USDA official Shirley Sherrod is a target for numerous after all Tea Party racism accusations happened. Republicans asked for a democrat to keep a racist label after Tea Party Express racist Mark Williams got kicked out for it. They found a video of Sherrod, who’s black, describing an encounter with a white farmer back within the 1980s. The video was used out of context making Sherrod look like a bad guy who was not willing to help the farmer.
Shirley Sherrod targeted by right wing commentators
After making a video on race, Shirley Sherrod, USDA’s Georgia State Director of Rural Development, resigned. Conservative bloggers sent out the video responding to Tea Party Express racist Mark Williams getting kicked out. Fox news told the story. In Douglas, GA on March 27, Sherrod’s gave a speech at an NAACP Freedom Fund Banquet what the video was of, as outlined by CBS News. In the video segment, Sherrod tells a story about a white man who came to her for help seeking Chapter 12 bankruptcy. She said she didn’t want to help since blacks easily lose their hand, but she had to help him keep his. Within the end, she asked him to go to a white lawyer.
News plays video so Sherrod quits
The USDA announced Sherrod’s resignation following the video was played by Fox news and Tea Party Express fans like Sean Hannity. ”There is zero tolerance for discrimination at USDA, and I strongly condemn any act of discrimination against any person,” Tom Vilsack who’s the Agriculture Secretary said. “We are 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.”
The whole story about the Sherrod video
Sherrod argues the video clip isn’t really in context of the whole situation. She argues that since the video was long before her job at the USDA, it’s not the whole story, reports CNN. With a masters degree in community development, Sherrod worked in 1985 as the Director of the Georgia State Office for a that helps family farmers keep their land and develop it into good property called Federation of Southern Cooperatives/Land Assistance Fund. She said she told the story to make the point that people should move beyond race. In the end, she said, the lawyer she referred the farmer to did not help him and she “had to frantically discover a lawyer who would file a Chapter 11 to stop the foreclosure.”. The family of the farmer became family friends of hers throughout the process.
Find more information here
CBS News
cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20011026-503544.html
Sean Hannity
americanprogress.org/issues/kfiles/b91585.html
CNN
edition.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/07/20/agriculture.employee.naacp/#fbid=w2XX2duDWrt
