No matter what, she used to be a huge bigot. She allowed this bigotry to influence the allocation of public funds. How many white or hispanic farmers got screwed before she had this moment of clarity? She can stay unemployed for all I care.
At least Trader_Jorge had the somewhat redeeming quality of being amusing from time to time while posting his absurdities. basso, who's posts I see when they are quoted, is bereft of a real sense of humor, thus leaving one bereft of a real reason why anyone not posessed by the Limbaugh/Beck/Jonesin' for George gestalt would find any worth in looking into his countless threads designed to push good discussions to Page Two.
[rquoter] In the clip posted on BigGovernment.com, Sherrod described the first time a white farmer came to her for help. It was 1986, and she worked for a nonprofit rural farm aid group. She said the farmer came in acting "superior" to her and she debated how much help to give him. "I was struggling with the fact that so many black people had lost their farmland, and here I was faced with helping a white person save their land," Sherrod said. Initially, she said, "I didn't give him the full force of what I could do" and only gave him enough help to keep his case progressing. But eventually, she said, his situation "opened my eyes" that whites were struggling just like blacks, and helping farmers wasn't so much about race but was "about the poor versus those who have."[/rquoter] How do you get from this that she used to be a huge bigot and that she screwed over a number of whites and hispanics? Am I missing something else in the story?
Her moment of clarity, as you put it, happened 24 years ago long before she was employed by the USDA. Also the farmer in question says that she saved his farm so clearly she did her job then. Do you have any evidence that as an employee of the USDA she allowed her bigotry, which she says in the complete video she got over 24 years ago, to influence how she allocated funds? I think many people, and I will include myself too, should be apologizing to Sherrod.
Of course they did. You probably posted several threads about it... it is a basic page in the Repub playbook to make up some controversy about "reverse racism" when you are accused of racism (see this thread for instance). There's nothing Republican racists like more than calling someone else a racist... it makes them feel good about themselves and they imagine it is quite clever, plus, the real advantage to doing this is that it pisses off a bunch of Dems... and that seems to be the overriding guiding principle of the current Republican Party.
Comparing basso to those two is like comparing Muhammad Ali and George Foreman to The Bum of the Week. Yes, it is an insult to The Bum of the Week, but that would be basso.
I guess so because I see. 1. she did not want to help white farmers at one point 2. she at a certain point woke up from her racism and then decided white farmers also deserved money 3. unless this happened on her first day as a bureaucrat she was basing her distribution of public funds on race.
That's true this is a Basso thread and I understand he started this for his own trolling purposes but I think this is a topic worthy of discussion and just because it is a Basso thread doesn't mean it can't be steered to something more substantive.
There's no such thing as "reverse racism" unless you count practicing racism against yourself as reverse racism. Racism is racism. This woman deserves her job back. I defend her just as I sometimes defend Rush Limbaugh from all the over-reactions. I'm disappointed that she gave up so quickly.
and the head of the NAACP was at her speech. (unclear whether she's referring to the national or state "president.")
She reluctantly helped him at first which leads me to believe that unless he was the first white/hispanic farmer that was sent to her, previous decisions were based upon race.
great. She legally deserves her job back as much as a guy who was in the KKK 24 years ago and then decided black and Jewish people are OK.
We have no way of knowing that. We don't know how long she was in that job, we don't know what her history in that job was. Given the facts we have I don't see any reason to assume that she had a history of racism towards whites / hispanics, or even favoring blacks. I don't see why this case would lead her to a change of heart if she had encountered the situation, involving a white farmer, before.
Yes if it can be shown that they had acted fairly no matter what the race to the people they were supposed to help in the job. In Sherrod's case she did and the white farmer she helps attests to that. Prejudices are deep but its not impossible to change.
She admitted that she was reluctant to help because of the race of the farmer. If she was distributing public funds then give her the job back, but don't act like her decisions were not being influence by race before her amazing realization that race should not decide who to help and who to turn away.
