Shirley Sherrod: Obama 'Is Not Someone Who Has Experienced What I Have Experienced Through Life'

[kpete]

Shirley Sherrod: Obama 'Is Not Someone Who Has Experienced What I Have Experienced Through Life'

July 22, 2010 7:40 AM

Shirley Sherrod, the woman at the center of the racism storm that has consumed Washington the past few days, told me she doesn’t know if President Obama supports her, but she welcomes the opportunity to talk to him about it, and to offer a few lessons of her own.

“I can’t say that the president is fully behind me, I would hope that he is…I would love to talk to him,” Sherrod said on "GMA."

“He is not someone who has experienced what I have experienced through life, being a person of color. He might need to hear some of what I could say to him,” she told me. “I don’t know if that would guide him in a way that he deals with others like me, but I at least would like to have the opportunity to talk to him about it.”

No word yet from the White House on whether the President will call Sherrod.

more:
http://blogs.abcnews.com/george/2010/07/shirley-sherrod-obama-is-not-someone-who-has-experienced-what-i-have-experienced-through-life.html

[geek tragedy]

1. Jesus Christ call her already. nt

[sufrommich]

3. I'll bet he calls her today. nt

[HughMoran]

8. She really, really wants a call from the President

I think she deserves one too.

Call her Mr. President.

[VMI Dem]

2. She's right.

[The Backlash Cometh]

10. Different generations experience different things.

Whatever Sherrod said decades ago was probably appropriate for where she was and what she was dealing with. But times changed and Sherrod changed with them. If there is ever an opportunity to show what we are capable of once the resources are put in our hands, it is this situation. Shame on Obama if he misses the opportunity to recognize that we all enter the fight at different intervals.

[piratefish08]

4. the RW would hate it if the President called her.

we need to consider THEIR feelings. don't want to offend, after all...........

[ProSense]

5. She also said:

But she also said on morning news shows she feels there is no need for Obama to apologize for her wretched week, which started with a conservative blogger posting controversial remarks she made, and led to her ouster as an Agriculture Department official and then, ultimately, apologies from both the White House and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack.

link

[Bluenorthwest]

12. Gee, are you complaining about the edit?

How ironic. Goose, meet gander. She's saying that an apology is not what she seeks, she is seeking a moment that would expand the President's understanding of the American experience. She is saying that he has not bothered to contact her during all of this, and that she would like him to do so. I agree with her, he should have sought her point of view already.

[LostinVA]

6. She is 100% right

Good for her!

I am a bit appalled that a racist cop is invited to the White House, yet this woman, who by all accounts is kind and competent, and who we know is courageous (for overcoming her Father's death, if nothing else), was left to twist in the wind.

[Name removed]

7. Deleted message

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[sufrommich]

9. I'm pretty sure Obama grew up with some conflict. nt

[mopinko]

11. pretty sure the folks he worked with on the south side

schooled him in the what it is, too.