A few days ago the NAACP took the very reasonable step of asking those involved in teabagger politics to disassociate themselves from the racists in their ranks and repudiate that racism. A few of those teabaggers, to their credit, actually did this. But most of them, along with their cohorts in the Republican Party and at Fox News, simply denied this racism existed -- ignoring the multitude of racist signs that populate nearly all teabagger events.
But one particular right-winger took a different tack. He claimed he had evidence that proved the NAACP was also racist. I'm still not sure how this was supposed to excuse the racism displayed by teabaggers, but it seems that somehow this right-winger, Andrew Breitbart (who writes the right-wing blog BigGovernment.com), thought that it would. He produced a very short video of USDA employee Shirley Sherrod (an African-American woman) speaking to a gathering of NAACP members.
The video shows Ms. Sherrod telling the NAACP about her having doubts about helping a white farmer (because he was white). Breitbart claimed the video showed the NAACP was a racist organization (even though Ms. Sherrod worked for the government and was not a NAACP official). There was only one problem about Breitbart's charges -- the video had been cut and Ms. Sherrod's comment was taken out of context. It has now been learned that the video in its entirety shows Ms. Sherrod was not defending any kind of racism (reverse or otherwise).
Here are some of the things Breitbart's snip of video conveniently left out:
* Ms. Sherrod was speaking about an incident that happened 24 years ago, before she worked for the USDA (when she worked for a program in Georgia).
* Ms. Sherrod was using her initial feelings about the white farmer as an example of the type of feelings people must overcome in themselves to become a better person. She says the story is about getting beyond the issue of race and helping people.
* Ms. Sherrod went on the help the white farmer for the next two years and successfully helped him to save his farm.
In fact, that white farmer and his wife became friends of Sherrod's. Today (24 years later) the farmer's wife, 82 year-old Eloise Spooner, calls Sherrod a "friend for life" and says Sherrod "treated us really good and got us all we could. She's the one I give credit to with helping us save our farm." In addition, the company that shot the video confirmed Ms. Sherrod's account of what it contained.
Breitbart should be ashamed of his brazen and unethical attempt to cut the video and claim it showed racism by Ms. Sherrod (and the NAACP). As Steve Benen of Washington Monthly wrote, Breitbart is "trying to spur racial animosity, taking the remarks of an African-American American official to the NAACP, and removing the context, all in the hopes of generating white resentment."
And it looks like Breitbart's efforts were successful among conservatives and teabaggers. One regular commenter to this blog even tried to use the snippet of video by Breitbart to refute my post on teabagger racism a couple of days ago. I can only hope he was honestly fooled by Breitbart's video con and unaware of Breitbart's reputation for cutting videos so they hide the truth (since I wouldn't like to believe the commenter was using a source he knew to be untruthful).
This is not the first time Breitbart has altered a video to try and make it say something that is just not true. Just after the election, Breitbart released a video made by a cohort of his. He claimed this cohort and a friend had entered an ACORN office dressed as a pimp and his whore and the video showed them getting advice on how to break the law. It has recently come out that the two did not enter dressed as they said they were, and the unedited tape showed ACORN had done nothing wrong. A law enforcement source, who had viewed the entire tape in an investigation of ACORN, said, "They (Breitbart and his associates) edited the tape to meet their agenda." ACORN was cleared by the Brooklyn D.A. of any wrongdoing.
Sadly, officials at the USDA pressured Ms. Sherrod into quitting before they even knew the whole story. They acted rashly in the fear that this would give them some bad publicity and now must live with their terrible decision. Personally, I think Ms. Sherrod has a good case for slander against Breitbart and I hope she pursues it.
Breitbart has the free speech right to defend racism if that is what he wants to do (and evidently it is what he wants to do). However, he does not have the right to lie and to slander a good woman in his defense of racism.
Being the "commenter" referred to in this post, I feel I need to bring you up to date on this issue.
ReplyDeleteLast night, I discovered a more extensive video of the Sherrod speech, which I've now viewed in its entirety (all 43 minutes and 14 seconds). Here are my impressions:
First and foremost, I want to publicly apologize to Shirley Sherrod for my previous comments. Taken in their fullest context, it's obvious that her comments about favoring black farmers over white farmers were an admission of past sins rather than her current attitude about the races.
Secondly, I strongly urge everyone (black or white, Democrat or Republican, liberal or conservative - and everyone in between) to watch the entire speech. Here's a link to the video, posted by the NAACP. Ms. Sherrod's story of losing her father at the age of 17 to a murderer who was never indicted, of enduring the racism of Southern Georgia in the age of Jim Crow, and eventually rising above it all to embrace white people as well as black, is truly inspirational.
That being said, I don't agree with everyone Ms. Sherrod says. At one point (around the 24 minute mark), she attributes the "mean-spirited" opposition to the recently passed health care bill to racist attitudes. I personally believe one can vehemently oppose the policies of an African-American President without being motiviated by racism. And Ted, I don't think you'll appreciate Ms. Sherrod's giving the credit to God for her facing and overcoming her own racism. But by and large, I found the speech to be positive and inspiring.
But as embarrassed as I am for having jumped to the wrong conclusion, there are others who did the same, with much more severe consequences for Shirley Sherrod. Ms. Sherrod said on CNN that her superiors at the USDA called her while she was on the road and told her that people in the White House were strongly urging her to resign immediately. The NAACP, even though they had possession of the video of the entire speech, nontheless made a hasty statement denouncing her, before later revising their comments and supporting her.
Regarding Andrew Breitbart, I saw him on TV last night. He claims that he received a copy of two excerpts of the speech last April from someone in Georgia who wished to remain anonymous. Even if that were true (i.e. he himself didn't do the selective editing), that still doesn't excuse him for releasing the excerpts without fully investigating their context.
So what's the moral of the story? Don't immediately jump to conclusions, and be very skeptical of everything you see in the media. Nearly everyone has an agenda, and they're not afraid to bend or even break the truth to further that agenda.
With that in mind, please note that even on the NAACP video of the speech, something is cut out around the 21-minute mark. I'm not saying that it necessarily changes the context, but I would love to see what was cut and why.
I guess it's the skeptic in me.
CT-
ReplyDeleteThank you for this comment. I was hoping you would make it, and you did not disappoint me.
You and I don't agree on much, but we have always tried to be fair and civil with each other and deal only in truth (as we see it). I believe this comment by you restores that relationship of friendly rivalry.
P.S. I did try to warn you about Breitbart.