced massive blowback for not suspending the channel, despite reportedly clear proof of harassing Manza. Crowder defended himself arguing that "rather than rebutting back, it seems Vox's Carlos Manza is encouraging silencing us, by playing a victim."

Now, the latest video's viral nature could prompt YouTube to rethink its actions. As of the time of writing, YouTube hasn't issued a statement or acted on the video, a segment from his latest 'Louder With Crowder' show. Nonetheless, many on Twitter are already calling it out for its clearly racist nature. Here's the original tweet posted by Campbell.

'Sent to the 9th layer of hell'

Many users on social media have since criticized Crowder for the show, with one user tweeting "steven crowder will be sent to the 9th layer of hell". Another said that the clip was "A lot more racist than I expected actually."

David French, Senior Editor at The Dispatch tweeted, "However bad you think this is, it's worse. It's just jaw-droppingly blatant racism." Another user said, "I expected their to be some sort of thin veil to the racism, but this was just openly, outwardly racist."

A user tweeted, "I just can't understand how anyone would think that's funny. It's horrendous, and it's racist. But is also misses the mark so profoundly as humor. It's like it's 'comedy' for people who don't understand what the concept is."

Plenty of other users threatened Crowder with violence, while some called on YouTube to act. For now though, it seems like Crowder will keep his account and monetization benefits. We will update this story if YouTube does act against Crowder's account.