The Ugliness of Race

[Shirley Sherrod]

The squabble between the Tea Party and the NAACP over racism has evolved into a firestorm.

How it began

The NAACP has accused the Tea Party of having a racist element in its organization. The Tea Party accuses the NAACP of being racist.

Now hold that thought a second.

Shirley Sherrod  is the Georgia Director of Rural Development for the USDA. She was federally appointed to her job. She gave a speech last March at a NAACP Freedom Fund Dinner. Her father was murdered by a white man when she was a young girl. She was explaining to her audience how she overcame her feelings against white people.

There is a fellow named Andrew Breitbart who writes a blog called Big Government.

Breitbart got a video of Sherrod’s speech. He posted two clips from it on his blog.

Clip 1

Clip 2

Breitbart didn’t cover Sherrod’s lesson on how she overcame her racism as a young girl. He wrote on his blog:

In the first video, Sherrod describes how she racially discriminates against a white farmer. She describes how she is torn over how much she will choose to help him. And, she admits that she doesn’t do everything she can for him, because he is white. Eventually, her basic humanity informs that this white man is poor and needs help. But she decides that he should get help from “one of his own kind”. She refers him to a white lawyer.

Sherrod’s racist tale is received by the NAACP audience with nodding approval and murmurs of recognition and agreement. Hardly the behavior of the group now holding itself up as the supreme judge of another groups’ racial tolerance.

It went viral

Boy did it ever. [See Huffington Post]

The NAACP condemned her remarks at the banquet.

USDA deputy undersecretary Cheryl Cook phoned Sherrod who was driving and told her “the White House wanted her to resign because her comments were generating a cable news controversy.

Cook wanted her to submit her resignation on her Blackberry. She did.

Later, Secretary of the Department of Agriculture, Tom Vilsack, stated it was he, not the White House, that had wanted her to resign.

The White House confirmed it had not sought her resignation. The NAACP, after learning the full story, reversed itself and is asking for her reinstatement.

President Obama has stated he will support Vilsack’s decision.

Breitbart still contends the NAACP is racist and so is Sherrod.

What do I think?

I think President Obama and Vilsack are making a mistake. They should reinstate her. Breitbart can go pound sand.