Shirley Sherrod and the Myth of Reverse Racism

As shameful as the firing of Shirley Sherrod based on false allegations was, it is also shameful how quick folks are to blame the Obama administration. Black folks who play in the white arena have always had to bend over backwards to combat accusations of reverse racism. The NAACP and the Obama administration acted quickly to refute any support of what appeared to be blatantly discriminatory statements by a federal employee; if it had turned out to be an accurate assessment and the NAACP and the administration had not swiftly condemned what much of white America is quick to call "reverse racism," then the condemnation of Obama and the NAACP would have been loudly proclaimed. Like it or not, it boils down to race. Being black in this society is a constant balancing act.

The Obama administration and the NAACP have publicly apologized to Ms. Sherrod. The Agricultural Department has offered Sherrod a new job. However, Andrew Breitbart, the imitation Glenn Beck, and the poster of the heavily edited video that made it appear that Sherrod was a supporter of racial discrimination, hasn't apolgized. In his appearance on Nightline Wednesday night,  Breitbart relished the tempest that he stirred up with the selective clip of Sherrod's speech, a speech that rather than promoting racism was about racial reconciliation. Sherrod used her initial reaction to a white farmer's request for assistance 24 years ago when she worked for a nonprofit that assisted farmers to make her point that race should not be the issue and that the significant divide was haves and have nots, regardless of race. The white farmer and his wife, Roger and Eloise Spooner, were among the first to speak in defense of Sherrod, crediting her efforts 24 years ago with saving their farm.

However, Andrew Breitbart is not interested in truth but sensationalism and controversey. Appearing on Good Morning America after the entire video speech had been widely released, Breitbart appeared delighted with the hornet's nest that he intentionally stirred up, particularly the discomfort that it caused the Obama administration and the NAACP. Of course, he may have cause for delight. Instead of widely condemning Breitbart and later Fox News for choosing to release the highly edited clip, the attention has been on chastising the Obama administration for reacting too quickly to the video clip.

I wish that the administration had waited and gathered more facts. I wish that Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack had given Sherrod the opportunity to explain. It appears that CNN the Atlanta-Journal Constitution used good old fashioned journalism and interviewed Sherrod and the Spooners. Evidently, Breitbart knows about as much about real journalism as I do about building a space shuttle.

I don't believe that the Obama administration is above reproach in all of this. I want this administration to stop letting Beck, Breitbart, and the Tea Party play the tune and call the steps and I think that it is important that we send a clear message that we actively support soundly kicking purveyors of lies and half-truths in their yellow journalism keyboards. However, at the same time, we must stop allowing these rabid, lying, rabble rousing wingnut lunatics to perpetrate their faux news, then sit back and laugh while progressives eat their young.

The Obama administration acted rashly based on intentionally misleading information and the apology offered to Ms. Sherrod was absolutely necessary. However, progressives need to turn our attention to the real culprits, Andrew Breitbart and Fox News. Divide and conquer is an old adage but it still applies unless we refuse to be distracted by lies and distortions from the real issues.

Glenn Beck Has A Problem: He's An Idiot

I had a dream last night based on one of my favorite horror movies, The Fly. Not the sexy remake with Jeff Goldblum and Geena Davis, but the original 1950s film. In the dream, I am sitting in the garden sipping a mint julep when I hear a tinny little voice crying, "Help me! Help me!"

I whip out my magnifying glass and search for the source. There on the rose bush I spot an unusual fly with the head of Glenn Beck. Compassionate soul that I am, I whip out my eyebrow tweezers, carefully place them around Beck's little head, squeeze them shut, and pinch his tiny head off. Then I wake up. The best dreams always end too soon.

Glenn Beck's most recent anti-Obama comments are in character with his ongoing Obama-is-the-Antichrist rants. I don't watch his "news" show often, a small dose of Beck gives me the vapors. However, his recent pronouncements regarding President Obama weren't made on his own show but while he was a guest on the Fox and Friends morning show.

Beck and the rest of the Fox friends were discussing Professor Henry Gates, Jr.'s recent encounter with the Cambridge police and the president's comments about the incident. According to Beck, President Obama has exposed himself as a person with "a deep-seated hatred for white people or the white culture."

Beck's assertion was challenged on the air by Fox host Brian Kilmeade, who noted that most of the people who work for the nation's first black president are white. However, Beck was ready with a quick response. "I'm not saying he doesn't like white people," Beck said. "He has a problem. This guy is, I believe, a racist."

I know that Beck is just one guy, but he's one guy with a national television show that masquerades as a news show, grounded in objective, factual information. He has quite a following; the message boards are filled with comments from the amen chorus praising Beck for exposing the truth.

Beck's comments really pissed me off and I've thought about why, as a person with a lifelong commitment to resolution through discourse and an absolute opposition to the use of violence as a solution to anything, I'd really like to kick his ass.

I've concluded that I am bone-weary of the proliferation of voices in white America who continue to scream about reverse racism or black racism. It is such an insult to the real racism endured by black Americans.

When young black men gather on a summer's night, kidnap a young white man, tie him to a truck, and drag him down the highway until he is nothing but a bloodied mass of bone and flesh, speak to me of black racism. When grown black men plant a bomb in a church and murder young white children in their Sunday best, speak to me of black racism. When a crowd of black mothers gather in Boston to hurl obscenities, racial epithets, and bricks at school buses filled with little white children, speak to me of black racism.

When white bodies dangle from tree limbs and black families, children included, mill about below, smiling as if they have just witnessed some form of pleasant entertainment, speak to me of black racism. When black entrepreneurs, realizing that there is money to be made, make and sell postcards memorializing these lynchings, speak to me of black racism.

When grown black men kidnap, torture, and murder a 14-year-old white boy because he allegedly showed too much familiarity towards a black woman, speak to me of black racism. When black men--business leaders, legislators, governors, law enforcement, and state militias--gather together and march into white communities, burning, looting, and murdering to intimidate white people from trying to exercise their rights newly granted under the federal Constitution, successfully taking away the most fundamental right of a free people, the right to vote, speak to me of black racism.

When white soldiers who return from defending their country find themselves being told that they must sit at the back of the bus, speak to me of black racism. When white people have to enter business establishments through the back door, or are barred from entry by signs reading, "No Whites Allowed," speak to me of black racism. But until these things come to pass, don't insult me or my people by calling us racists. (BTW, all of the examples that I reference are real and occurred long after the official end of slavery)

On a scale of one to ten, with ten being the pinnacle of racism, we're not even a one. It's rather surprising that we haven't become obsessed with revenge. Instead all that we have ever demanded is equality. Why does that frighten so many people so much?