Gone!

NAACP: Sherrod's Actions 'Shameful', 'Intolerable'
Organization Agrees With Official's Resignation, Will Investigate 'Disturbing' Reactions Of Audience, NAACP Officials.

Here's the story.

NOT... GOOD... ENOUGH!

Let the lawsuits begin!

Comments

[Joyce]

Sooo... the NAACP's Jealous issued a statement "appalled", "actions shameful"... with the last line stating: "The NAACP will continue to advance the ideals of America and fight for freedom, justice and fairness for all Americans."

Really? Is that what they've been about for the past few decades? Then why is the name "Advancement of Colored People"?

Perhaps if the organization is really serious about the statement "...fight for freedom, justice and fairness for all Americans." they would vote to change their NAME. And buy a new deck of cards, with the values and principles of MLK printed on them.

[derek]

A lawsuit would require her to actually have done something...

http://www.ajc.com/news/resigned-usda-official-says-574027.html

"Sherrod said the short video clip excluded the breadth of the story about how she eventually worked with the man over a two-year period to help ward off foreclosure of his farm, and how she eventually became friends with him and his wife."

Congratulations. Video editing and typical conservative lack of intellectual curiosity strike again.

[derek]

hey, and here's the wife commenting:

http://www.ajc.com/news/farmers-wife-says-fired-574027.html

"The wife of the white farmer allegedly discriminated against by the USDA's rural development director for Georgia said Shirley Sherrod "kept us out of bankruptcy.""

Does it ever even strike you all as strange that anytime someone like Drudge or Breitbart points to a controversy... the story almost always turns out to be factually wrong?

[James T.]

Gosh Derek... You may be right! So the real question is; why did Ms. Sherrod quit and why did Jealous issue the statement?

Riddle me that!

[derek]

Because the right wing media machine has the ability to make political hay out of absolute BS. Wouldn't be the first time someone had to sacrifice themselves at the altar of the conservative rumor mill. I'm still waiting for Clinton to turn himself in for killing vince foster, myself.

Conservative media is good at focusing the attention of the DC press machine. And every time it does so, the country is worse off for it.

And Jealous actually retracted his statement BTW.

[LegioNofZioN]

as I see it this whole commotion is BS. This woman was fired because the optics of her saying that made the NAACP look like hypocrites just after they publicly condemned the tea party. The NAACP's assertions about the tea party are as baselss as the accusations against this woman are. She said some things, revealing her own bias, but as bad as that was, it'n not really a reason to loose a job - especially when she ended up having to do more to help the couple and she befriended them - especially 24 yrs after the fact. (the incident she mentions occurred during the 80's but the speech was this year). I feel sorry for this woman getting thrown under the bus because the NAACP and USAD don't have the balls to be honest. this is where race talk drives me insane. Two, three or four wrongs never make a right. All that being said I'm not angry with Breitbart, he is simply playing the Al Sharption - Jess Jackson role of addressing real concerns and problems in a messed up kind of way. I have no doubt some people in the Tea Party are racist, I also have no doubt that some people other than this woman in the NAACP are also racist or bigoted. In my experience no ethnicity nor culture is free from irrational distain for at least one other group. the challenge is for each of us to overcome any such line of thinking and reasoning from our own heads. If anything this whole "firestorm" shows us the the irrelevance of the NAACP, and if there were a similar group for whites or others it would also be. In today's day and age you cannot change the way a person thinks through any organization. If anything the NAACP inspires more racism from whites with its recent foolishness than it helps to prevent.

[derek]

And let's not avoid the fact that Breitbart is essentially lying to fan racial resentment of the naacp.

Some of us actually find that disturbing...

[LegioNofZioN]

and that's the way it is, simply because I said so. LeGioN

[LegioNofZioN]

I don't think he was lying, that clip is damning not only of her but of the crowd and their reaction. I doubt he spoke with her personally to get her side, he simply played it to embarass the NAACP a day after they accused the Tea Party of having too many racists in their midst, he simply turned the tables on them, like I said previously in an Al Sharpton kind of way. I don't like this base kind of politics any more than anyone in here does, but I think Breitbart is using the left's own playbook to expose leftist hypocrisy. Its distasteful, but to denounce him doing this I would be on my soapbox daily to denounce simimlar behaviour from the left daily. I take note of it, I express my concern, but people making much out of Breitbart's role in this miss the irony of a former lefty who helped make the Huffington Post what it is, using the same tactics against the left that used to embrace him. using the same tactics against conservatives or the catholic church got him kudos and love before, but now the left wants to attack him for doing what they loved about him previoulsy. the tactics are the same only the targets have changed.

[Joyce]

The better question is: Why if she worked with the farmer, did she need to portray his "superior" feeling toward her... according to her assumption... in a speech to a mostly Black audience 20 years later?

Was it necessary? Why?

derek... have you felt the same RE: comments recently by Sheila Jackson Lee and Jesse Jackson? I didn't see any posts by you RE: the "runaway slave" comment... how come?

Of course your comment about NBPP: just "TWO PEOPLE"... made no difference to you... except to let us know Bush DOJ dismissal of case. Which many know the Bush DOJ dismissed the criminal, not civil case. Accomplished objective in post though, Blame Bush.

Now, I guess you want us to believe... just ONE PERSON?

[LegioNofZioN]

well Joyce the point was she exposed her own inner racist feelings to illustrate why they have to move beyond that. She was making a decent point, but used racist language to illustrate it. I'm not blaming anyone for being offended, but its surely not the most damning thing I have heard out of someone's mouth. it wasn't necessary but she wanted to impress her point to the group and I think she accomplished that.

As for Derek, well yes he makes excuses, far too many for the left, but some of us have been just as guilty excusing crap from the right. The NBPP need to try their stuff up here north of the 49th cause they would get shut down by the people long before the cops could arrest them for hate speech. Derek's apologist assertions about the NBPP mean nothing in the long run, least of all when you have factual accuracy and common sense on your side. they are more than 2 guys and if you believe their claims they numnber in the thousands. Am I worried about them ? far from it, I hope to see them gets theirs when the people on the street refuse to put up with their racist foolishness. It's only a matter of time.

[derek]

The problem is this, in the context of american history, white supremacy has a way darker and deeper infection in american society than... jesse jackson calling someone racist.

Even in the context of this woman. Her point of view then was during a time when the department of agriculture was discriminating against black farmers. When Holder says we're a nation of cowards about race, this is what he means. We treat her views like they were created in some vacuum, rather then during a time period where active discrimination was taking place. And the funny thing is, even through all that, her point was that in service and solidarity, we could look past race and help each other... yet the only thing conservatives get out of that is "Black racists! i told you they exist!"

I mean seriously, the entire NBPP flap is the right wing of america giving a platform to a group in order to fan racial resentment. It's not like the NBPP has any actual power, or has used that nonexistent power to oppress whites. Fox news hasn't done a hundred pieces on neo-nazi groups in the past month have they? It's obvious what the point of their obsession is.

[Joyce]

" It's not like the NBPP has any actual power..." Really?

I'd say their power of loud voices on street corners pushes their agenda to new generations of white-haters/ race-baiters.

"...context of american history..." Yes derek... some folks still live with 1960s mindsets. Why are you?

Guess the story isn't as simple as derek thinks it is... just a few more questions:

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/Examiner-Opinion-Zone/Shirley-Sherrods-Disappearing-Act-Not-So-Fast-98846149.html#ixzz0uGDqWLiW

Oh... and don't you just wonder... who's lying/ who's telling the truth?
http://hotair.com/archives/2010/07/20/white-house-we-didnt-pressure-sherrod-to-resign/

[Joyce]

Interesting. derek and Glenn Beck are of the same mind on this issue:
http://hotair.com/archives/2010/07/20/naacp-and-glenn-beck-agree-people-rushed-to-judgment-on-sherrod/

So why did the White House press for her resignation, or as they've said now... they didn't?

[LegioNofZioN]

Derek the problem is white supremacy has never been less popular and more taboo than it is today. to view the world as if it is increasing is to ignore the patently obvious. no one can openly call for white supremacy without being called out for the crazy mf that person is. But a few dozen NBPP folks can do so in the street without the people, not white people, but THE people -- people of all races and walks,calling them out on their bs. Was Holder right, is the US a nation of cowards when it comes to race -in my mind yes, but the reason it is so, is in large part due to the NAACP, and other neo progressive organizations using race as an angle to prove a point time and time again. sometimes it takes folks like myself who are only half white to say teh turths others think but won't share for fear of being branded a racist, the largest social taboo in todays culture. No taboo has a larger stigma attached to it than racism, but this seems to work only when the racist is white or not progressive. When it is black or asian or arab racism or when it comes from a progressive its excused or mitigated.

LeGioN said it and it is so.

[derek]

"no one can openly call for white supremacy without being called out for the crazy mf that person is."

That's sort of the point. No one can openly do anything so the game is different than it used to be. Sometimes it devolves into thought policing, which is unfortunate, sometimes it's spot on at exposing people for what they are.

Why treat this in a vacuum though? Why pretend that doing things like accusing NAACP of being the actual racists isn't the very technique of white supremacists since the organization was created? That's not to say Breitbart is racist, whether he is or not is irrelevant. It's to say that these techniques have roots in american history and have effects that aren't nice. The first is that when everyone's a racist, no one is a racist. And who wins out in that battle? The second is that when blacks are depicted as racist, then measures taken against blacks become acceptable to whites. The racial battle has always been over the indifference of non-racist whites. That indifference increases when we draw false equivalences. That's the history of america. I can't support going down that road of equivalence just because dumbass conservatives have their panties in a bunch about Trent Lott or George Allen. Racism should be called out but it's inherently dangerous ground when you start running on this nonsense of even-handedness for the sake of even-handedness.

The strategy of racial tit for tat is at it's least, cover for the privileged (the majority of whites weren't slave owners, but indifference ensured that they didn't use their political power to stop slavery for a long time).

That's why i draw the line the way i do. Because I'm a student of history that knows George Wallace was saying the same shit about the NAACP being the real racists that Breitbart was trying to say. Which is way more of a tragedy than Don Imus getting fired.