[lbo-talk] The exoneration of Shirley Sherrod

Michael Pollak mpollak at panix.com
Wed Jul 21 04:56:57 PDT 2010


It turns out this was yet another case of criminally selective editing.

Here's Fox version: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/07/19/clip-shows-usda-official-admitting-withheld-help-white-farmer/

Here's the full 43 minute talk: http://www.naacp.org/news/entry/video_sherrod/

And here's a text the relevant bits that were missing:

http://www.ajc.com/news/unedited-video-supports-sherrods-574027.html

Wednesday, July 21, 2010

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Unedited video supports Sherrod's claim she wasn't racist

By Marcus K. Garner and Christian Boone

<snip>

But a review of the entire 43-minute, 15-second speech -- released

Tuesday on the NAACP Web site -- showed that Sherrod was giving a

cautionary tale about the evils of racial separation.

"When I made that commitment (at age 17 years old to remain in Georgia

and help people), I was making that commitment to black people, and to

black people only," Sherrod said nearly 15 minutes into the recording,

just seconds before the segment that brought her trouble. "But you

know, God will ... put things in your path so that you realize that the

struggle was really about poor people."

"[The white farmer] was trying to show me he was superior to me," she

said, recalling the day some 24 years ago. "I knew what he was doing,

but he had to come to me for help."

<snip>

In the video, Sherrod told the crowd at the NAACP banquet in Douglas,

Ga., that she didn't do everything she could to help a white farmer

whom she said was condescending when he came to her for aid.

"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," Sherrod said on the video, recorded "I was

struggling with the fact that so many black people had lost their

farmland, and here I was faced with having to help a white person save

their land. So I didn't give him the full force of what I could do. I

did enough."

Sherrod, in her first interview after the clip surfaced, told The

Atlanta Journal-Constitution the video was selectively edited.

While she soon admitted as she told her story that she referred the

Spooners to a white lawyer so "his own kind would help him," she

followed that admission with a revelation that was omitted from the

two-minute, 36-second excerpt of the speech posted by Breitbart's

group.

Sherrod told the crowd that she discovered the white lawyer she had

referred the Spooners to took their money for six months, but did

nothing to help them.

"This lawyer told them, `ya'll are getting old ... why don't you just

let go of the farm,'" she said. "I could not believe he said that to

them."

Sherrod said she'd learned her lesson.

"It's about the poor," Sherrod said, just over 20 minutes into the

speech. "It made me see it really was about those who have, versus

those who don't ... black, white or Hispanic.

"It made me realize that I needed to work to help poor people ... those

who don't have access the way others have."

She said the incident helped her get beyond issues of race.

"And I went on to work with many more white farmers," she said. "The

story helped me realize that race is not the issue, it's about the

people who have and the people who don't."

Sherrod accused the USDA of cowering to right-wing media.

"They were just looking at what the Tea Party and what Fox (News) said,

and thought it was too [politically] dangerous for them," Sherrod said

of her former employer.

The Sherrod video surfaced a week after the NAACP issued a resolution

calling some elements of the National Tea Party racist for comments

allegedly made against President Obama and African-American congressmen

during the health care debate.

Sherrod said it wouldn't have made any sense for her to espouse racist

comments before the NAACP audience.

"There were some white people there. The mayor [of Douglas] was there,"

Sherrod recalled. "Why would I do something racist if they were there?"

<snip>

Shirley Sherrod was defended Tuesday by the wife of the white Georgia

farmer.

Sherrod, "kept us out of bankruptcy," said Eloise Spooner, 82, of Iron

City in southwest Georgia. Spooner, in an interview with The Atlanta

Journal-Constitution, added she considers Sherrod a "friend for life."

She and her husband, Roger Spooner, approached Sherrod for help in 1986

when Sherrod worked for a nonprofit that assisted farmers.

<snip>

Eloise Spooner said she'll stand up for her friend.

"She helped us and we're going to help them," she said.

--Staff writer Larry Hartstein contributed to this report.

<end excerpts>

The whole article is worth reading. It seems like there is actually a real possibility that she'll be reinstated, which, if it happens, will be the first time anyone who was ever buzzsawed came back and stuffed something in the saw.

Michael



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