The first article is here.
The second article is here.
Arguing in defense of Sherrod’s “righteousness”, Margaret Kimberly argues,
”Black anger is justified and borne out of centuries of atrocities ranging from enslavement, lynch law, Jim Crow segregation, mass incarceration and now increased attacks by a political world bought off by ever increasing corporate power. Shirley Sherrod is the latest in a pantheon of black heroes whose true heroism has been either minimized or completely denied.”And,
”Now Shirley Sherrod emerges from her years of valiant struggle as the woman who chose some sort of vague “racial reconciliation.” It is a comfortable and cozy narrative, but it misses any real discussion of reconciliation, which never comes about unless injustices are acknowledged and redressed.”Ron Wilkins, who once worked for Sherrod, has a different viewpoint:
”Shirley Sherrod was New Communities Inc. store manager during the 1970s. As such, Mrs. Sherrod was a key member of the NCI administrative team, which exploited and abused the workforce in the field. The 6,000 acre New Communities Inc. in Lee County promoted itself during the latter part of the 1960s and throughout the 70s as a land trust committed to improving the lives of the rural black poor. Underneath this facade, the young and old worked long hours with few breaks, the pay averaged sixty-seven cents an hour, fieldwork behind equipment spraying pesticides was commonplace and workers expressing dissatisfaction were fired without recourse.”And,
”Worker protest at New Communities eventually garnered some assistance from the United Farm Workers Union in nearby Florida in the person of one of its most formidable organizers, black State Director, the late Mack Lyons. The September 28, 1974 UFW newspaper El Malcriado, page two, reported on the worker’s strike (“Children Farm Workers Strike Black Co-op” www.farmworkermovement.org/ufwarchives) and the UFW stepped in to protect black farm workers from exploitation by NCI. Fearful of both UFW efforts to unionize NCI’s labor force and scrutiny by the Georgia State Wage and Hour Division, the Sherrods and NCI management hastily issued checks in varying amounts to strikers to makeup ostensibly for minimum wage differentials. It is bitter irony that the Sherrods have succeeded in being awarded $300,000 following a discrimination lawsuit, while Mrs. Hawkins and other impoverished NCI black laborers whom NCI exploited were never adequately compensated for their ‘pain and suffering’.”Now Sherrod is pursuing another lawsuit, this time against Breitbart for having shown her statements at a meeting of the NAACP, intending to display the racism of the NAACP membership. Sherrod was fired, not by Breitbart of course, but by Obama’s administration.
Breitbart and virtually the entire conservative media have apologized, but that hasn’t stopped Sherrod, who referred to Breitbart as “vicious” and “racist”, and that he would “like to get us stuck back in the times of slavery” on CNN.
Referring to FOX news, Sherrod commented that they “would love to take us back where black people were looking down, not looking white folks in the face, not being able to compete for a job out there and be a whole person”.
Gratuitous charges of racism are, in fact, racist. They are seen as unanswerable by the Left, indictments and judgements rolled into one attack, general charges made without hard substantiating evidence, other than a feeling of entitled, self-righteous anger. When used as the main argument, however, they betray the weakness of the position of the arguer. They have been used so often by Obama supporters that they have very little substance or sting left in them. What they do is to perform the service of illuminating the poverty of the arguments of the accuser. Some now refer to racism as Godwin’s Law for all discussions with the Left.
UPDATE:
Here is more information on the Sherrods.
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