The Tea Party is Not Racist

[BeAChooser]

Well, I guess that's all the proof we need.

I didn't say it was proof, but it is suggestive that she didn't have an leg to stand on in order to defend her job, regardless of what else was on that video. And by the way, I'd like to see a longer video as well. Because I happen to think context is important. I'd like to know what else was said by her and others. I'd like to know the overall tone of that meeting. I'd like to hear if phrases like "social justice" were used. I'd like to see more of the audience's reaction. So hopefully Breitbart will offer more tape from that event. But even if he doesn't, I know that organizations like the NAACP generally tape the major speakers at event's like this. Maybe they have a more complete tape?

 

[BeAChooser]

Calling it the "Democratic Party" though, is a reminder of Democratic principles and Democracy in general.

LOL!

Look, I got into the habit of saying "democrat" party, just like millions of others. I even know democrats who call it that now. I didn't do it out of any conscious effort to insult the party (there are plenty of other ways to do that, such as not capitalizing the word (THAT is deliberate ... but also notice I often don't capitalize republican either). And you may have noticed that I've been making an effort to say "democratic" party recently, when I refer to the party, after a poster brought my mistake to my attention. I'd say I've made remarkable progress since I'm probably stating it correctly more than half the time now. But every once and a while I slip up. Sorry.

Now, let me note that a far more effective insult to the party is to just educate the public (and it's members) about the way it has operated the last two decades, about the lies it's leaders have fostered in the minds of gullible and poorly informed supporters, about the many crimes it's party leaders have seemingly committed the last two decades, and about the close association with, and control of the party by, extreme socialist and communist proponents and sympathizers now. Would you like to discuss that? Perhaps on another thread since it would be off topic here?

 

[Mumbles]

I like how when conservatives are not busy outing themselves as racist with moronic "satire", they spend their time editing secret videos they took to prove liberals are racist.

It's a strange gambit. Even if the video does show racism, the NAACP would merely speak out against it, while some people are still trying to cover for the Tea Party Express' obviously racist spokesman.

I'll give credit to Tea Party Federation for doing the right thing, though.

 

[BeAChooser]

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hvdRMsb5hKNrXK9GHagILBpYrD8AD9H2RID02

Now it turns out that it took orders from the Whitehouse to get Sherrod fired (that's at least what she says). If so, then Vilsack didn't act on his own. Which adds to the question whether the attitude reflected in Sherrod's comments is more widely felt at the USDA than the administration would care to admit. Or if her statements in the video were really just part of a story of racial reconciliation as she claims, then it puts the Obama administration in a bad light for not standing up for her. Afterall, we all want racial reconciliation. That's to be applauded.

 

[Lurker]

Apparatchiks like Breitbart often distort the content of video/audio knowing that the average reader will read no more than their dishonest summary.

I knew I should not have trusted BAC. The event that Sherrod described happened 24 years ago and she uses it to describe how she learned to move beyond race. Obviously she succeeded as the farmer and her became friends, even where the farmer's wife was on TV today defending Sherrod.

I guess I should have know better than to trust something BAC posted from a conservative site.

 

[Lurker]

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hvdRMsb5hKNrXK9GHagILBpYrD8AD9H2RID02
Which adds to the question whether the attitude reflected in Sherrod's comments is more widely felt at the USDA than the administration would care to admit.

Um, the event she is describing happened back in 1984. Twentyfour years ago. She was not in the USDA. She was in the Georgia field office for the Federation of Southern Cooperative/Land Assistance Fund.

"The story helped me realize that race is not the issue, it's about the people who have and the people who don't. When I speak to groups, I try to speak about getting beyond the issue of race."

 

[joobz]

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hvdRMsb5hKNrXK9GHagILBpYrD8AD9H2RID02

Now it turns out that it took orders from the Whitehouse to get Sherrod fired (that's at least what she says). If so, then Vilsack didn't act on his own. Which adds to the question whether the attitude reflected in Sherrod's comments is more widely felt at the USDA than the administration would care to admit. Or if her statements in the video were really just part of a story of racial reconciliation as she claims, then it puts the Obama administration in a bad light for not standing up for her. Afterall, we all want racial reconciliation. That's to be applauded.

I'm confused. Are you upset that the Whitehouse had requested her to step down? What would you have the whitehouse do?

 

[BeAChooser]

Um, the event she is describing happened back in 1984. Twentyfour years ago. She was not in the USDA.

But she told the story in March of 2010. Now maybe the rest of her speech does indeed show she's changed and it was actually a story of racial reconcilliation. If so, then I find her dismissal by the Obama Administration over this and the criticism of her by the NAACP quite puzzling. Seriously, doesn't the NAACP have video tape of her making this speech? Most organizations would record such things. I really doubt they have to rely on Breitbart to know what happened at that speech.

 

[joobz]

But she told the story in March of 2010. Now maybe the rest of her speech does indeed show she's changed and it was actually a story of racial reconcilliation. If so, then I find her dismissal by the Obama Administration over this and the criticism of her by the NAACP quite puzzling. Seriously, doesn't the NAACP have video tape of her making this speech? Most organizations would record such things. I really doubt they have to rely on Breitbart to know what happened at that speech.

Does this mean, that if it turns out she was still racist, then you'd state that Obama made the appropriate action?

 

[eeyore1954]

I'm confused. Are you upset that the Whitehouse had requested her to step down? What would you have the whitehouse do?

At least waited to get all of the details. Instead of a kneejerk response before finding out all of the facts. If here side of the story is true then they should have stood up for her.

 

[quarky]

because of my peculiar disease, one of the things I find very hard to accept, is that everyone doesn't know when they are lying through their teeth.

Being utterly honest, to one's self, is the easiest, simplest thing in the whole wide world.

 

[Juniversal]

I knew I should not have trusted BAC. The event that Sherrod described happened 24 years ago and she uses it to describe how she learned to move beyond race. Obviously she succeeded as the farmer and her became friends, even where the farmer's wife was on TV today defending Sherrod.

I guess I should have know better than to trust something BAC posted from a conservative site.

So yes this was just a Right wing bloggers weak attempt to discredit the NAACP by weak association. Breibart probably tried his damndest to find a video or quote from an NAACP member to discredit the organization. The best he could do was post a cherry picked speech of a woman who isn't even an employee of the organization telling a story of how she was able to look beyond race that when quote mined comes off as sounding like nothing but a tale of how she unshamefully treated a white man differently and was proud of it.

It's really a shame if she was needlessly forced to resign.

 

[Juniversal]

Apparatchiks like Breitbart often distort the content of video/audio knowing that the average reader will read no more than their dishonest summary.

In the vein of Alex Jones and his "confedential info". Most viewers will believe whatever is spoon fed to them. FEMA camps are real? Well Alex Jones says so so it must be true.

 

[joobz]

At least waited to get all of the details. Instead of a kneejerk response before finding out all of the facts. If here side of the story is true then they should have stood up for her.

I fully agree. But I want to know what BAC's opinion is.

 

[A'isha]

I'm shocked, shocked that this story isn't turning out at all in reality like the description given in the Breitbart blog that BeAChooser so uncritically accepts.

Meanwhile, the farmer referenced in the clip told CNN he credits Sherrod with helping his family save their farm.

"I don't know what brought up the racist mess," Roger Spooner told CNN's "Rick's List." "They just want to stir up some trouble, it sounds to me in my opinion."

Spooner says Sherrod accompanied him and his wife to a lawyer in Americus, Georgia, who was able to help them file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, which ultimately saved their farm.

"If it hadn't been for her, we would've never known who to see or what to do," he said. "She led us right to our success."

Spooner's wife, Eloise, remembered Sherrod as "nice-mannered, thoughtful, friendly; a good person."

EDIT: Here's some more:

But Spooner, who considers Sherrod a "friend for life," said the federal official worked tirelessly to help the Iron City couple hold onto their land as they faced bankruptcy back in 1986.

"Her husband told her, ‘You're spending more time with the Spooners than you are with me,' " Spooner told the AJC. "She took probably two or three trips with us to Albany just to help us out."

Spooner spoke to her friend by phone Tuesday morning.

"She's very sad about it," Spooner said. "She told me she was so glad we talked. I just can't believe this is happening to her."

 

[The Charnel Expanse]

The problem with the Tea Party isn't that it's a specifically racist organization - it's not, or at least there's no real evidence to suggest that it's racist at the institutional level.
It's a classist organization and its entire foundational philosophy is demonstrably false. The Tea Party doesn't have a race problem, it has a TRUTH problem.

 

[bynmdsue]

It's amazing to watch as everyone misses the point of the Sherrod tape.

 

[A'isha]

It's amazing to watch as everyone misses the point of the Sherrod tape.

Which is what, that you should never trust an edited tape from a guy who gives a regular column to someone who posts stuff like

If North Korea is, as I believe, Communism’s boldest attack dog, then our President’s and Attorney General Eric Holder’s attitude toward the New Black Panther Party is matched by Red China’s and neo-Soviet Russia’s hands-off attitude toward North Korea.

and

The actual membership size of the Black Panthers has always been relatively small, but with their formally declared, new “connections”?!

Straight to the top of that Progressively Red New World Order.

This leads me to ask, “Is President Barack Hussein Obama the American Robespierre of a renewed and admittedly Marxist but still very French Revolution?”

(The formatting, by the way, is exactly the way it was in the original)

 

[Mumbles]

It's amazing to watch as everyone misses the point of the Sherrod tape.

No, we understand the point - the NAACP is a horrible racist group and the Tea Party is whi-uh, pure and delightsome. Problem is, we don't trust heavily doctored footage from a conservative who is known for doctoring footage to mislead.

 

[bynmdsue]

It is the reaction of the NAACP members she is addressing that is the focus,or was before Shirley had to go beneath the bus.

In their statement the NAACP even refer to their members' reactions as being disturbing.