Digby makes an excellent argument against the myth of the post-racial society. Her thoughtful piece made me wonder if someone like Breitbart believes enough time has gone by to get over the Holocaust, the Stalinist purges, or the Khmer Rouge reign of terror. Of course they wouldn't believe that. But slavery? Jim Crow? Lynchings? That's ancient history, right, Breitbart? :eyes:
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2010/07/its-as-if-she-had-no-history-at-all-by.html...
Forgetting about the implications for the administration, I've been struck for some time about the apparent need among a fairly large number of Americans to pretend that racism is ancient history with which we no longer need to be concerned (at least as it pertains to racial minorities.) The fact is that Shirley Sherrod lived during the great cataclysm of the civil rights movement and paid a huge personal price for standing up against the forces that killed her father. But that wasn't the end of it. She has spent the rest of her life trying to fight other insidious forms of racism like these discriminatory loan practices that continue to this day. I suspect that somebody forgot to send her the memo that the whole thing is over and that she just needs to move on. Indeed, it's been made crystal clear that the fight isn't over. (The fact that she was targeted for statements about racial reconciliation is even more galling.)
Far too many people are acting as if this woman wasn't a living witness to the horrors of Jim Crow and the fallout of 200 years of racist history and instead believe that she's nursing ancient grievances. Her life is treated as the forgotten detritus on the trash heap of history, as if it's all over, a museum exhibit.
Indeed, it's even worse than that --- her history wasn't just demeaned, she was victimized all over again, this time as a "reverse racist" fired on bogus charges of discriminating against the same white farmer she actually helped. Sure, she was hired back after a stink was raised, but what can you say about the reflex that would allow people to assume so easily that this person deserved to be fired without so much as a cursory investigation? Or the instantaneous furor over ACORN for that matter. (Here's a little thought experiment: just imagine how this would have gone down if the white farmer and his wife hadn't emerged to give testimony.)
People act as if the incredible life experience of people who have lived through this tumultuous history is less than nothing. Today, it's becoming an article of faith among far too many Americans that these same people, rather than spending their lives heroically trying to right the injustices done to their people for centuries, are actually perpetrators of the crimes that were inflicted on them. Shirley Sherrod, the woman who lived through the violence of the civil rights movement, is accused of racism and many people automatically believe it ---- and think that black racism is a huge problem that needs to be solved because whites are an aggrieved minority suffering at their hands. (And just in case a white person is revealed to have used an impolite word, it's only because they were provoked into it by people who complain about racism.)
Here's a terrific example of how inverted the whole debate has become:
What do you say to people who call you a racist?
Breitbart: Yes. It may be a task that’s so Herculean, but I think it’s a worthy goal to try to open up America to individuals who just so happen to have a different skin color, that they have every right and every freedom to think what they want to think. That’s my battle, it’s my goal.
Can you understand how this has been difficult for her to get caught up in that?
Breitbart: As difficult as it probably was for her, it’s been difficult for me as well, especially to hear her hurl an accusation of racism at me, when my motivation is absolutely pure and is driven by a desire for this country to move beyond its horrid racist past.
Perhaps that's even true. His mind works in very convoluted ways. But his method of doing it is just a tiny bit questionable. After all, it consists so far of posting doctored videos of black ACORN workers apparently condoning child prostitution (replete with extra footage of a "pimp and ho") and then another edited video of a woman allegedly making a racist speech that was actually a speech about racial reconciliation. (I shouldn't forget the bogus time stamped video purporting to prove that nobody hurled racial epithets at civil rights heroes at the capitol.) He seems to be going to great deal of trouble to "prove" that blacks are criminals, liars and racists if he wants to attract them to his cause.
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