A lot of words have already been spilled about Shirley Sherrod's firing by the Obama administration after a libelous report on a right-wing web site and Fox News. Now, with the perspective of a few days, it's time to put the incident into a larger framework and (no pun intended) call a spade a spade -- this was a high tech lynching, carried out by right-wing hatemongers and aided and abetted by liberal cowards.
If it weren't for unsung heroes like Shirley Sherrod, Barack Obama would never have become president. He doesn't just owe her a phone call, an apology and an offer of an important job where she can continue her lifelong work of helping poor family farmers of all races. He should be awarding her The Presidential Medal of Freedom.
What's most shameful about the Shirley Sherrod incident is not that the right-wing echo chamber would spread lies about a heroic African-American woman who has devoted her life to fighting for the rights of poor farmers, regardless of race. What else would you expect from media organizations who make their living stirring up white fear of black people? What's most shameful is that so-called liberals and progressives like the NAACP national office and the Obama administration would be so frightened of the right that they wouldn't wait even a single 24-hour cable news cycle to investigate whether Shirley Sherrod's hateful accusers were telling the truth, and instead jumped to condemn her and deprive her of her livelihood.
There used to be a time when liberals, progressive and civil rights leaders stood up to right-wing bullies like Andrew Breitbart and Fox News, fighting back, sometimes even risking their lives. No more, it seems. Today these chickensh*t liberals run for cover at the first sign of incoming fire from the rightwing media, abandoning fighters like Van Jones, thousands of poor anonymous ACORN members, and now Shirley Sherrod. They seem to have forgotten what every school kid learns on the playground -- If you don't stand up to bullies, you just encourage their continued bullying.
As it turns out, not only is Shirley Sherrod the kind of dedicated public servant who works quietly behind the scenes to serve the people. It also turns out the she has devoted a lifetime to fighting for the rights of poor rural farmers of all races without seeking credit or personal aggrandizement.
Here's some of what the Obama administration and the NAACP national office would have learned about Mrs. Sherrod if they'd taken a few days to investigate the facts instead of abandoning ship the moment the rightwing media attacked:
She grew up in rural Baker County, Georgia, which, prior to the Civil Rights Movement (including the activities of the NAACP) was one of the most segregated parts of the South where black people literally lived in terror that they could be murdered by white people without legal consequences. In fact, when Mrs. Sherrod was a 17-year old high school senior, a white farmer shot her father in the back and killed him; and an all-white grand jury refused to bring charges. If anything could a make a young black girl hate white people, that could. But it didn't.
Instead, shortly thereafter, Mrs. Sherrod joined other young black and white students in The Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee whose members braved threats, jail, beatings and even death to lead voter registration drives, sit-ins, marches, and non-violent civil disobedience to bring equal rights to the segregated South. (During Mississippi Freedom Summer in 1964, SNCC workers James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Mickey Schwerner were tortured, murdered, and left to rot in a swamp, in an attempt to scare off other civil rights activists like Ms. Sherrod.)
She met and later married a young black minister named Charles Sherrod, SNCC's field director in Southwest Georgia, whom former NAACP Chairman Julian Bond called in The Washington Post "good, brave and courageous". (Full disclosure: I never met Charles Sherrod, but as a Jr. high school student at the time who helped raise support for the civil rights movement, I remember hearing Sherrod's name as one of the most courageous behind-the-scenes leaders of the Southern civil rights movement. My family was friends with Andrew Goodman's family and members of my wife's family were friends with Mickey Schwerner's family and she remembers having dinner at his house where he introduced her to black soul music. My father, a white man who grew up in a small segregated town in South Carolina, raised money for the civil rights movement and as a child I met people like Martin Luther King and SNCC godmother Ella Baker at our dinner table. So I take this kind of thing very personally.)
Shirley Sherrod and Charles Sherrod became leaders of the Albany Georgia Freedom Movement, which was later joined by Martin Luther King. When the Civil Rights Movement started to change, many of its leaders left the rural South to pursue opportunities in other parts of the country. But the Sherrods stayed. After African Americans finally got the right to vote, Charles Sherrod was elected to the Albany City Council. Today one of Albany's landmarks is Charles Sherrod Civil Rights Park.
When SNCC started to dissolve into factionalism, the Sherrods spent time on an Israeli kibbutz (hardly the kind of place alleged black racists would go) learning about cooperative farming. They returned to Georgia to help form New Communities, a 6,000 acre cooperative farm that for 15 years was the largest black-owned farming organization in the country. When drought finally struck, like many other black farmers, they were denied loans (that were often available to white farmers) by the US government and the farm went under.
After that Mrs. Sherrod went to work for the Southern Cooperative/Land Assistance Fund to which Roger and Eloise Spooner, the white farmers whom Fox and Breitbart accused Sherrod of discriminating against, came for assistance. Ms. Sherrod found Mr. and Mrs. Spooner a lawyer and helped save their land. Mr. Spooner told CNN, "I tell you what, I was never treated no better than Shirley".
In the meantime the Sherrods helped initiate a class action lawsuit against the US government for discrimination by denying loans to black family farmers. After a decade in court, a judge awarded the plaintiffs $13 million dollars. Most of the money went to a non-profit organization intended to buy back the land.
Now Republicans in Congress are holding up funding of a further $1.25 billion settlement with black farmers who were denied loans because of racial discrimination, which funding has been attached to supplemental funding bill for the War in Afghanistan. In an investigative report, Talking Points Memo intimates that the right-wing media may have leaked the edited Sherrod speech at this time in order help Republicans block Congressional funding of the settlement.
Liberals should learn a lesson from Shirley Sherrod's lifetime of quiet courage fighting behind the scenes for justice for poor farmers of all races. As one old friend of Mrs. Sherrod said in The Washington Post, "Shirley has shown that you don't have to be afraid. All you have to do is be right."
Not only should President Obama give Shirley Sherrod a Medal of Freedom and a meaningful job in his administration helping poor farmers. He should give Van Jones back his position helping generate green jobs. He should tell Congress that he'll veto any supplemental funding bill that pays to help poor farmers in Afghanistan but doesn't pay to help poor farmers in America. And then he should tell rightwing bullies like Fox News and Andrew Breitbart what lake to jump in and never again let his administration be intimidated by these peddlers of lies and hatred.
Richard (RJ) Eskow: What the President Didn't Seem to Learn From the Shirley Sherrod Incident
The President's remarks about Shirley Sherrod's firing suggest that this "learnable moment" may have been lost. Here's an idea: Don't hide your opponents in a verbal cloud, Mr. President. Name them. Call them out.
If Prez Obama was even moderately committed to the same sense of justice that Shirley Sherrod has been, he would use this pathetic failure to clean house and hold people in and around his admn to account, that does not seem to be probable and we will see sadly, only more collusion, DLC stupidity and arrogance, banker/AIG/uber-rich greed, war, environmental degradation and pathetic cowardice.
Something is amiss when groups such as the NAACP and the like can be made to sound like the John Burch Society or a racist Klan group and no one speaks out about it. Where are the Senators and Representatives on this issue ? Why haven't we heard from someone other than Obama from the administration? Obama cannot and should not be the front man on every issue that pops up because he then becomes the focal point even more for the racist elements of our society such as Glen Beck etc. who then use this to foster fear among the poor and keeps the nation divided along racial lines.
Keeping their fannies hunkered down and covered.
If anything Republican Tea Partiers enable the racist amongst you by not speaking out against them.
DeMint made it clear from the get go they were going to try to bring down this President. If you've swallowed their kool-aid, that's your problem.
It's called the southern strategy. Lee Attwater used it to divide the south to gain GOP control and it's the same playbook all over again. Read the history and you'll see the parallels.
You don’t think high jacking the auto industry, taking over healthcare and a 4.9 trillion dollar deficit isn’t radical? We are trying to adopt the British form of healthcare (or we already did without a plan). The Brits begged us not to because then they know they are screwed. Just today it’s in the news that they are considering their strategy to healthcare a failure and are looking to decentralize it.
Look at how quickly (or should I say radically) this administration jumps to conclusions: “Hurry, and pass this stimulus package before we go above 8% unemployment.†(Biden – oh we screwed that up). Hurry and sign healthcare bill before anyone can get a look at it. (Pelosi – “we have to pass it first so we can know what’s in itâ€). The Harvard police are “stupid†(Obama – lets have a beer and then I will go play golf)
Look at the policy concerns of conservatives. I don’t care if Obama won’t put his hand over his heart or go to church, but when he crumbles the foundation of capitalism and tries to prop it up with varying forms of socialism, I have a problem.
Liberals are the finest people on the planet.
Fanned
what can we do?
should we denounce them?
get new leaders?
I am a Obama supporter. I voted for you, gave you money, sent thousands of emails for you. However, I am disappointed with your continually shying away from conflict. I for one hate conflict, But sometimes you must take it on face -to-face. The multi-headed hydra call the conservative movement will do and say anything including spreading baldfaced lies, promoting 2nd amendment remedies, and various other acts of moral degradation to harm the your presidency.
Mr. Obama I am aware of your desire to create a post-racial America. Right now in time "It Aint Gonna Happen". Its not easy being the first Black anything. I've been there a couple of times myself.
Mr. Obama your opponents decided 49 years ago that not only would they not support you, but they would oppose you on your every effort even when it's something they previously supported.
Mr. Obama, stop trying to spin the black half of your heritage you are from Chicago, you must stand-up to, push back and realize that you and Democrats have to do it on your own. Please sir Man-Up or will lose the House and shrink your senate spread if you don't use the bully pulpit of your office to call these folks out. Plus, the last two years will be nothing but unmitigated hell.
Mr. President Step Up or Step Off
Talk about being bullies, it's more like they fantasize about being ready to actually squeeze triggers... Oh who? Fellow Americans? Just how exactly is that supposed to improve the lives of Americans? Anybody who doesn't see or smell the hate seeping through the rafters of these folk is actually blind.
Too much pandering and fear of the right . . . call them out for who they truly are, what they represent and whom, because it is not the vast majority of Americans.
Too many people are falling for their blatant lies, misdirection, false rhetoric and do not see how duplicitous they really are.
Democratic leadership needs to illustrate exactly what is going on, so not even the very ignorant who follow the Republican baloney can ignore the truth any longer. Connect the dots for them so they can see the whole picture, because it does not include them.
The Democratic leaders must call out these people. Stand up against the hate!
@oldladysquawking, have you been to a Tea Party event? Most likely not. Do you honestly think the Huffington Post is going to show you the truth? There are Tea party members who are black and there are members who are Hispanic but you are never going to see that reading a rag as biased as HP.
You people on the left need to wake up and realize you are being used. The left is all about the ends justify the means. Case in point, a group of "journalist" get together and decide not to write anything about Obama and Bill Ayers, not write about Obama and Rev. Wright. Journalist? Not!
It is also suggested that anyone disagreeing with Obama and his policies be called a racist so that the people disagreeing will have to spend their time defending themselves from that charge rather than talking about policy. The hate here, and on the left in general, is overwhelming.
Not one negative story about anyone on the left here on the Post. Why is that?
But here this person is trying to change the subject just like every rightwing nut. ... Hurry up and spin it so you don't have to be accountable for being WRONG.
BTW, Sherrod in the same tape claimed that people who opposed ObamaCare only did so, because its namesake is black.