Posted on 07/20/2010 7:59:45 PM PDT by kristinn
The NAACP has released a 43 minute long video of the controversial speech given by fired USDA official Shirley Sherrod. Excerpts of the speech showing her using racist language with the support of those attending an NAACP dinner in March were released yesterday by Big Government. Sherrod was forced to resign from her position last night.
The video can be viewed at the NAACP website or go directly to the YouTube video.
After pulling their initial statement denouncing Sherrod, the NAACP released a new statement today claiming the group was "snookered" by Fox News and Andrew Breitbart.
Earlier today, a bitter Sherrod complained of being betrayed by black people in an interview given to Georgia TV stationWALB:
She feels like no one's been willing to fight for her. "It hurts especially when the NAACP is doing it and Roland Martin is doing it. These are black people, they never asked me what happened, these are people who haven't been on the front line like I have for 45 years..."
The new statement by the NAACP:
July 20, 2010
(BALTIMORE, MD) - NAACP President and CEO Benjamin Todd Jealous issued the following statement today after a careful investigation into the presentation of former USDA Official Shirley Sherrod.
"The NAACP has a zero tolerance policy against racial discrimination, whether practiced by blacks, whites, or any other group.
The NAACP also has long championed and embraced transformation by people who have moved beyond racial bias. Most notably, we have done so for late Alabama Governor George Wallace and late US Senator Robert Byrd -- each a man who had associated with and supported white supremacists and their cause before embracing civil rights for all.
With regard to the initial media coverage of the resignation of USDA Official Shirley Sherrod, we have come to the conclusion we were snookered by Fox News and Tea Party Activist Andrew Breitbart into believing she had harmed white farmers because of racial bias.
Having reviewed the full tape, spoken to Ms. Sherrod, and most importantly heard the testimony of the white farmers mentioned in this story, we now believe the organization that edited the documents did so with the intention of deceiving millions of Americans.
The fact is Ms. Sherrod did help the white farmers mentioned in her speech. They personally credit her with helping to save their family farm.
Moreover, this incident and the lesson it prompted occurred more that 20 years before she went to work for USDA.
Finally, she was sharing this account as part of a story of transformation and redemption. In the full video, Ms.Sherrod says she realized that the dislocation of farmers is about “haves and have nots.” "It’s not just about black people, it’s about poor people," says Sherrod in the speech. “We have to get to the point where race exists but it doesn’t matter.”
This is a teachable moment, for activists and for journalists.
Most Americans agree that racism has no place in American Society. We also believe that civil and human rights have to be measured by a single yardstick.
The NAACP has demonstrated its commitment to live by that standard.
The Tea Party Federation took a step in that direction when it expelled the Tea Party Express over the weekend. Unfortunately, we have yet to hear from other leaders in the Tea Party movement like Dick Armey and Sarah Palin, who have been virtually silent on the “internal bigotry” issue.
Next time we are confronted by a racial controversy broken by Fox News or their allies in the Tea Party like Mr. Breitbart, we will consider the source and be more deliberate in responding. The tape of Ms. Sherrod’s speech at an NAACP banquet was deliberately edited to create a false impression of racial bias, and to create a controversy where none existed. This just shows the lengths to which extremist elements will go to discredit legitimate opposition.
According to the USDA, Sherrod’s statements prompted her dismissal. While we understand why Secretary Vilsack believes this false controversy will impede her ability to function in the role, we urge him to reconsider.
Finally, we hope this incident will heighten Congress’s urgency in dealing with the well documented findings of discrimination toward black, Latino, Asian American and Native American farmers, as well as female farmers of all races."
###
Founded in 1909, the NAACP is the nation's oldest and largest civil rights organization. Its members throughout the United States and the world are the premier advocates for civil rights in their communities, conducting voter mobilization and monitoring equal opportunity in the public and private sectors.
Agents or useful fools? Something is going on here.
Troll, useful fool, the effect is the same.
Stop rationalizing...unsuccessfully, I might add.
Meanwhile, the Titanic is going down because government has no business bailing out Wall Street, saving family farms or employing/empowering worthless, nasty sacks of ---- like Ms. Sherrod and the whole racial rainbow of bureaucrat slobs of her ilk.
The collectivist python is suffocating us. It never lets up.
Yes, I believe the NAACP (by its very continued existence) is racist. I don’t, however, think that this video is (strong) evidence of that racism.
I don’t know if she is racist. She most certainly was racist at the moment that she decided not to fully help the white farmer because he was white. But, she claims that this experience helped her see past race. I’m not in a position to judge her on this, since I don’t know how she has lived the rest of her life.
Having not followed your postings, I tend to be very suspect when anyone has to tell me how much of anything they are i.e. your statement “You will not find many folks more conservative than I am,”.
Chris we are looking at and fighting a full court press to save the naalcp’s image, with this thread only being one of those fronts. Whole lot of trollin goin on.
“You’re wrong.”
We disagree. I can say “you’re wrong” too, but I’ll stick with we disagree.
And the troll thing; I forgive you and I’ll pray for you and your misguided name calling.
A lie not answered becomes a fact for many....NAACP have gotten away with it for such a long time, I am glad this tape came out in public...Bet the organization has files full of tapes from past meetings that would make your head spin if you were not so naive..
The bible tells christians to be wise as a serpent and guileless as a lamb....lots of people forget to be wise, just become gullible...
[Having not followed your postings, I tend to be very suspect when anyone has to tell me how much of anything they are i.e. your statement “You will not find many folks more conservative than I am,”.]
Well, my postings are an open book here on FR just like everyone else’s. So your statement of being very suspect is out of laziness to not research before you run your mouth/keyboard, and tends to disqualify your opinion in my eyes. If that does not matter to you, I really don’t care.
[He said from the start that the reaction of the members of NAACP to what she said was what he was exposing...]
That would be from “the start” of his defending the posting of the edited video? I beg for clarity so as to have an informed opinion.
I cannot agree more with your opinion about the NAACP’s complicity. If you read ALL of the posts in this thread, you will see that many here on FR reacted (some shamefully) to the originally posted, edited video as though it was a payback jab at the NAACP that was done in a less than ethical manner. The FReepers who I conceive as shameful want to justify less than ethical reporting by the right, as long as the other child, [The NAACP threw the first stone by calling the tea parties racist....] started it.
The FACT that the NAACP claims to have a zero tolerance to racism while they remain mute on the New Black Panther issue alone is an open and shut case of their duplicity, and further points to their existence as a “useful tool” of the progressives, as some FReepers want to label me. The NAACP is as low as a snake’s belly in a wagon wheel rut, and I am not willing to slide along at that level.
I have followed your posts on many threads and have seen your conservative and Christian values. I would hope that you would see that I want to make wise statements, and that I am not gullible enough to go along with the flow here where some believe that lacking ethics is OK when it supports my cause.
So, essentially, you going with the bill clinton argument on this one eh?
She made a mistake, but she spent the rest of her life making up for it, and that is the definition of a good person, right?
I guess the same principle applies to Sheets Byrd.
Whatever, man. I can see by all of the people going out of their way to defend the enemy that our side still doesn’t get it, still doesn’t understand the game that’s being played, and likely never will.
This is for keeps. When you smell your opponents blood in the water, you take them out. You do not throw them a life presever, because they will most definitely not throw one to you, nor anyone you know or support. In fact, they will throw you in the water and stand on your throat to hold you under. They defined the rules of this game, not us.
So give her her job back. She fits in perfectly with the other social justice types. Doesn’t matter, that’s where this country is going, and their ain’t gonna be any stoppping it.
Sorry he said that before posting the video, his whole point was the NAACP smearing the tea parties without a shred of evidence...If you thought other wise, you just didn't hear from him what I heard from him. He had written up in several articles and was interviewed before the release of the video...he said it was the reaction of the members of the NAACP to her remark that was showing the group to be racist and no one opened their mouths about such sayings..
It was in fact a payback for decades of crap the NAACP has said and no one had the guts or backbone to take them on..
I didn't mean to say your were gullible, but some people see someone that calls themselves christian and act as tho they were not that are the gullible ones....They fall for any shyster that pop up on TV thump a bible, sheds a tear and say send me some money and you'll receive 100 fold back from God....yep, lots of gullible people out there..
The only part of your post that has me scratching my head is that you have followed my posts on other occasions...that is scary as I don't always remember what I have said in over 6000 posts...:O) But I try to tell the truth as I see it, my memory to poor to tell lie.
You can stick your faux piousness where the sun doesn't shine.
Pray for yourself.
There's a guy I work with I think very highly of. There's another guy I do not think highly of at all.
I consider the first "my kind." I do not consider the second "my kind" at all.
Yet, I'm white, and the first guy isn't; the second guy is.
The difference is that I don't separate people into "my kind" and "not my kind" based upon skin color.
She, apparently, has no other vocabulary (and, therefore, frame of reference) to use.
When some goodolboy says that someone "should marry their own kind," then the statement is racist. It also reveals a racist mindset.
The NAACP is, by definition, words, actions and mindset, racist.
I agree - using that sort of language does reveal a racist mindset. I am still not convinced that she is a racist, because from the context, it seems like she may have been using that language to describe her mindset at the time (i.e., she was saying that, at that time, she viewed the white farmer as not “her kind”). I am willing to consider the possibility that she has changed.
Overall, though, I agree that the NAACP is a racist organization.
Stop making a fool of yourself ... very effectively I might add. ;-)
I shouldn’t say “I followed your posts, I should said that I have read many of your posts in articles that interested me. I’m not stalking you or anything like that. You just seem level headed and sincere.
I didn’t state, I asked you if he clarified upon defending his posting the video. No one has made that clear to me until your last post to me. I still did not hear the same thing that so many on this thread have said they heard.
I am not willing to defend the NAACP as some of the FReepers on this thread have so viciously insisted. Payback to the NAACP is long overdue, I just see this whole affair as tainted by questionable ethics on both sides, and we conservatives should be above that.
The name calling and such is so third grade.
If you really believe I’m a troll, report me to Mr. Robinson. You sure are tough behind a keyboard.
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