Nothing like a racially charged accusation with the presumption of video evidence to set the political blog arena on fire.
On Monday, Andrew Brietbart made a blog post claiming to show the racism of the NAACP, based on a speech by a Dept. of Agriculture executive, Shirley Sherrod. Since then, this woman has been cast aside by the administration, and is looking for employment.
I've listened to the speech.
"I've come to realize we have to work together. It's sad that we don't have a room full of blacks and whites here tonight, because we have to overcome the divisions that we have. We have to get to the point, where as Tony Morrison(?) said, 'Race exists, but it doesn't matter.' We have to work just as hard. I know that division is still here, but our communities are not going to thrive, our children won't have the communities that they need to live in and stay in to have a good life if we can't figure this out you all. White people, Black people, Hispanic people, we all have to do our part to make our communities a safe place, a healthy place, a good environment. So that companies, why would a company want to locate in some of these places? You know, its so sad that as I go around the state and people ask me where you from, 'Albany', 'Oh, a lot of crime in Albany', and a lot of that is from people who live there!"
Its embarrassing that this woman, who was telling a story of 24 years ago where she was racially biased against white people, and then upon seeing a lawyer fail a white family, came to their aide and helped them like she should have to begin with. Over time and with God's help, her mentality and biases have changed. This speech is but a message of racial healing and a drive for communities and personal responsibility. Heck, she even takes shots my generation, with good reason.
Its painful to me that with the opening line of 'Context is everything', Brietbart has set off such a firestorm on the right, and destroyed this woman's reputation by ripping out a short segment from a speech that was never meant to be a sound byte.
This really is a fine speech, I would recommend you play it in a different tab while doing other things.
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1 comment:
Brietbart explained that his purpose for posting the video was to show the reaction of the audience in response to her initial reaction to the white farmer, which was to clap and cheer her on for doing so. It was supposedly not to say that she is still racist. I too am sorry that he failed to explain this with his clip which went all over the place. The farmer and his wife have spoken up on her behalf.
This entire discussion of racism brought about by lies that began in the media about the Tea Party being racist.
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