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Saturday, July 31, 2010

The Shirley Sherrod Controversy

(USA Today) Last week Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack fired a black woman named Shirley Sherrod by jumping to the conclusion she made a racist remark.  Last Wednesday Vilsack apologized for ousting Sherrod and offered her a new job.  Vilsack claims that there wasn't any pressure from the White House to fire her.  He claimed he made that decision in haste.  Why?  Is this some sort of setup?  Andrew Breitbart on his website had posted a video clip of a portion of a speech Sherrod gave in March at a local NAACP event.  In the clip, she admitted that she failed to help a white farmer as much as she might have 24 years ago, when she was working for a farmers' aid group.  In the context of the speech, however, the anecdote was told to illustrate Sherrod's change of heart and how she realized that people of all races need help.  The farmer said this week that he was grateful to Sherrod for helping him keep his farm.  After viewing the clip, not the entire 45-inute speech, the NAACP also had called for her removal--a position the group quickly abandoned after the context of Sherrod's remarks became clear. 

The Sherrod conflagration had two familiar accelerants: a media culture in which half-truths can spread like a virus online, to be instantly and endlessly chewed over on cable TV; and a continued preoccupation with race that has smashed hopes that President Obama's election portended a post-racial society.  What is interesting, according to USA Today, what was remarkable this week was how they combined to create a climate in which two venerable institutions--the USDA and the NAACP--could rush so disastrously to judgment. 

In the clip posted on biggovernment.com, Sherrod described the first time a white farmer came to her for help.  The farmer was Roger Spooner.  It was in 1986 when she was working for a non-profit rural farm aid group, not the government.  She said the farmer came in acting "superior" to her and she debated how much help to give him.  Sherrod continued, "I was struggling with the fact that so many black people has lost their farmland, and here I was faced with helping a white person save their land.  At first, she said, "I didn't give him the full force of what I could do," only enough help keep his case moving through the aid system.  Eventually, she said, his situation "opened my eyes" to the idea that whites were struggling just as blacks were, and that helping farmers wasn't so much about race but was "about the poor vs. those who have."  Sherrod claimed in interviews last week that she tried to explain that to Agriculture Department officials, to no avail.  She said she was traveling Monday when USDA Deputy Undersecretary of Rural Development Cheryl Cook called her and told her to pull over and submit her resignation on her BlackBerry because the White House wanted her out--an apparent contradiction of Vilsack's version.  "It hurts me that they didn't even try to attempt to see what is happening here, they didn't care," Sherrod said.  "I'm not a racist. . . Anyone who knows me knows that I'm for fairness."  Spooner, said on USA Today last Wednesday that Sherrod did everything she could to help him when he was weeks ago from losing his farm at a government auction.  He claimed Sherrod took him to a black lawyer, who didn't help.  Then she drove him and his wife 40 miles north to see a white lawyer who did. 

Spooner stated that Sherrod told him that her father was killed by a white farmer in 1965.  This whole situation was blown out of proportion.  Why did Vilsack fire her?  Is to prove that the Obama administration isn't racist to whites but are fair to everyone?  This is foolish.  Vilsack didn't have any reason to fire her.  She shouldn't have been fire over the comments she made in that clip.  It was blown out of proportion.  Spooner admitted that she helped him.  She shouldn't have been crucified over the comment she made to the NAACP.  I can understand her feelings.  She made the point that it wasn't so much about race but about the "poor vs. those who have."  Also, her father was killed by a white farmer years ago and that can stir up feelings of resentment toward a race.  She even admitted she had a change of heart and recognize that people of all races needed help.  What was the point being made by airing this video clip?  She apologized and that should be sufficient.  What amazes me is the Obama administration fired her for her comments at an NAACP meeting but the Department of Justice had dropped an investigation into complaints that members of the New Black Panther Party threatened white voters at a Philadelphia polling place on Election Day 2008. What she said pales in comparison compared to what a couple of Black Panthers did at the polling place in Philadelphia.

The question that's on my mind is why did Breitbart air that clip?  What was his purpose?  Was it for purposes of race baiting?  He claimed the presentation of that 38-second clip is evidence that the NAACP was hypocritical in condoning racism.  The statement that Sherrod made in March about helping a white farmer wasn't anything significant to make a case out of.  The Left uses race baiting whenever their agenda is opposed.  There are conservatives that like to play that game as well.  There was no purpose in Breitbart in airing that clip.  Sherrod wasn't being racist.  No doubt she may have struggled with her feelings about white people due to her father's murder, but she didn't display any signs of racism.  It's pitiful that somebody can make a statement that may somehow "hint" at racism and as a result they're terminated from their job.  Race baiting does nothing but polarize the American people and distracts them from the issues that are crucial in this nation.  President Obama and the Democratic Congress are imposing a socialist agenda down our throats.  They use race baiting to distract the American people.  Conservatives have no business playing that game.  Breitbart was out of line in airing that clip, as far as I'm concerned.

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