The Tea Party is Not Racist

You’re going off of her [the farmer's wife] word that the farmer’s wife is the farmer’s wife?
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If you watch the unedited video, there's a segment where she cuts the tails off some visually impaired mice.
 
ANTPogo said:
Yeah, I'm really really not happy with the Obama Administration's handling of this whole thing.
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Agreed. But I can understand their actions to a certain degree. Let's assume the story had been shown to be true (or some shade of true like the Acorn story). Every day that Sherrod was allowed to remain in her position the right and FoxNews would be angrily bleating how Obama was tolerating a racist in his administration. It would have reached epic noise levels.

Now, if Obama had said that he wanted to get both sides of the story, which takes time to collect the evidence, I think that would get lost in the uproar. The right certainly did not want to wait to get both sides of the ACORN story or wait for the investigation.

Unfortunately, the initial charges are what people remember, not any results of the investigation.

All that being said, you can't kowtow to this sort of blasphemous journalism, even if it hurts you politically to stand up against it. It just makes people like Beck (Van Jones) and Breitbart (Sherrod, Acorn) feel more empowered when they see the President of the United States reacting to them and they will just get more wild in their accusations and methods.
 
johnny karate said:
I see where the validity of that poll was questioned, but I don't see where it was outright refuted.

And it also wasn't the only poll to come to a similar conclusion:
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Questions such as those addressed in both the WISER and the NYtimes polls do more to measure political ideology -- one of the core Tea Party values being self-sufficiency and responsibility -- than they do to establish any kind of "racial resentment".

Parker, the lead researcher in the WISER poll tried to create a control for ideology by comparing examples of "conservative" Republican Tea Party supporters with "conservative" Republican Tea Party critics. Yet in doing so he assumes that conservative means the same thing for everyone, removing ideological differences. In the WISER case other problems that you run into include the small sample size, and extreme limitation of samples to several states. And to top it off both the NYtimes and WISER's failure to disentangle ideology from racial attitudes is more than enough justification to render the polls indecisive if not to question their validity all together with respect to labeling the tea party racist.

johnny karate said:
And then of course there's all the racists who show up at their rallies. But of course we're not allowed to count them. :rolleyes:
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I wouldn't characterize it that way. There's gross immaturity on both sides of the aisle, and the excuse that he/she does it too is absolutely no excuse. There are parts of the grown up party and the ugly party in every movement Michael Gerson and this one is no exception. The adults should impose discipline, and they already been doing so. I'm merely pointing out that there is a catastrophic failure in establishing that the racist leans go beyond the scope of the occasional, total idiot that reveals him of herself from time to time and actually made the core tea party ideology one of such reproach.

johnny karate said:
Now, you may not accept any of this an indicative of racism, and may even suspect it's being trumped up to paint the Tea Party as racist. But to compare that to the blatantly dishonest smear campaign currently being waged against the NAACP is a tad disingenuous.
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If you want any comparison from me, it would be that at the moment, the sheer animosity toward the tea party is IMO more like the to the liberal equivalent of Obama birtherism. That's on a whole other scale than the black panther/ NAACP/ Breitbart/Williams case.

To be fair, the whole thing with Sherrod from what I've heard may go back to some settlement she had and some excuse breitbart was looking for to give her the boot. Either way, I think its more here that the NAACP overreacted before having all of the facts and unintentionally helped him do his dirtywork. With the damage done already, even with her reinstatement it's unlikely the truth of things will be heard enough.
 
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the sheer animosity toward the tea party is IMO more like the to the liberal equivalent of Obama birtherism.
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So the belief that there are racist elements in the Tea Party is the same as believing, despite a glut of evidence to the contrary, that the President of the United States was not a natural-born citizen?

That's a tough one to swallow.
 
ANTPogo said:
Yeah, I'm really really not happy with the Obama Administration's handling of this whole thing.
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Incredible. Both the Fox News/Tea Party crowd AND The Obama Adminsitration come out looking bad over this.
I have been a semi defender of Fox News, since IMHO up until now Fox is no worse in lying and distortion then many new sources with a Left Slant (I am looking at you, Michael Moore and MSNBC). But this time Fox has really, really, blown in.
And for Obama, Vilsack should be outta there over this.
 
Lurker said:
Agreed. But I can understand their actions to a certain degree. Let's assume the story had been shown to be true (or some shade of true like the Acorn story). Every day that Sherrod was allowed to remain in her position the right and FoxNews would be angrily bleating how Obama was tolerating a racist in his administration. It would have reached epic noise levels.

Now, if Obama had said that he wanted to get both sides of the story, which takes time to collect the evidence, I think that would get lost in the uproar. The right certainly did not want to wait to get both sides of the ACORN story or wait for the investigation.

Unfortunately, the initial charges are what people remember, not any results of the investigation.

All that being said, you can't kowtow to this sort of blasphemous journalism, even if it hurts you politically to stand up against it. It just makes people like Beck (Van Jones) and Breitbart (Sherrod, Acorn) feel more empowered when they see the President of the United States reacting to them and they will just get more wild in their accusations and methods.
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Pretty much my thoughts as well. I feel it was done so abruptly in part to save face over the manufactured Black Panther controvery. Regardless I agree that's not much of an excuse as to why they didn't investigate the matter thorougly. When I first saw the clip I was immediately suspicious over the length of the video. Apparently whoever made the decision to force her to resign didn't do so much as watch the video or even ask her side of the story. :boggled: Seems they were more concerned with looking "fair" and zero tolerance then being reasonable.
 
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The Charnel Expanse said:
So the belief that there are racist elements in the Tea Party is the same as believing, despite a glut of evidence to the contrary, that the President of the United States was not a natural-born citizen?

That's a tough one to swallow.
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Exactly. It doesn't take a conspiracy theroist to find evidence of racism in the Tea Party.

I don't think asking if the Tea Party has racist elements is even the right question anymore.

Clearly it does.

The only question remaining is to what degree, if any, racism fuels the Tea Party; a question that can probably never be definitively answered.
 
Mumbles said:
...Aannd the NAACP is nice enough to release the full video:



The relevant party begins at 16:30. The part that got cut out is that, after the lawyer decided to rip off the white family, she steps in to help them save their farm.
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After watching the full tape of her speech, I completely agree that the videotape excerpt released by Breitbart was out of context and incomplete, and that she was indeed relating a story about racial conciliation by her and it was actually a plea for more racial reconciliation. A plea to a black audience for that … which I think is the sort of speech badly needed. I don't agree with everything she said in her speech, but she definitely deserves not to lose her job over this and should be reinstated immediately with an apology from Breitbart, her USDA boss, the Whitehouse (because the buck stops there) and the NAACP. I don't think that anyone who reported what was known as it came out need apologize, however. Just acknowledge what can now be ascertained from the full tape. And that I've now done.
 
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What's the difference between a redneck and a good ol' boy?

(I'd tell you, but I just got a minor scolding for being a bit ribald in another post.)

Anyway, the answer has to do with Afro-Americans and sex.
 
BeAChooser said:
After watching the full tape of her speech, I completely agree that the videotape excerpt released by Breitbart was out of context and incomplete, and that she was indeed relating a story about racial conciliation by her and it was actually a plea for more racial reconciliation. A plea to a black audience for that … which I think is the sort of speech badly needed. I don't agree with everything she said in her speech, but she definitely deserves not to lose her job over this and should be reinstated immediately with an apology from Breitbart, her USDA boss, the Whitehouse (because the buck stops there) and the NAACP. I don't think that anyone who reported what was known as it came out need apologize, however. Just acknowledge what can now be ascertained from the full tape. And that I've now done.
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I don't agree that Sherrod's message is "needed in black communities." And I do think that many reporters need to apologize.

But, I do think that larger point it right. I believe in giving credit where credit is due. Thank you for this.
 
Lurker said:
and your opinion of Breitbart who clearly was deceptive when he started this whole mess is....?
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I personally don't have any opinion of Breitbart but why are you so sure he was "clearly deceptive" I would think it is just as likely someone sent him the edited video and it showed what he wanted to here so he went with it. He could be "duped " just as easily as the USDA and the NAACP were. Do you think he edited the tape?


Her bosses at the USDA are the one I really see as at fault here. Forcing her to resign so quickly without giving her a chance to defend herself. In general you should be slow and sure was letting someone go for a reason like that. Definately lawsuit material.
 
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eeyore1954 said:
I personally don't have any opinion of Breitbart but why are you so sure he was "clearly deceptive" I would think it is just as likely someone sent him the edited video and it showed what he wanted to here so he went with it. He could be "duped " just as easily as the USDA and the NAACP were. Do you think he edited the tape?
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If Breibart indeed recieved the clip months ago truncated as it was I think it says a lot about his reasoning ability if he didn't find the short length of the clip odd or desire to hear the full story for sake of context.

Not to mention he clearly painted her as a racist initially (as ANTpogo and Lurker pointed out in post #256 and #257) and now claims his intention was never to paint her as a racist or make her look bad which could be seen as a blatant lie since that's clearly not the case.

Her bosses at the USDA are the one I really see as at fault here. Forcing her to resign so quickly without giving her a chance to defend herself. In general you should be slow and sure was letting someone go for a reason like that. Definately lawsuit material.
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It sounds like Tom Vilsack is at fault here and responsible for the firing and has offered her a new position at the USDA:

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack told reporters this afternoon that he has offered a "personal and profound" apology to Shirley Sherrod for forcing her to resign as a result of an out-of-context video posted to a conservative website.


"I asked for Shirley's forgiveness, and she was gracious enough to extend it to me," Vilsack said, accepting "full responsibility" for forcing her to step down.

Vilsack said he offered Sherrod, who had been Georgia State Director of Rural Development, a new position at the USDA, though he declined to specify the nature of that "unique" position. Sherrod indicated to him that she wants time to consider his offer.


http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20011263-503544.html
 
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BeAChooser said:
After watching the full tape of her speech, I completely agree that the videotape excerpt released by Breitbart was out of context and incomplete, and that she was indeed relating a story about racial conciliation by her and it was actually a plea for more racial reconciliation. A plea to a black audience for that … which I think is the sort of speech badly needed. I don't agree with everything she said in her speech, but she definitely deserves not to lose her job over this and should be reinstated immediately with an apology from Breitbart, her USDA boss, the Whitehouse (because the buck stops there) and the NAACP. I don't think that anyone who reported what was known as it came out need apologize, however. Just acknowledge what can now be ascertained from the full tape. And that I've now done.
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Much respect to you Mr. Chooser. ;)
 
Vilsack made a mistake. He then assumed responsibility fro that mistake, and apologized to Sherrod. End of story.

So where's Breitbart's apology?
 
BeAChooser said:
After watching the full tape of her speech, I completely agree that the videotape excerpt released by Breitbart was out of context and incomplete, and that she was indeed relating a story about racial conciliation by her and it was actually a plea for more racial reconciliation. A plea to a black audience for that … which I think is the sort of speech badly needed. I don't agree with everything she said in her speech, but she definitely deserves not to lose her job over this and should be reinstated immediately with an apology from Breitbart, her USDA boss, the Whitehouse (because the buck stops there) and the NAACP. I don't think that anyone who reported what was known as it came out need apologize, however. Just acknowledge what can now be ascertained from the full tape. And that I've now done.
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I also wanted to thank BAC for posting the above.
 
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