The heroism of Shirley Sherrod

[Jefferson23]

Wednesday, Jul 21, 2010 09:22 ET

By Glenn Greenwald

(updated below - Update II - Update III)

Everyone is presumably aware by now of the facts surrounding the disgusting fraud perpetrated on Shirley Sherrod, engineered by Andrew Breitbart, amplified by Fox News, and meekly submitted to by the Obama administration. Those who aren't can read excellent commentary from Jamelle Bouie, Joan Walsh, and Chris Martinez. Much has been written about the incomparable sleaze of Breitbart, the standard propaganda boost from Fox News, and the typical cowardice of the administration in the face of such attacks. All of that is well established by now and quite unsurprising, so I want to focus on what ought to be the enduring lesson from this ugly episode: the courage of Shirley Sherrod.


Just as CNN fired Octavia Nasr for one of the few insightful and interesting observations she ever voiced about the Middle East, Sherrod's speech -- which caused her to be fired -- is simply inspiring in its uncommon candor, courage and wisdom. Few people are willing so publicly to confess to tribal biases and detail how they struggle to overcome them, even though that's a challenge which any person who evolves at some point must confront. That process -- far more than the pretense of having always been bias-free -- requires difficult self-examination, and its public discussion offers vitally needed lessons for everyone. Many people are unwilling ever to engage that process privately, let alone candidly describe it publicly. Those with the courage to do so, like Sherrod, should be heralded for that candor. Instead, she was slandered, falsely disparaged, and fired.

Contrary to the excuse being offered by those who did all of that, her actual message -- that she was plagued by racial biases decades ago and overcame them with the recognition that it is poverty that unites people in need -- was clearly evident even from the deceitfully edited Breitbart video. This is part of what she said on that edited video:


That's when it was revealed to me that it's about poor versus those who have. And not so much about white. It is about white and black, but you know -- it opened my eyes.


in full: http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/07/21/sherrod/index.html

[madrchsod]

1. she was courageous while others were cowards....

"....if you do`t say it`s wrong then it`s right...."

[blue sky at night]

2. her lesson is that we need to unite.......

please, everyone...find a person of the another race and shake their hand tomorrow, give them a hug! just say hey!

[roxiejules]

3. A quote from her husband.....

Charles Sherrod said in 1964:

"Our country is sitting on a powder keg...It makes me mad that some of us have to sweep and wait tables and work all night and go to school, and they got thousands, yea, millions, yea, billions of dollars...We may have to demonstrate for jobs. You know, we may have to bring some bones up from the South and say: Johnson, feel my bones. You know--I'm hungry, Johnson, feel my bones!"

http://socialistworker.org/2010/04/15/how-sncc-lit-a-spark