Posted on 07/22/2010 11:08:38 AM PDT by Qbert
The media and progressive-left Democrats now appear in a rush to convict Andrew Breitbart of shoddy journalism, while exonerating Shirley Sherrod and the NAACP from charges of abiding racism within their ranks. Both Sherrod and the NAACP have charged the Tea Party movement and the Republican Party with racism, while offering less proof than Breitbart did of the racism he correctly alleged. In many cases, the Left has outright manufactured evidence of racism regarding Tea Party events, yet no one has raised a voice about that slander at all. If one didn't know better, this wouldn't be today's news, but an Orwellian script circa 1984.
At approximately 17 minutes into the now-released full video of the event, Sherrod can be heard relaying a tale from her past in which she initially failed to help a white farmer with the full effort she would reserve for a black farmer.
The assembled crowd of card-carrying members of the NAACP took great pleasure in that, their laughter was not nervous at all. That is a contemporaneous expression of racism by today's politically correct standards, not racism from some 40 years ago.
Sherrod later says, "It's not so much about white…" then catches herself and says, "It IS about white and black." Perhaps Sherrod should explain why, even today, color is so centrally important in her work, be it at the Agriculture Department or elsewhere.
Breitbart’s web-posting of the speech showed more racism at one NAACP event than those charging Republicans and Tea Parties with racism have yet to produce after making accusations for months on end. The people making that charge include both Sherrod and the NAACP, neither of which has produced any proof. But it is Breitbart who should be convicted for false charges in the court of public opinion? That is totally absurd given the actual facts.
Sherrod twice decried present-day racism, as if it was 400 years ago. That suggests a person whose views on race have not truly changed at all. But she doesn't stop there. Sherrod says, "I haven't seen such mean-spirited people as I have seen lately over this issue, healthcare. Some of the racism we thought was buried, didn't it surface."
In Sherrod's world, no one is allowed to object to a significant Obama-supported policy change impacting the healthcare of all Americans without being labeled a racist. Clearly Sherrod sees everything through the lens of color or race. If her view is not racist, it is supremely ignorant and unfit for a public official. It is meant to marginalize any and all legitimate opposition to a political act. Sherrod is merely projecting her own racism into a perfectly rational, legitimate political debate so as to avoid it. That is not democracy; it is race-based demagogy commonly employed by racists everywhere. And still she was not done.
During the Bush years, says Sherrod, "We didn't do the stuff these Republicans are doing because you have a black President." Gone is any valid argument over actual policy, fiscal restraint, government growth, or control of healthcare—supported or opposed by entire national political parties. In Sherrod's world, everything is all and only about race. If that isn't a tenet of racism, then what is? Without ignorant race-based presumptions, otherwise known as racism, Sherrod's entire scope of political argument falls apart.
Atty. Gen. Eric Holder said America is a nation of cowards on matters of race. He was correct, but in a manner he likely didn't predict. The racism Breitbart revealed is the racism of the Shirley Sherrods of the progressive-leftist Democratic Party and the NAACP. Afraid to honestly look at and address that, the usual leftist suspects are simply turning the tables as a distraction in a weak effort to instead attack Breitbart.
Breitbart did exactly what he set out and claimed to do, put the inherent racism of the NAACP and the American left on full display.
Additionally troubling are Sherrod's race-based political views that amount to Marxism. She sees an America in thirds. Evil capitalists are at the top, exploiting racist divisions to maintain control. She argues that whites were deliberately propped up to make them feel superior to blacks, which they apparently still do in Sherrod's view. Blacks then bring up the rear, seemingly oppressed by all. The racism in that view is inherent and severe, no matter how much she would try and dismiss it with an anecdote or two. Clearly in Sherrod's view, what is needed is the type of government-dictated economy more like a Marxist state, than the America we know and live in today.
Sadly, Sherrod wants to pass on that view to young black Americans. How tragic that she would saddle a next generation of black Americans with such an ill considered, ignorant, utterly divisive and ridiculous view.
If there's anyone who needs to apologize, it is a Shirley Sherrod unfit for public service and the NAACP—not Andrew Breitbart, who did precisely what he claimed he set out to do.
“The left will continue to pursue their taking point, but Sherrod has a big mouth and is almost certain to make more incendiary remarks.”
Which is why I must humbly disagree with Rush: We need to keep this alive because Shirley Sherrod will self-destruct and pull the obama-marxist-racist administration down into the mud of race-hypocrisy with her.
Shirley is simply drooling at the opportunity to keep her face in public and with that goes her filthy mouth, which she can’t keep shut.
This is to our distinct advantage. Let her talk. And let’s keep looking into her past and her connections. I’m sure we’ll find ample evidence to show that obama made TWO mistakes: firing her AND offering to hire her back.
However, she did hold a position that had some sort of working relationship with the US Department of Agriculture. She states in the video that she gave him just enough help so that a QC check by the US Dept. of Ag. would show that he was helped.
I would disagree with your premise.
Let’s not forget that her comments were made at an NAACP event and the NAACP was one of the first to condemn her. They were present and they don’t even know what she said.
Nowadays calling someone a racist is like the boy who cried wolf.
Again, I would disagree with your premise. By any objective standard (and do we care about any other kind?) she's a racist.
Sheila Jackson Lee's comments regarding the Tea party folks have removed the sheet and formed a party.
During the Sherrod speech at the NAACP gathering, you heard people in the background laughing, clapping, acknowledging her comments EVEN BEFORE she reached the portion of her comments that dealt with overcoming her racist feelings.
So, it was the racist forum in my opinion that should be in question....it's all been lost in the tit for tat going on’s.
Sheila Jackson Lee's comments regarding the Tea party folks have removed the sheet and formed a party.
During the Sherrod speech at the NAACP gathering, you heard people in the background laughing, clapping, acknowledging her comments EVEN BEFORE she reached the portion of her comments that dealt with overcoming her racist feelings.
So, it was the racist forum in my opinion that should be in question....it's all been lost in the tit for tat going on’s.
Her conversion, the moment she saw the light, comes in the second video which Breitbart posted together with the first. So he is being fair. In any case, he didn’t post this to get her fired, but to point out the reaction of the crowd. Her eventual point may have been that race ought not to be the issue, but they were reacting favorably to her earlier bad behavior. That was the point of the video, and NAACP has acknowledged that that reaction was embarrassing.
Totally agree.
She in no way stated enough remorse in her last few sentences to exonerate her from her wrong doing. All this talk about wrongful termination and talking her talk out of context is ludicrous.
She did NOT say:
I’m sorry. I acted completely out of line. I was a racist and now Im not. There was no excuse for that abhorent behavior etc etc etc. No she did not say anything near as remorseful as that.
What she said was:
“It still is about black and white” “I gave him to one of his own kind.”
That was her degree of remorse and ‘awakening’
blah blah blah, yah we all know if this was a white person with the exact same speech and every word white was substituted for black and vice versa, there would be no renouncing of the rapid and APPROPRIATE firing of that individual.
What conversion are you speaking of? The part where she specifically states that this IS an issue of black and white, or when she calls republicans racists, or when she says the republicans don't like Obama because he's black?
Hell, I’ll add the part yesterday where she says that Fox News wants the 14th Amendment repealed. Maybe that caused her to see the light.
I don't know how high her firing went up the ladder, but if they would have done a little investigating first, Breitbart’s story would have been quickly discredited and forgotten, nobody would be talking about it at all today.
Point in fact:
Here’s her entire speech with the words WHITE / BLACK exchanged.
“The first time I was faced with having to help a black farmer save his farm, he — he took a long time talking, but he was trying to show me he was superior to me. I know what he was doing. But he had come to me for help. What he didn’t know while he was taking all that time trying to show me he was superior to me, was I was trying to decide just how much help I was going to give him. [audience chuckled]
I was struggling with the fact that so many white people have lost their farmland, and here I was faced with having to help a black person save their land. So, I didn’t give him the full force of what I could do. I did enough so that when he — I — I assumed the Department of Agriculture had sent him to me, either that or the — or the Georgia Department of Agriculture. And he needed to go back and report that I did try to help him.
So I took him to a black lawyer that we had — that had…attended some of the training that we had provided, ’cause Chapter 12 bankruptcy had just been enacted for the family farmer. So I figured if I take him to one of them that his own kind would take care of him.
That’s when it was revealed to me that, ya’ll, it’s about poor versus those who have, and not so much about black — it is about black and white, but it’s not — you know, it opened my eyes, ’cause I took him to one of his own…”
So, Put in X white official with that same speech.
Anyone apologizing to them?
Anyone apologize to Trent Lott for saying a nice thing to a guy on his 100th birthday party?
Yep.
Andrew Breitbart reminds me a lot of another guy who was an expert in all forms of media, and spent his days instinctively demolishing the radicals from his home in LA, before he moved onto even bigger things:
The Gipper.
Breitbart didn’t do anything wrong. Sherrod’s full comments were in his clip and they were in context.
What we have here is a racist organization (NAACP), a racist Administration, a racist DOJ and a whole group of Socialists, white and black racist activists that support all of the above.
They are moving their marxist agendas by race baiting and calling ANYONE that disagrees with them racist. It is a cold dish that they serve.
The NAACP has totally discredited themselves and will regret the day that they took their organization down the path they have chosen.
Obama showed his true racist colors when he attacked the police and tried to tie the legitimate arrest of a “black activist” to racism. Obama’s choice of black activist Holder to the DOJ was another blatant act of racism. The black panther incident has brought light to the motivations and activities behind the Obama/Holder Dept. of Justice.
It has become more obvious that the left wing media uses “racism” to discredit anyone that speaks against the Obama Administration...they also used the tactic to get Obama elected.
Who are the true racist here? I think it is pretty obvious. I think Obama is destroying years of positive race relations in this country with his actions and it isn’t an accident...it is by design.
Are there racists in this country? Sure...and, it is pretty clear, they aren’t all white...contrary to conventional propaganda, a black racist is just as ugly as a white one.
I am not hearing a lot of reporting about the $3 Million lawsuit she won against the government. It seems to me that should be enough reason to not have her working for the government.
It probably won't be a big story for long because the left's attempt to make Andy Breitbart the big villain has flopped. Any attempt (mostly by the uninformed but vocal Shirley Sherrod) to smear Fox News or Glenn Beck has failed, big-time. The final result is that the Obama administration has been bruised by overplaying the 'racism card' on a moments notice whenever his policies and competence are questioned. Obama's 'post-racial' pose has been exposed as a sham and the NAACP attempt to smear the Tea Party movement as 'racist' has also failed and (metaphorically) blown up in their face. Again, despite some of the criticism Andy Breitbart has taken, I still believe he accomplished his purpose - and more. Using a baseball idiom, Andy Nreithbart hit a home run.
Thought it was $13 million..........
But you make a good point.........
It was $13 million.
Yes, we’ve heard very little about that.
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