U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Cruella de Vil, er...Brooke Rollins, Gives a Master Class in Bullshit

While Reynolds, Naig, and Miller-Meeks Smile and Nod...

(Note: Abena Sankofa Imhotep, CEO, author, speaker, and educator will be joining Spencer Dirks and me at noon today, Wednesday, April 9. If you are a subscriber, you will get an email notification when we go live. Thanks!)

The Rollins Visit

USDA Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins was in Iowa last week on Monday. It was a big deal. Yet, the press was only notified after 4:00 p.m. on Sunday afternoon that she was coming, and that to get access, we needed to RSVP by 8:00 p.m. that same evening. I know that most of us in the media don’t have real lives, but this is pushing it. My natural inclination was that they didn’t really want the press around, but I gave them the benefit of the doubt that the visit was pulled together at the last minute. I RSVP’d for the closest event to home, which was in Colfax.

By early Monday morning, I still hadn’t received notice that I would be let in, which wouldn’t be the first time that had happened, and I hadn’t decided yet if I would go anyway to crash the “party,” or not, but a little later all Rollins events were placed on the Governor’s public schedule, so off I went. Here is the Iowa Capitol Dispatch’s story on the event.

---

An Arrogant Tweet

Maybe a day or two before Rollins was in Iowa, my friend Matt Russell shared a tweet that Rollins posted about seeds and DEI.

Please watch the video here to feel her sinister and smug rant against diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility. And remember some consider the abbreviation “DEI” to be a racial slur.

Of course, it is. Look at the venom Rollins spews when she says D-E-I. To be “fair and balanced,” here is Larry Kudlow’s ass-kissing propaganda about the tweet at Fox “News.”

Photo: Disney Fandom.

---

Below is a transcript of the video in Rollins’ tweet, with my comment in italics:

Male voice off camera: I call it woke seeds.

Rollins: Should I do a quick video? (Rollins trying to make it appear that the video wasn’t staged).

Hi everyone, it's Brooke Rollins here at USDA. We started really early this morning as we always do (virtue signaling how industrious they are) is we're here fighting for farmers and ranchers (if so, she would help protect and build markets instead of direct payments to farmers in the aftermath of Trump’s tariffs) and putting Americans first, but you're not going to believe what we just found. Behind the door at USDA, we found a whole box of these seeds (dramatic—like the evil “woke” seeds are hiding behind a door ready to leap out).

And listen, we love seeds here at USDA, but check these out. These are specific tomato seeds that are for growing diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility at USDA. I mean, look at these. If you can be anything, be inclusive at USDA. America, this is what we're fighting here in Washington, D.C. (i.e., fighting “woke” rather than addressing real problems).

This is why we are completely working to realign under President Trump's vision our entire government about returning power to the (white) people (especially white straight men), about ensuring that we're putting (white) Americans first and that we really are going to make America great (white) again and no longer will we spend tax dollars on diversity, equity, inclusion at USDA.

---

The True “Woke” History of the Tomato Plant

Throwing seeds into the trash is arrogant and an insult to farmers who have planted seeds everywhere and throughout history, and to those of us who eat what those seeds produce. And to history and culture. Rollins wasn’t just throwing seeds in the trash, she was throwing people into the trash. Diverse people who seek and deserve equity, inclusion, and accessibility here in America. Rollins threw all of them in the trash as well as our values. The history of all seeds is “woke.”

Many Cultures

Domestication of the tomato plant began in Peru and Ecuador, where its wild ancestor still thrives today. The Nahuatl word tomatl is the origin of the modern word "tomato," reflecting the Aztec role in cultivating and naming the plant. Domestication continued as the plant spread north into Mesoamerica and beyond. Archaeological and genetic evidence suggests that early Mesoamerican cultures cultivated a semi-domesticated form of the tomato and eventually selected for traits like larger fruit size, better flavor, and improved texture. The tomato was brought to Europe by the Spanish in the 16th century.

Here is a list of some of the prehistoric and historic cultures in just Peru and Ecuador that may have had a hand in the domestication of the tomato: the Nazca, Moche, Chavin, Parcas, Wari, Quechua, Aymara, Ashaninka, Shipibo-Conibo, and Aguaruna, among many others.

Of course, many cultures were involved.

Women

Women were certainly involved in the domestication process, according to archaeological and ethnographic evidence. Among the Aztecs, for example, women traditionally managed milpa gardens (the “three sisters” plantings used across the Americas where corn, beans, and squash were planted together creating a symbiotic relationship) and household plots.

Of course, women were involved, likely more than men, given historical and archaeological evidence of the division of labor among the sexes.

LGBTQ+

While complex and not always accepted, evidence from archaeology, ethnohistory, and Indigenous oral traditions shows that non-heteronormative identities and relationships did exist—and in many cases, were accepted or even honored. Modern Maya groups (e.g., the Zapotecs) include recognized third-gender roles today, such as the muxes of Oaxaca.

(Crompton, Louis (2003). Homosexuality and Civilization. Harvard University Press and McKenna Brown, R., et al. (2005). The Language of Maya Hieroglyphs. University of Oklahoma Press).

Of course, LGBTQ+ people were part of the domestication of the tomato.

---

The USDA “Woke” tomato seeds recognize and honor these cultures and traditions then and now.

But in demonizing diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility, Rollins and the Trump administration shows they care nothing about farmers, history, or honor.

Rollins throws it all in the trash.

---

Rollins Confronted about the Tweet

Above is a video I took of the press gaggle at Beck Seeds in Colfax, Iowa. Please watch it, and below is a partial transcript. The first eight minutes or so of my just over 10-minute video are about the Trump Administration’s agricultural policies. I’m tempted to comment but will leave it to others who are more knowledgeable to do so. I get to ask the last question, but unfortunately, I don’t get to follow up.

Rollins says a couple of seemingly incidental things in the ag part of the video related to DEI, even as she doesn’t recognize it, and I include them in the transcript. At about 8:24 I ask her about the anti-DEI video.

I start the transcript below with her incidental remarks. Her comments are in bold, and mine are in italics.

When she realizes that Mike Naig isn’t with the three women at the beginning of the gaggle, she says:

“Yes, the girls are ruling…”

This is a common statement of pride that women are leading and I’ve heard similar statements for at least 50 years. Yet, women leading/”ruling” is a historical product of DEI challenging the patriarchy. A woman Secretary of Agriculture, member of Congress, and Governor would have been impossible without DEI and the furtherance of civil rights for women. The biggest beneficiaries of DEI are white women. I wonder what Rollins would say about that.

Here is the second incidental comment.

“In the first Trump Administration which I was a part of…we saw an unbelievable job growth like our country never seen before, poverty rates lower than in American history for Black, Hispanic women…”

While Rollins doesn’t like DEI, she doesn’t hesitate to use racial/cultural categories as a political tool.

Her press person then said “One more question,” and I jumped in with one that was clumsy, but I think her answer is illuminating. Here is my question:

Secretary Rollins, you just mentioned Black individuals, Hispanic women, and yet I recently saw in a post on X where you found some seeds that you called “woke” seeds that had the words diversity, equity, and inclusion on it. What message does that send to our Black farmers, our gay farmers, Hispanic farmers, women farmers and for the minority production workers…the immigrants that are at the core of manufacturing, what kind of a message does that send to them…without immigrants, the production system in Iowa agriculture is in trouble…her response:

“Listen, this is America. America is based on meritocracy and equality. America is about unification, it's about the American dream, it's about anything being possible if you work hard enough, if you have big dreams, if you have the opportunities. This idea that we're dividing ourselves by what color your skin is, and what bathroom you use, and whether you're gay, and what none of that matters. This is America and this is the idea of Donald Trump. This is why he ran, this is why he won fairly significantly, is the American people are tired of that. They're tired of saying oh well, you're over there in that category because of this color of your skin, and oh well, you use the women's bathroom, so you need to be over there. This is all about what has made our country great and moving back to things that unite us instead of dividing us and so getting DEI out of the USDA and across the federal government is the very top of that priority so God bless y'all thank you what a great day to be in Iowa. Thank you all so much, thank you.

---

What’s Really Happening

Look at her body language as she responds. I see a smug smile and no eye contact and I see someone lying to me and the rest of the press. While there is no simple “tell” as to when someone is lying, that’s my interpretation. Judge for yourself. She was slick, polished, and prepared.

Regardless, after her first sentence that was bossy and obvious, “Listen, this is America, her second sentence was a lie—America is based on meritocracy and equality.

Read the Constitution. It says otherwise. So does history.

MAGA wants to crush the truth that America was built on slavery and genocide and the remainder of Rollins’ statement builds upon her first lie. There is not enough meritocracy and equality in America. There is little or no meritocracy in Trump’s cabinet, or in his appointees to government agencies which he is dismantling. He demands allegiance, not competence, merit, or equality.

Trump is, instead, dismantling meritocrocy and equality by undermining DEI and erasing the history of marginalized peoples, their struggles, and the contributions they have made to the world.

Rollins statement is weaponized feel-good rhetoric for ignorant, arrogant or uncaring white people that rationalizes the status quo while building a case for an authoritarian white “Christian” ethnostate. Rollins entire statement is misdirection—saying the way forward is unity while throwing non-white people and cultures in the trash.

That MAGA is coming for DEI in our schools, universities, libraries, museums, corporations and rewriting history is intellectual ethnic cleansing. History shows us the intellectual ethic cleansing is often a precursor to the real thing, and we have to step in now to object.

American greatness is aspirational and not yet reality. We may never be great, but we can be better. We can only be better by recognizing past injustices and not allowing them to continue.

Despite Rollins’ patronizing BS, she and MAGA will not be able to erase past injustices with more injustice today.

And we must remember that our elected officials in Colfax with Rollins—Reynolds, Miller-Meeks, Naig, and every Iowa Senator and Representative in D.C., along with every Republican in the Iowa Legislature, are complicit and hold them accountable.

---

Former Transportation Secretary and Presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg explains why we need DEI: "The opposite of diversity is uniformity. The opposite of equity is inequity. The opposite of inclusion is exclusion. The idea is to make sure everyone gets a seat at the table and things are fair. Maybe nobody alive today is responsible for some of the injustice that has shaped what it’s like to live in this country, but all of us right now are responsible for doing something about it."

---

Please consider sharing this post, and upgrading to a paid subscriber if you can afford it.

My content will always be free, as for over 60 years the words of Simon and Garfunkle in their 1964 song, “The Sound of Silence” have influenced me, “the words of the prophets are written on the subway walls and tenement halls,” and I’m not going to paywall them out should they be interested in my writing. My favorite version is by “Disturbed.”

---

I’m a proud member of the Iowa Writers’ Collaborative. Please check out our work here. Subscribe! Become a paid subscriber if you can afford it. Please and thank you. We need you. Thanks for being part of the team! Want to buy me lunch or a cup of coffee? Venmo @Robert-Leonard-238. My friend Spencer Dirks and I have a podcast titled The Iowa Revolution. Check it out! We can get ornery. And have fun! I also publish Cedar Creek Nature Notes, about Violet the Dog and my adventures on our morning walks at Cedar Bluffs Natural Area in Mahaska County, Iowa.

Here is the Zoom link for this month’s Office Lounge for paid subscribers. It’s always held on the last Friday of the month at noon, except for November and December.