Sherrod Charade

Once you have convened a circular firing squad, I believe the standard procedure is for the executioners to shoot each other. In the curious case of Shirley Sherrod, everyone seems to have turned his gun on himself.

In case you missed the mess, allow me to reconstruct it. Conservative gotcha artist Andrew Breitbart posted clips edited from a speech before the NAACP by Ms. Sherrod, "head of the United States Department of Agriculture's rural development office in Georgia." In Richard Cohen's words:

Sherrod was caught on video supposedly telling an NAACP meeting last March that she had not given a certain farmer the service he deserved because he was white.

Well, she didn't "supposedly" tell the NAACP that. She did say that. Transcript from Powerline:

[T]he first time I was faced with having to help a white farmer save his farm he took a long time talking. ... But he had come to me for help. What he didn't know while he was taking all that time trying to show he was superior to me was, I was trying to decide just how much help I was going to give him. [Laughter from the NCAAP group.] I was struggling with the fact that so many black people had lost their farm land. And here I was faced with having to help a white person save their land. So I didn't give him the full force of what I could do. I did enough .... I took him to a white lawyer that had attended some of the training that we had provided.... So I figured if I take him to one of them, that his own kind would take care of him.

Breitbart and Powerline and, I gather, Fox News, reported that as evidence of reverse racism and it echoed about the net.

In short order the Obama Administration fired Ms. Sherrod, and the NAACP applauded the decision. Of course, the Obama people didn't bother to read the whole speech. Not reading the whole thing is more or less their MO.

There was only one problem. The Breitbart clip was taken altogether out of context. The first half of Ms. Sherrod's speech was in fact a splendid piece of rhetoric (not that I agree with everything she says). She is a pious woman who has come through a lot, and if I am to be judged one day, I hope I don't have to meet her standard. Here is the complete speech. 

She begins with the story of her father who was murdered by a White man who was not indicted, because at that time in that place, he could not be indicted. She tells the above story to explain what she herself had to overcome. The point of the story, she clearly insists, is that "it's not about race it's about poverty." In her telling, she ended up helping the farmer. I heard the man himself on NPR. He says she saved his farm. Within hours the USDA and the NAACP were both back-tracking, complaining that they had been snookered by Breitbart. They were, but it wasn't hard, was it?

It's good to have people like Breitbart around. They are the watchdogs of democracy, looking for any hint of mischief on the other side. But to do that job effectively, they have to be scrupulously honest. Breitbart wasn't honest in this case. He cooked the books and distorted the meaning of Sherrod's words. He has done serious damage to his reputation. Powerline is one of the best and most responsible conservative blogs, but they haven't come clean on this either.

Why did the Obama Administration and the NAACP act so quickly to throw Ms. Sherrod under the bus? The Administration was concentrating on its financial reform bill, and surely didn't want this to crowd it out. It did anyway.

That wasn't the primary motive, however. The Administration and its allies, including the NAACP, have been waging a full court press against the Tea Party Movement. The claim that the Tea Party people are racists, presented in the recent NAACP condemnation of the extremist elements in the movement, is a big part of that campaign. An example of reverse racism would have undermined their propaganda. It was the campaign against the Tea Party Movement that the Administration and the NAACP were acting to protect when they decided to sacrifice the reputation and career of this fine woman.

Everyone here has egg on his or her face, excepting Ms. Sherrod. Breitbart should not have posted such as misleading clip. He should be smart enough to know that, Obama Administration officials excepted, everyone would sooner or later read the whole thing. Ms. Sherrod should certainly not have been fired so quickly, and she should have been fired at all. The moral here is that you shouldn't use the race card to score political points. It just doesn't work anymore, for the right or the left.

Comments

[Bill Fleming]

Denial is not just a river in Egypt, brother. Dismiss arguments about racism at your society's peril. We are infected with it— individual as well as structural racism, the latter being by far the more egregious. There needs to be more conversation on this topic, not less. The only person deserving ridicule here is Breitbart. And the little slap on the wrist you give him here is a joke. If you want to discuss this issue and really contribute, do it. But first, it looks to me like you need to do some soul searching and get your thoughts in order.

[George Mason]

Bill; Breitbart followed the lead of his liberal media brethren in taking a quote out of context. You need to take a close look at the actions of Obama et.al. who have more resources than Breibart to retrieve the entire speech. For all the speechifying about how they care for people they are awfully quick to lop off heads if they believe it suits their purposes.

[Bill Fleming]

George, the Obama administration has apologized. So has the NAACP. Theirs was an irrational defensive reaction. Breitbart's on the other hand was an aggressive, dishonest, slanderous slime job. And he has yet to admit any wrongdoing whatsoever. He has disgraced himself, and likewise (in my opinion) anyone who rises to his defense. I sincerely hope that's not what you're doing.

[George Mason]

It appears that Breitbart did provide some context to his post.

http://biggovernment.com/laborunionreport/2010/07/21/context-is-everything-naacps-jealous-snookered-himself/

Bill; I never defend journalists, they can take care of that themselves, if what they have done is defensible. That the Obama administration acted rashly and irrationally is what should concern all Americans.

[BillW]

Bill is right. Breitbart deliberately misled his readers and there are no extenuating circumstances, nothing that the Obama administration or FOX News or anyone else did to change the fact. If he worked for a mainstream media organization he would have been deservedly fired on the spot.

Conservatives - and I am stanchly one myself - need to do some of that soul-searching Bill suggests. We justify the sort of crap Breitbart did by trying to blame shift to the Obama folks, or by pointing out some of the unscrupulous accusations made by liberal writers, but we have to accept responsibility for the fact that conservative writers are the ones to set the standard for bottom feeding. In my opinion, the largely unsupported, completely irrelevant, and often insensitivity to basic human compassion conservative writers demonstrated during the Clinton administration set the standard for sleaze - does anyone remeber how much ink was given in the conservative media to turning Vince Foster's suicide into a murder conspiracy theory? We conservatives exploited every woman in Arkansas who said Bill Clinton looked at them and the tradition has continued with the Obama 'birther movement'. Glenn Beck is the new conservative icon even though he knows nothing about international affairs and precious little about economics. He is the master mud-slinger and conspiracy theorist, however, and conservatives line up to buy his book.

Of course the libs were happy to wallow in that gutter with us spewing outrageous nonsense about Bush and Chaney, but Americans have to rise above this sort of crap and I think it should begin with unanimously branding Breitbart the liar that he is and demanding that he be booted from any web site that wants to maintain a shred of credibility.

[Bill Fleming]

Amen to that. Thank you, BillW. And yes, same goes for Liberals. In this case though, it's worthy to note that it was Sherrod, working in conjunction with her supposed "victim" and the Media who finally got the story right and the injustice corrected as best it could be. That's why I'm not really buying Mason's blanket indictment of the media.

[Bill Fleming]

p.s. George, are you kidding? That's a link to Breitbart's website. Why in the world should anyone trust what he publishes ever again?

[KB]

Bill Fleming: The Nile joke is about as old as the Pyramids. You accuse me of denying racism. Where do I do so? What I do say is that one should not use anti-racism to score political points. You accuse me of "slapping Breitbart on the wrist." I accuse him of dishonesty and say he has damaged his reputation. That's hardly a slap on the wrist, whatever you thought of Breitbart before.

Meanwhile you do a double back flip to defend the Administration. Theirs was an "irrational defensive reaction." Are those excused now? Or maybe that counts as an excuse only for the Left. Would you have been so generous if this had been the Bush Administration? Of course not.

The fact is that the Obama people fired this woman without bothering to look into the case. The NAACP, which had the whole speech (indeed, many of their members and officers were present at the speech) jumped on the Obama bandwagon. There was nothing at all irrational about any of this. The Administration wanted the story to go away; it wanted to look decisive; it wanted to defend its anti-Tea Party campaign. Those are all very rational reasons for throwing a good woman under the bus. To say that they deserve no ridicule for this is blatantly dishonest. Search your own soul before you peer into the souls of others.

[South Dakotan]

I haven't seen one pundit get this correct. Breitbart's point was the NAACP's reaction to Sherrod's initial racism. His clip showed and his point was that the NAACP crowd ate up the racism - laughing and nodding in agreement as Sherrod said she brought the white farmer to "one of his own kind' and "didn't give him the full force of help" that she could. This was the NAACP crowd's reaction LONG BEFORE her story turned to one of redemption. This is THE story. This is what Breitbart is trying to say. Pundits and readers alike are missing it. Everyone is running around, "acting stupidly" without the facts and assigning blame, including conservatives.

I don't believe Breitbart intentionally deceived anyone. Like Team Obama, we sure seem to easily throw our own under the bus.

[duggersd]

Unfortunately I was on vacation when this was happening and I have very little knowledge of this. I looked at the Breitbart post from Monday. I do not know if this was the original post or not. In it, Breitbart said context is everything. Then while looking at George Mason's link, I find the writer talking about Breitbart brilliantly using the same kind of tactic that the liberal media has used. So, if I understand this correctly, Breitbart essentially demonstrated how this has been going on when attacking the TEA party? So, if that was what he was doing, is he really dishonest? I would think a certain wordsmith we all know would be rather impressed by Breitbart's ability to get us to think he said something that he did not.

[Bill Fleming]

KB, when you downgrade true acts of racism into a buzzword (playing the race card) and say it's all politics, you are denying the problem. And yes its an old, old trick, as old as the pyramids. And no it's not funny.

You could start with a discussion of the differences between racism and xenophobia and how the remedies for each social ailment are different. You could pick up on my hint that structural social racism is orders of magnitude more heinous than the bigotry of the occasional wayward individual. You could do a lot of things productive on this front if you were half the intellect and philosopher you pretend to be. But instead, you minimize the issue by saying that it's just politics and that both sides are equally guilty of dabbling in it.

Most astonishing to me is your assertion that "it just doesn't work anymore..." ...as if it ever did, or, if it still did, it might still be worth doing. I think that's one of the most callous things I've ever seen you write. And I would be ashamed of myself if I had written it.

[Bill Fleming]

Of course duggerSD will rise to Breitbart's defense. Why am I not surprised? Dugger, if context is everything as even Brightbart maintains, why is it that even in his correction, Brightbart never mentions that the incident Sherrod is talking about (her epiphany) happened 25 years ago, and that she wasn't working for the "government" but rather a nonprofit Federation of Southern Cooperatives Land Assistance Fund?

[duggersd]

Actually, Bill, the correction does say the action (epiphany) took place before she held the federal position. I know, I know, he does not mention the 25 years ago you would like. As for my "defense" of Breitbart, all I did was ask a couple of questions. Again, you take liberties in putting words or meanings into my post that are not there, which tends to show another example of one of your "aggressive, dishonest, slanderous slime jobs". South Dakotan mentions a couple of examples from her speech. Would you or would you not say those are examples of bigotry? In this portion, she indicates she was indeed discriminating against that white farmer.
Again, does this episode not show just how something taken out of context can be rather damaging?

[Bill Fleming]

Right, Dugger. By your logic, we should commit the offense to prove that it's offensive. That seems rather imbecilic to me, but you can have your point if that's what it takes to keep our exchange here as brief as possible.

[duggersd]

OK, Bill. I do not mind keeping it brief. However since you want to point out the evils of Breitbart, here is the post I read http://biggovernment.com/abreitbart/2010/07/19/video-proof-the-naacp-awards-racism2010/
In it he points out specific examples of different organizations trying to show the TEA party as a bunch of racists, including Congressmen claiming the use of certain words. Breitbart offered $100,000 to anybody with a video showing what was claimed by those Congressmen. Nobody came forth, indicating perhaps the Congressmen were lying? He makes a great point here. Also, I did not read anything Breitbart said that was untrue. Misleading? Perhaps, but then again we see that all of the time from your side of the aisle. At least you could agree that this should not be happening from the left, right? And when it does happen you would be happy to condemn it, right?

[BillW]

Give it up, Bill. To folks on both ends of the political pole the end justifies the means. To those who KNOW that Bush was evil, forging letters concerning his National Guard service was acceptable because forgery to serve the just cause of destroying Bush was OK.

And to those who KNOW the NAACP is racist and the Obama administration is evil and inept, Breitbart intentionally misleading (lying in the common parlance) can be ratioanlized ... he was lying to serve the higher purpose of slandering the NAACP, which makes it OK.

You will never change the minds of those who are not abou to let facts get in the way of ideology.

[Bill Fleming]

Good advice, BillW. I'm going to take it. Thanks for the candid exchange.

[South Dakotan]

Before we witness the further canonization of Shirley Sherrod, I'd suggest more fact-finding. She formed a group of black farmers called New Communities, which claimed discrimination on the part of the USDA during a specific time period. The group included other blacks who claimed they would have farmed if they had not suffered discrimination at the hands of the USDA. The case is Pigford VS Vilsak. They sued the Fed and won- big time. Shirley herself received a nice settlement. Not long after, she found herself appointed to the USDA. However, there are more than a few questions about the case. The following two links to two online publications, the Washington Examiner and American Thinker respectively, investigate the matter:

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/Examiner-Opinion-Zone/Shirley-Sherrods-Disappearing-Act-Not-So-Fast-98846149.html

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2010/07/forty_acres_a_mule_sherrod_sty.html

My point is this. One video clip does not a saint or demon make. The rush to judgment either way isn't prudent. Personally, I'm not overly impressed with Sherrod. She may have had an epiphany about race -great- but she still appears to see the world through the lens of needing villains and heroes; people who take advantage of others and those who are taken advantage of. She said in her NAACP speech, "Working with him (the white guy) made me see that it's really about those who have versus those who don't". To me, this mindset (class warfare) is just as divisive as racism and more of an issue today. Shirley Sherrod deserves further vetting before she is exalted to race healer.

[BillW]

No one cannonized her. She is really not the issue, Breitbart is. And whether Sherrod is a demon or a saint has no bearing on the fact that Breitbart is a liar.

[KB]

To all: great thread! I have responded to some of these comments on the subsequent post.

BillW: I emphatically agree that conservatives hurt themselves by investing in conspiracy theories about President Clinton. I said so frequently at the time. That doesn't mean that all the stories were false. Clinton did use the Arkansas Highway Patrol to round up chicks for him.

Bill Flemming: I don't agree that my use of the phrase "playing the race card" in fact "downgrades true acts of racism". Breitbart was playing the card in this story, and so was the NAACP when it issued its condemnation of the Tea Party Movement. They more or less admitted that they were trying to remain relevant. There was and still is a steady campaign against the Tea Party movement, and charges of racism are a weapon in that campaign. Most of those charges are unfounded. That is playing the race card.

[Brad S]

Posted by: BillW | Jul 22, 2010 2:20:20 PM

BillW, real men accept that the "ends justify the means" is always moral as long as you are able to control your own narrative. Unless, of course, you naively think the Japanese and the Mexicans (to name two relevant losers to the US in war) go off the same narratives the US gives of their wars as the US does.

As long as Andrew Breitbart is able to control his own media efforts to his satisfaction, what he did was inherently correct. "Sauce for the goose" can always be defended on legal and moral grounds, and those who don't do provide ammo to the other side that is not warranted.

[Durga]

The story of Shirley Miller Sherrod is morphing from anti white rsacit to human rights advocate She grew up in the racially afflicted south.In 1965 her father, Hosie Miller, a black man and a deacon at Thankful Baptist Church, was shot to death by a white farmer in what ostensibly was a dispute over a few cows,The all-white grand jury didn't bring charges against the shooter.That summer, when she and several other blacks went to the county courthouse to register to vote, the county sheriff blocked the door and even pushed her husband-to-be, Lester Sherrod, down the stairs, she said.She went on to earn her master's degree in community development from Antioch University in Yellow Springs, Ohio.Sherrod returned to rural Georgia to help minority farmers keep their land. Because of discriminatory lending practices, black farmers were losing their farms in the late 1960s and '70s.Sherrod co-founded New Communities Inc., a black communal farm project in Lee County, Georgia, that was modeled on kibbutzim in Israel. Local white farmers viciously opposed the 6,000-acre operation, accusing participants of being communists and occasionally firing shots at their buildings, Sherrod said.When drought struck the South in the 1970s, the federal government promised to help New Communities through the Office of Economic Opportunity. But the money was routed through the state, led by segregationist Gov. Lester Maddox, and the local office of the Farmers Home Administration, whose white agent was in no hurry to write the checks, she said.It took three years for New Communities to get an emergency loan, she said. By then it was too late.With black-owned farms heading toward extinction, Sherrod and other activists sued the USDA. In a consent decree, the USDA agreed to compensate black farmers who were victims of discrimination between January 1, 1981, and December 31, 1999. It was the largest civil rights settlement in history, with nearly $1 billion being paid to more than 16,000 victims. Legislation passed in 2008 will allow nearly 70,000 more potential claimants to qualify.USDA hired Sherrod as its Georgia director of rural development in August 2009. She was the first black person in that position; of 129 USDA employees in Georgia, only 20 are black, she said.Despite her father's killing and the injustices that followed, the racial hatredshe has fought all her life, and now her quick exit from the USDA, Sherrod refuses to become bitter. I can't hold a grudge. I can't even stay mad for long, she said. I just try to work to make things different. If I stayed mad, if I tried to hate all the time, I wouldn't be able to see clearly in order to do some of the things that I've been able to do. Even with this, I'm not angry. I'm not angry. I'm out of a job today, but I'm not angry. I will survive. I have. I can't dwell on that. I just feel there's a need to go forward. Even Conservatives has shown a great respect for this black woman who has spent her life fighting discrimination.And now the Secretary of Agriculture and the Administration is admitting that they should have taken the time to listen to her whole speech instead of just the doctored version posted on a conservative blog which seemed to show her saying she held back from helping a white farmer stay on his land.Even The white farmer and his wife who are at the center of this controversy praised Sherrod for helping them fight to keep their farm from foreclosure.Shirley Miller Sherrod can certainly hold her head up highShe is an example of the best qualities that all of us should emulate in our racially divided country.