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one of the most surprising things about her statement was not just her words, but the reaction of her audience, nodding their agreement with the vile racist thoughts coming from the podium. facscinating, revealing, and disgusting.
stupid, I can't see any reaction in that video, you act like the people jumped up and starting clapping ooohh, did you see that guy's head move LOL
your dishonesty and hypocrisy is an endless source of amusement LOL you're such a tool, seriously, keep it up
Hmm.. http://www.ajc.com/news/farmers-wife-says-fired-574027.html Farmer's wife says fired USDA official helped save their land The wife of the white farmer allegedly discriminated against by the USDA's rural development director for Georgia said Shirley Sherrod "kept us out of bankruptcy." Eloise Spooner, 82, awoke Tuesday to discover that Sherrod had lost her job after videotaped comments she made in March at a local NAACP banquet surfaced on the web. Sherrod, who is black, told the crowd she didn't do everything she could to help a white farmer whom she said was condescending when he came to her for aid. She said the video was selectively edited but regardless U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack was adamant that she resign. "What he didn't know while he was taking all that time trying to show me he was superior to me was, I was trying to decide just how much help I was going to give him," Sherrod said in the video, recorded March 27 in Douglas in southeast Georgia. 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 called Sherrod 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." Sherrod told the AJC the damning video was selectively edited. She said the video posted online Monday by biggovernment.com and reported on by FoxNews.com and the AJC completely misconstrued the message she was trying to convey. "For Fox to take a spin on this like they have done, and know it’s not the truth … it’s very upsetting," said Sherrod, 62, who insisted her statements in the video were not racist. "I was struggling with the fact that so many black people had lost their farmland, and here I was faced with having to help a white person save their land. So I didn't give him the full force of what I could do. I did enough." Sherrod noted that few news reports have mentioned that the story she told happened 24 years ago -- before she got the USDA job -- when she worked with the Georgia field office for the Federation of Southern Cooperative/Land Assistance Fund. "And I went on to work with many more white farmers," she said. "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." Responding to what he knew of the video Monday evening, Atlanta NAACP chapter president R.L. White recalled many years of unfair treatment against minority farmers when he told the AJC that the footage, at face value, "does suggest unfair treatment." "The playing table should be leveled," said White, who wasn't at the March event. "Everyone, regardless of race, creed or color, should be treated same way, regardless of the race of the administrator." Vilsack announced Sherrod's resignation in a statement released to Fox News Monday night. "There is zero tolerance for discrimination at USDA, and I strongly condemn any act of discrimination against any person," Vilsack said in the statement. "They were just looking at what the Tea Party and what Fox said, and thought it was too (politically) dangerous for them," Sherrod said of the agriculture department. The release of Sherrod's statements came a week after the NAACP issued a resolution calling some elements of the National Tea Party racist for comments made against President Barack Obama and African-American congressmen during the health care debate. Sherrod was appointed to her position in by Obama's administration in July 2009 to manage more than 40 housing, business and community infrastructure and facility programs, and more than $114 billion in federal loans. The AJC is working to recover the full video footage of Sherrod's speech to the Douglas NAACP. A production company, DCTV3 in Douglas, recorded the event at the local NAACP chapter's request and is waiting for permission to release the full speech. "We broadcast it on cable," DCTV3 program director Johnny Wilkerson said. "Somebody probably picked it up and recorded it, then put it on YouTube. That's probably why the video looks so shabby." Sherrod said the circumstances made it absurd for her to have made any racist comment. "There were some white people there. The mayor (of Douglas) was there," Sherrod recalled. "Why would I do something racist if they were there?" Mayor Jackie Wilson told the AJC she did introductions at the banquet but had to leave for another event before Sherrod's speech. Wilson said she did not hear of any controversy in the weeks following the banquet, adding she was shocked to learn of Sherrod's resignation. "She's not someone I know extremely well, but I respected her and thought she was doing a good job. And she seemed to be a fair person," said Wilson, who was city manager before becoming mayor 2 1/2 years ago. "I just hate that this kind of thing happened in Douglas." Eloise Spooner told the AJC she intends to stand up for her friend. "She helped us and we're going to help her," Spooner said. --Staff writer Larry Hartstein contributed to this report.
Based on this new development, she should be reinstated, in my opinion. However, why are people saying "basso duped us"? I would assume that basso got a link to the short clip, so if anything, the person who created that short clip and made it seem like she is still racist duped all of us, including basso. Some of you people are just waiting for a chance to jump down basso's throat.
So you can categorize me as a 'hardcore partisan' even though you have never met me, don't know my complete politics, don't know my voting record and essentially don't know any real details about me?
Basso did post it and he hasn't backed off of it. He may have been duped but that isn't stopping him from standing by it even though evidence has been presented that the tape isn't what he presents it as.
I don't care to say who is a hardcore partisan and who isn't. All I know is that when it's time for The Stand, Batman and I will be drinking homebrew in Boulder while basso will be sweltering in Las Vegas.
hmm, indeed. formatting is difficult to recreate, so hit the link for an easier read. [rquoter]Shirley Sherrod's Disappearing Act: Not So Fast By: Tom Blumer Special to The Examiner 07/20/10 1:52 PM EDT My oh my, that happened quickly. Perhaps too quickly. Until yesterday, Shirley Sherrod was Georgia Director of Rural Development for the USDA. Earlier in the day at Big Government, Andrew Breitbart put up a video that exposed Ms. Sherrod as someone all too willing to discriminate based on race. Within hours of the video's release, USDA Director Tom Vilsack announced Sherrod's resignation, and in the process issued an exceptionally strong condemnation ("We are appalled by her actions ... Her actions were shameful ... she gave no indication she had attempted to right the wrong she had done to this man"). The NAACP, at whose Freedom Fund Banquet Sherrod spoke of her discriminatory posture, and at which the audience seemed to indicate approval of her outlook, followed a short time later, virtually echoing Vilsack. So I guess we're supposed to forget about Shirley Sherrod from this point forward. Not just yet. Luckily, she's not going away quietly, and is complaining about Fox News and the Tea Party causing her dismissal. Keep it up, ma’am, because you and the USDA both deserve further scrutiny. Ms. Sherrod's previous background, the circumstances surrounding her hiring, and the USDA's agenda may all play a part in explaining her sudden departure from the agency. These matters have not received much scrutiny to this point. An announcement of Ms. Sherrod's July 2009 appointment to her USDA position at ruraldevelopment.org gives off quite a few clues: RDLN Graduate and Board Vice Chair Shirley Sherrod was appointed Georgia Director for Rural Development by Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack on July 25. Only days earlier, she learned that New Communities, a group she founded with her husband and other families (see below) has won a thirteen million dollar settlement in the minority farmers law suit Pigford vs Vilsack. What? The news that follows at the link, which appears to pre-date the announcement of Ms. Sherrod's appointment, provides further details: Minority Farm Settlement Justice Achieved - Congratulations to Shirley and Charles Sherrod! We have wonderful news regarding the case of New Communities, Inc., the land trust that Shirley and Charles Sherrod established, with other black farm families in the 1960's. At the time, with holdings of almost 6,000 acres, this was the largest tract of black-owned land in the country. ... Over the years, USDA refused to provide loans for farming or irrigation and would not allow New Communities to restructure its loans. Gradually, the group had to fight just to hold on to the land and finally had to wind down operations. ... The cash (settlement) award acknowledges racial discrimination on the part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture for the years 1981-85. ... New Communities is due to receive approximately $13 million ($8,247,560 for loss of land and $4,241,602 for loss of income; plus $150,000 each to Shirley and Charles for pain and suffering). There may also be an unspecified amount in forgiveness of debt. This is the largest award so far in the minority farmers law suit (Pigford vs Vilsack). The Pigford matter goes back a long way, and to say the least has a checkered history, as this May 27, 2010 item at Agri-Pulse demonstrates (bolds are mine): As part of a April 14, 1999 class action case settlement, commonly known as the Pigford case, U.S. taxpayers have already provided over $1 billion in cash, non-credit awards and debt relief to almost 16,000 black farmers who claimed that they were discriminated against by USDA officials as they “farmed or attempted to farm.” In addition, USDA’s Farm Service Agency spent over $166 million on salaries and expenses on this case from 1999-2009, according to agency records. Members of Congress may approve another $1.15 billion this week to settle cases from what some estimate may be an additional 80,000 African-Americans who have also claimed to have been discriminated against by USDA staff. ... Settling this case is clearly a priority for the White House and USDA. Secretary Vilsack described the funding agreement reached between the Administration and advocates for black farmers early this year as “an important milestone in putting these discriminatory claims behind us for good and in achieving finality for this group of farmers with longstanding grievances." However, confronted with the skyrocketing federal deficit, more officials are taking a critical look at the billion dollars spent thus far and wondering when these discrimination cases will ever end. Already, the number of people who have been paid and are still seeking payment will likely exceed the 26,785 black farmers who were considered to even be operating back in 1997, according to USDA. That’s the year the case initially began as Pigford v. (then Agriculture Secretary) Glickman and sources predicted that, at most, 3,000 might qualify. At least one source who is extremely familiar with the issue and who asked to remain anonymous because of potential retribution, says there are a number of legitimate cases who have long been denied their payments and will benefit from the additional funding. But many more appear to have been solicited in an attempt to “game” the Pigford system. Here are just a few questions about Ms. Sherrod that deserve answers: Was Ms. Sherrod's USDA appointment an unspoken condition of her organization's settlement? How much "debt forgiveness" is involved in USDA's settlement with New Communities? Why were the Sherrods so deserving of a combined $300,000 in "pain and suffering" payments -- amounts that far exceed the average payout thus far to everyone else? ($1.15 billion divided by 16,000 is about $72,000)? Given that New Communities wound down its operations so long ago (it appears that this occurred sometime during the late 1980s), what is really being done with that $13 million in settlement money? Here are a few bigger-picture questions: Did Shirley Sherrod resign so quickly because the circumstances of her hiring and the lawsuit settlement with her organization that preceded it might expose some unpleasant truths about her possible and possibly sanctioned conflicts of interest? Is USDA worried about the exposure of possible waste, fraud, and abuse in its handling of Pigford? Did USDA also dispatch Sherrod hastily because her continued presence, even for another day, might have gotten in the way of settling Pigford matters quickly? The media and the blogosphere shouldn't be so quick to forget about Shirley Sherrod.[/rquoter]
This is such BS. The typical conservative retort to anything they disagree with is to use exceptions to distort the effects of policy. Affirmative Action is in place to address the ills of racism which has led to continued poverty for many black Americans. White people in Appalachia aren't poor because of racism. And yes it matters why people are poor. If people are poor because they're lazy and uninitiated or have poor values, then that's one thing. If people are poor because they've been systematically targeted because of their race then that's something far more sinister. People want to sweep race under the rug as if its effects are no longer relevant or pertinent and if you took five seconds to look at the differences in the rates of education, incarceration, employment, wealth, etc. the racial divide becomes crystal clear. Many of you want to point to the one wealthy black kid, the Obama precedent if you will, and declare the issue over but the fact remains that for every Obama there are an incredible amount of minority kids that receive substandard educations, live in dangerous neighborhoods, and have little chance to succeed in life because of what race they were born.
