Betty Winston Bayé: The Obama Administration Has Been PUNKED Once Again By Its Enemies On The Right. I AGREE!
The trashing of a good woman, Shirley Sherrod
By Betty Winston Bayé
The Obama administration has been punked once again by its enemies on the right. This time a righteous sister named Shirley Sherrod was thrown under the bus. Ironically, in the very speech that led to what she insists was her forced resignation from her post as the Georgia state director for rural development for the U.S. Agriculture Department, Sherrod said, “I am very proud to be working for the Obama administration to help rural America grow again.”
No doubt Sherrod is rethinking that pride after she was instructed to pull over to the side of the road and resign via her BlackBerry, she said, at the behest of Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and the White House. This happened after a smarmy right-wing propagandist deliberately took Sherrod's speech to an NAACP Freedom Fund Banquet in Georgia out of context for the express purpose of smearing the NAACP for having adopted a resolution during its recent national convention urging tea party leaders to be more resolute about condemning the racist elements that have glommed onto their cause.
Sherrod's speech actually was a poignant living history lesson ripped right out of the pages of her own life.
She talked about her father's murder in 1965, when she was 17, by a white man who was never indicted even though there were three witnesses. She also talked about how another relative, Bobby Hall, had been lynched by a white sheriff who also never was brought to justice. Sherrod moved on in her speech to talk about how years later, for the first time, she was in a position to help a white farmer to save his land — and how that experience burned into her consciousness that not just race, but also poverty, accounts for the unfair treatment that rural folks receive.
It was in the telling of the story of her epiphany that Andrew Breitbart pounced on the opportunity to settle his score with the NAACP and thus was hatched the concoction that Shirley Sherrod had engaged in an anti-white harangue before an audience of NAACP members and supporters who snickered and cheered.
Breitbart had every reason to believe that his “outing” of a supposed anti-white racist would appeal to his constituency, especially since Sherrod was not simply addressing an NAACP audience, but actually working for the evil, anti-white Obama administration. But what Breitbart may not have expected were the other bonuses that his deceit harvested — namely, the NAACP and CNN's African-American correspondent Roland Martin also rushing to judgment on Sherrod, based on nothing but Breitbart's hack job. Then came the cherry on top: Vilsack, also without investigating, demanded Sherrod's immediate resignation, contending that her “racist” remarks could compromise any trust that USDA's rural clients would have in the department's intent and ability to treat them fairly.
Whether or not the issue of Sherrod's resignation reached President Obama's desk, there is no doubt that somebody in the White House got punked.
After reviewing a video of Sherrod's entire speech to its Coffee County, Ga., chapter, the NAACP backtracked. Oddly enough, the statement by the group's president, Ben Jealous, offered no outright apology to Sherrod, but it did reiterate the NAACP's “zero tolerance policy against racial discrimination, whether practiced by blacks, whites or any other group.” It then went on to say, “We were snookered by Fox News and tea party activist Andrew Breitbart into believing that she (Sherrod) had harmed white farmers because of racial bias” and called upon Vilsack to reconsider Sherrod's forced resignation.
For the record, the Sherrod name is golden in the civil rights movement. Besides Shirley Sherrod's own work, her husband, Charles Sherrod, is an iconic figure, who since 1961 has devoted his life to working for justice and racial equality for poor people in southwest Georgia. It's amazing to me that the NAACP's national leadership did not know enough about who these people are or about their work to at least have given Shirley Sherrod just a brief window of the benefit of the doubt.
Fox's Sean Hannity welcomed to his program “the one and only, the infamous Andrew Breitbart,” who as of this writing has offered not one ounce of contrition for defaming a fine and decent woman. Rather, this mischief-maker says that for him, it never was about Shirley Sherrod, but about his intent to expose the NAACP as hypocritical for alleging that “the tea party is racist” when ostensibly some of its own members cheered on a racist speech.
The White House has issued an apology to Shirley Sherrod. The USDA has offered her a new job. OK. Now what?
In a sordid story with few heroes, CNN's Rick Sanchez is one. His reporting on this controversy does serious journalists proud. Sanchez devoted almost his entire shows Tuesday and Wednesday to getting to the bottom of Shirley Sherrod's speech, the NAACP's actions, Sherrod's forced resignation and who on the Fox network said what when. He even hauled in his colleague Roland Martin on Tuesday to explain directly to Sherrod on an open phone line why he also rushed to jump on the bandwagon and attacked her as a racist. Sanchez's coup de grâce , however, was bringing forward the white farmer who Breitbart initially had the world believing had been mistreated by Shirley Sherrod. The farmer and his wife were stunned that the woman who has become a family friend was being maligned as an anti-white racist. “They don't know what they are talking about,” the farmer said. “I never was treated no better, no nicer and looked after than Shirley.” Sherrod, in the 11th hour, had helped the white couple to save their farm.
Unfortunately, this week it's Andrew Breitbart making mischief. But trust me, the coming weeks will bring forth others who will also prey upon the frightened and uninformed with tales of how the sky is falling because an African American has been elected president of the United States.
Betty Winston Bayé's column appears Thursdays in the Community Forum and online at www.courier-journal.com/opinion.
By Betty Winston Bayé
The Obama administration has been punked once again by its enemies on the right. This time a righteous sister named Shirley Sherrod was thrown under the bus. Ironically, in the very speech that led to what she insists was her forced resignation from her post as the Georgia state director for rural development for the U.S. Agriculture Department, Sherrod said, “I am very proud to be working for the Obama administration to help rural America grow again.”
No doubt Sherrod is rethinking that pride after she was instructed to pull over to the side of the road and resign via her BlackBerry, she said, at the behest of Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and the White House. This happened after a smarmy right-wing propagandist deliberately took Sherrod's speech to an NAACP Freedom Fund Banquet in Georgia out of context for the express purpose of smearing the NAACP for having adopted a resolution during its recent national convention urging tea party leaders to be more resolute about condemning the racist elements that have glommed onto their cause.
Sherrod's speech actually was a poignant living history lesson ripped right out of the pages of her own life.
She talked about her father's murder in 1965, when she was 17, by a white man who was never indicted even though there were three witnesses. She also talked about how another relative, Bobby Hall, had been lynched by a white sheriff who also never was brought to justice. Sherrod moved on in her speech to talk about how years later, for the first time, she was in a position to help a white farmer to save his land — and how that experience burned into her consciousness that not just race, but also poverty, accounts for the unfair treatment that rural folks receive.
It was in the telling of the story of her epiphany that Andrew Breitbart pounced on the opportunity to settle his score with the NAACP and thus was hatched the concoction that Shirley Sherrod had engaged in an anti-white harangue before an audience of NAACP members and supporters who snickered and cheered.
Breitbart had every reason to believe that his “outing” of a supposed anti-white racist would appeal to his constituency, especially since Sherrod was not simply addressing an NAACP audience, but actually working for the evil, anti-white Obama administration. But what Breitbart may not have expected were the other bonuses that his deceit harvested — namely, the NAACP and CNN's African-American correspondent Roland Martin also rushing to judgment on Sherrod, based on nothing but Breitbart's hack job. Then came the cherry on top: Vilsack, also without investigating, demanded Sherrod's immediate resignation, contending that her “racist” remarks could compromise any trust that USDA's rural clients would have in the department's intent and ability to treat them fairly.
Whether or not the issue of Sherrod's resignation reached President Obama's desk, there is no doubt that somebody in the White House got punked.
After reviewing a video of Sherrod's entire speech to its Coffee County, Ga., chapter, the NAACP backtracked. Oddly enough, the statement by the group's president, Ben Jealous, offered no outright apology to Sherrod, but it did reiterate the NAACP's “zero tolerance policy against racial discrimination, whether practiced by blacks, whites or any other group.” It then went on to say, “We were snookered by Fox News and tea party activist Andrew Breitbart into believing that she (Sherrod) had harmed white farmers because of racial bias” and called upon Vilsack to reconsider Sherrod's forced resignation.
For the record, the Sherrod name is golden in the civil rights movement. Besides Shirley Sherrod's own work, her husband, Charles Sherrod, is an iconic figure, who since 1961 has devoted his life to working for justice and racial equality for poor people in southwest Georgia. It's amazing to me that the NAACP's national leadership did not know enough about who these people are or about their work to at least have given Shirley Sherrod just a brief window of the benefit of the doubt.
Fox's Sean Hannity welcomed to his program “the one and only, the infamous Andrew Breitbart,” who as of this writing has offered not one ounce of contrition for defaming a fine and decent woman. Rather, this mischief-maker says that for him, it never was about Shirley Sherrod, but about his intent to expose the NAACP as hypocritical for alleging that “the tea party is racist” when ostensibly some of its own members cheered on a racist speech.
The White House has issued an apology to Shirley Sherrod. The USDA has offered her a new job. OK. Now what?
In a sordid story with few heroes, CNN's Rick Sanchez is one. His reporting on this controversy does serious journalists proud. Sanchez devoted almost his entire shows Tuesday and Wednesday to getting to the bottom of Shirley Sherrod's speech, the NAACP's actions, Sherrod's forced resignation and who on the Fox network said what when. He even hauled in his colleague Roland Martin on Tuesday to explain directly to Sherrod on an open phone line why he also rushed to jump on the bandwagon and attacked her as a racist. Sanchez's coup de grâce , however, was bringing forward the white farmer who Breitbart initially had the world believing had been mistreated by Shirley Sherrod. The farmer and his wife were stunned that the woman who has become a family friend was being maligned as an anti-white racist. “They don't know what they are talking about,” the farmer said. “I never was treated no better, no nicer and looked after than Shirley.” Sherrod, in the 11th hour, had helped the white couple to save their farm.
Unfortunately, this week it's Andrew Breitbart making mischief. But trust me, the coming weeks will bring forth others who will also prey upon the frightened and uninformed with tales of how the sky is falling because an African American has been elected president of the United States.
Betty Winston Bayé's column appears Thursdays in the Community Forum and online at www.courier-journal.com/opinion.
Labels: General information, Keeping them honest, Politics, Race, Racism
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