USDA official resigns amid race controversy

[cosmo99]

USDA official resigns amid race controversy


By Andrew Golis andrew Golis ? 1 hr 50 mins ago

An employee of the Department of Agriculture has resigned, after conservative media outlets posted video Monday of her describing a time in the past when she hadn't used the "full force" of her abilities to help a farmer because he was white.

In the video, which appears to be from March of this year, Shirley Sherrod, who is black, recounts having been asked to help a white farmer avoid foreclosure. She says she was torn over how much to help him because so many black farmers were also struggling, and decided to do just enough to be able to say she'd tried:

I didn't give him the full force of what I could do. I did enough. ... So I took him to a white lawyer. ... So I figured if I would take him to one of them, his own kind would take care of him.

Sherrod spoke to CNN on Tuesday, explaining that she told the story of her actions ? which, she said, occurred 24 years ago when she was working for a nonprofit, not the USDA ? to illustrate how she has since realized that everything is not about race but "about those who have versus those who do not have." She says she later became friends with the farmer and his wife.

Even so, Sherrod resigned after conservative media activist Andrew Breitbart posted video of the story and Fox News picked it up. She told CNN that she tried to explain to USDA officials that the incident was in the past, but said "for some reason, the stuff Fox and the tea party does is scaring the administration."

In a statement quoted by CNN, Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack said of Sherrod's actions:

There is zero tolerance for discrimination at USDA, and I strongly condemn any act of discrimination against any person. ... We have been working hard through the past 18 months to reverse the checkered civil rights history at the department and take the issue of fairness and equality very seriously.

NAACP CEO Ben Jealous was also quick to condemn Sherrod's actions, though. In a statement Monday posted on Breitbart's Big Government site, he said:

Her actions were shameful. While she went on to explain in the story that she ultimately realized her mistake, as well as the common predicament of working people of all races, she gave no indication she had attempted to right the wrong she had done to this man.

In response, Sherrod told CNN that it was "unfortunate that the NAACP would make a statement without even checking to see what happened. This was 24 years ago, and I'm telling a story to try to unite people."

USDA official resigns amid race controversy - Yahoo! News

[CoeburnCane]

Inexcusable. This was a 'tarded thing to say, no matter which side of the aisle you're on, and it's the right thing for her to step down IF she still feels this way.

HOWEVER...keep in mind that this did, indeed, happen damn-near a quarter-century ago. I'm sure there's things I've said to people as little as 5 years ago that if brought up now I'd wish to take back. I'd wager to say almost all of us are like that.

Now that Sherrod's stepped down, maybe she can oblige the Tea Partiers and Fox News people that dug up this on her and dig up some stuff on them and throw it in the public light, see how they feel about it, and if they have the same common sense and integrity to step down from their positions once they're embarrassed.

[R13]

Where was the leader of the tea-baggers Breitbart when Mark Williams was spouting off his blatant racist stuff? Nowhere to be found. This is the guy who called Ted Kennedy villain,? a ?duplicitous bastard,? a ?prick? and "a special pile of human shit....after he died. Nowhere to be found. He doesn't care about it, he only cares with trying to negatively effect Obama and slow any kind of progress we have down. Of course Breitbart only posted the snippet when she tells the story, but refused to post the rest of the speech, that how that kind of thing doesn't need to happen so everyone can work together. Good job Breitbart, a true piece of shit.


And the wife of that farmer is now defending her.
USDA ex-worker: Administration 'wasn't interested' in truth - CNN.com

[TheBeast]

HOWEVER...keep in mind that this did, indeed, happen damn-near a quarter-century ago.

No this was said in March nearly a quarter of a YEAR ago. She was bragging to the naacp how she used her office to be racist against a white farmer. Yes the event happened that long ago but the bragging took place very recently. Is the naacp going to put out a statement condemning her and itself. This was pure flat out racism and applauded by the naacp.

Now that Sherrod's stepped down, maybe she can oblige the Tea Partiers and Fox News people that dug up this on her and dig up some stuff on them and throw it in the public light, see how they feel about it, and if they have the same common sense and integrity to step down from their positions once they're embarrassed.

You actually think mslsd, cnn, time, new york post or any other outlet hasn't been trying to do just that since the inception of the Tea Party.


Why do y'all think odumbshit appointed Donald Berwick in a recess so he wouldn't have to go through any confirmation hearings and have to answer for all his ignorance.

[R13]

No this was said in March nearly a quarter of a YEAR ago. She was bragging to the naacp how she used her office to be racist against a white farmer. Yes the event happened that long ago but the bragging took place very recently. Is the naacp going to put out a statement condemning her and itself. This was pure flat out racism and applauded by the naacp.

Bragging? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA HAHAHAHAH. You've had some gems, but that one I'll remember. Not only was that rich, you flat out lied again when you said the NAACP applauded this..when they have blasted her unfairly over this.


"Why do y'all think odumbshit appointed Donald Berwick in a recess so he wouldn't have to go through any confirmation hearings and have to answer for all his ignorance."

To skip the BS "hearings" over a completely qualified pick, that would only delay his approval.

[CoeburnCane]

No this was said in March nearly a quarter of a YEAR ago. She was bragging to the naacp how she used her office to be racist against a white farmer. Yes the event happened that long ago but the bragging took place very recently. Is the naacp going to put out a statement condemning her and itself. This was pure flat out racism and applauded by the naacp.

Watch these, then carefully answer my question below.

Breitbart's original video...
YouTube - Racist Shirley Sherrod

Full video from NAACP...
YouTube - The FULL Shirley Sherrod video

White farmer whom this happened to (supposedly)...
YouTube - White farmers at the center of Shirley Sherrod controversy: 'No way in the world' she is a racist.

Breitbart backtracking calling the white farmer a plant...
YouTube - Breitbart thinks farmer's wife is a plant

My question--care to retract your statement that I quoted above?

I only ask b/c I called it a "retarded" thing to say--w/o looking at the context and timeline, and I was wrong. When you look at the context of the story she was telling and how it ultimately taught her not to hold hate in her heart towards white people due to her father's murder by white people. People of any race would do that--let's say a group of Muslims killed a Mexican person's father--that Mexican person may hold hate towards/bias against Muslims, just as a for instance--easy to see that as a human being. May not be right, but it's a human thing to do. Sherrod is using this story to show how you shouldn't hold hatred against others even if you've been done wrong against first. You shouldn't take opportunities to "get even" because it does nothing but perpetuate hate between the races.

Also, as for the timeline--she was working for a nonprofit organization back in the late 80's when this happened. How do I know it was the late 80's? Look at the full video of her speech, and skip to 18:10 of it. She says "Chapter 12 bankruptcy had just been enacted for the family farmer". That wasn't put into law until 1986, so it could have been '86-'89 or so...I highly doubt she would have said it had just been put into law had this happened in 2009...when she was actually hired on at the USDA.

This speech (the full one, not Breitbart's chop-up) was done in March of last year--that's correct. BUT--she did not have this racist thought that Brieitbart bastardized out of this speech's true context while a member of the US Government. Had that been the case, then you need to start harpooning members of the Reagan Administration for hiring a racist...but that's still not the point of her story. It's the point of Breitbart's hackjob to paint her as a racist, but not the actual point of her story.

[TheBeast]

Yes I have watched the whole thing and see that she was telling a story of how she was using race to pawn off this white farmer on one of his own kind and then later after the farmer was forced into foreclosure she actually took up his case and did her job and tried to help. In the video put out by Breitbart he was showing Sherrod telling a tale of racism that was recieved by the naacp audience with laughter and cheers.
"They weren?t cheering redemption; they were cheering discrimination. Upon hearing the cheers, Sherrod fails to offer any immediate clarification and even smiles right along with them." Breitbart

YouTube - Breitbart on King!

To skip the BS "hearings" over a completely qualified pick, that would only delay his approval.

Do you have any clue what this guy supports in healthcare.

BERWICK: Any health care funding plan that is just, equitable, civilized and humane must ? must ? redistribute wealth from the richer among us to the poorer and the less fortunate. Excellent healthcare is by definition re-distributional.


Berwick argued that purposely provided an inadequate supply of health-care?as Britain?s health-care system does?is superior to allowing the market to provide an excess.

?In America, the best predictor of cost is supply; the more we make, the more we use?hospi*tal beds, consultancy services, procedures, diagnostic tests,? Dr. Berwick wrote. ?? Here, you choose a harder path. You plan the supply; you aim a bit low; you prefer slightly too lit*tle of a technology or a service to too much; then you search for care bottlenecks and try to relieve them.?


Taking his cues from the same place dear leader does, Karl Marx and the Communist Manifesto.