Sherrod: "We Must Stop The White Man And His Uncle Toms ..."

First, a note of heartfelt appreciation for Joan Walsh of Salon. Her moving post on Charles Sherrod - in defense of his wife, Shirley - provided the inspiration required to dust off my Google skills. I simply had to fulfill her stated desire to share the actual words of Civil Rights icon Charles Sherrod with her readers, so touched was I by her profound tribute. And she's been swamped on TV, justifying Shirley Sherrod calling Fox and Andrew Breitbart racist. I can only hope she will be kind enough to direct her readers here, so we can all share his unique wisdom on race relations together, as one. That is, after all, the way it should be, is it not, Joan?

The civil rights heroism of Charles Sherrod

Andrew Breitbart sure picked the wrong people to symbolize black "racism."
If there's anyone more clueless about our civil rights history than Breitbart, as well as more abusive to it, I'm challenged to think of who it might be. He tests my commitment to nonviolent social change, but I'll share the work of Charles Sherrod to remember my values.
 
If I get a chance to talk to Charles Sherrod, I'll let him tell you what he thinks, in his own words, here.

Okay, Joan, though I do confess to being somewhat puzzled by the first quote I stumbled upon, especially as it came relatively recently - a full year after America had installed its first black administration in the White House.

Charles Sherrod: "We must stop the white man and his Uncle Toms from stealing our elections."

Gee, Joan, can you tell me what's so heroic about telling a room full of young black minds not even out in the world, yet - that if they ever embrace political, or socio-economic ideas that don't jibe with your hero's, the one elevated in a room before them, that they will be denounced as race-traitors? That is what Uncle Tom means, after all. What REALLY is heroic in that? It looks to me like what your hero does is build up their black identity to an extreme, then sends them a message that, if they don't vote, or act the way he wants them to, he and his community make them outcasts, stripping that very identity from them as traitors to their race. Is that the message heroic Civil Rights leaders are passing on to young blacks today? It sounds like it to me, Joan.

Maybe it's your hero's racism there that keeps young blacks on the Democrat plantation year after after, generation after generation - and not some non-existent racism you imagine on the other side. Why is your hero poisoning young minds, Joan? Or, is that just too much for you to grasp?

Shouldn't young minds be taught to think and explore the world for themselves, and not be infected with such poison perhaps before they even know who they are? Or, are you cool with your hero, there, Joan? How are you going to rationalize, not my reaction to your hero, but the not so subtle message he is delivering to those young black people looking up to him in a room?

But then, and I must admit to this being extremely troubling for me, Joan - I learned from your hero, Charles Sherrod, that because you are a white liberal, I shouldn't actually be reading you. See, I thought that when white liberals like you in the mainstream media provided significant coverage to black candidates at election time, it was because you wanted to be fair, perhaps even wanting to help them out. I would have never guessed that you were actually engaged in a nation-wide conspiracy to invoke fear and hatred into your white readers so that, come election day, they'd be all riled up at the black candidate, turning out to beat him. 

But that is precisely what your hero tells me you are up to, Joan. Here I thought you were only trying to be fair. But then, I guess, you are white. 

Charles Sherrod: "The tears that we've shed, so many times.... When the TV and the newspaper comes out the day of an election, or the day before an election. And tell white folk, all over, wherever we are running somebody for an office ... that blacks are going to TAKE that office over. And thousands are coming to the polls. And you gotta get it."

Geez, Joan. I'm really kind of disappointed in you and your hero after all this. I'll just let him tell you himself. I'm going to move on down below and write on some interesting things I discovered about the Sherrods and their New Communities project. I mean, racism is one thing, ... but separatist black-Marxist liberation politics? Is that what this is? Wow, you sure does have some interesting heroes for a white gal, Joan. I'll give you that.

Here are some words for your blog from Charles Sherrod, Joan: 

Given the length of this, already - I'm going to cut to the chase - mostly just giving you the facts. In the video below, Sherrod claims they couldn't get funding because they were a corporation. He says nothing about racism being involved - though he does again display some of his own. But that is the grounds they sued upon - racism. And his son offers two views of what New Communities actually is, or was - family farm, non-profit corp., black-Marxist commune? Take your pick.

Kenyatta Sherrod remembers when his family’s farm was in foreclosure in the early 1980s. It was huge -- 6,000 acres -- and several people lived on it, raising vegetables and livestock that they would share with each other. Though several people had a stake in it, the property was in the Sherrods' names. “They lost the farm,” Kenyatta Sherrod said. “Life was different after that. We didn’t have a lot after that.”

The Sherrods also have a daughter, one with a rather interesting name. Pretty cool naming your kid after the Berlin Wall coming down, right? Well, not quite, unfortunately.

Son Kenyatta and daughter Russia defended their mother from charges of racism which led to her resignation from the U.S. Department of Agriculture position as director of its Rural Development program in Georgia on Tuesday.

Further research indicates she graduated high school in 1985. If she were 18 at the time, that would mean she was born in 1967. That's an interesting time for an American to name their child Russia - and it also happens to be the year Russia celebrated the 50th anniversary of the revolution. Hmm. But her actual birth year is unconfirmed, for now. 

Russia Sherrod 1981-1985

But, is anyone else starting to get a Jeremiah Wright-like vibe here folks? I am. And if so, why would Obama appoint a racist black-Marxist to the USDA, fire her in kneejerk fashion, then grovel on the phone to her, offering her a promotion. By the way, she may just go fishing, instead.

The two joked afterward, Shirley said now that's she's unemployed she might have a little bit of time to do a little fishing a favorite hobby.

Mark Knoller mentioned a potential wrongful termination lawsuit in passing. And now the media and the administration seem intent on making her disappear. One theory on that I've heard is, they don't want people asking questions about her lawsuit. What I'm wondering is, maybe they don't want people asking questions about Obama.

He worshiped with Jeremiah Wright for years. He potentially appointed a racist black liberationist Marxist to the USDA. Just how many of them does he have around him, as he sits in the WH waging war on capitalism? And, finally, what might all those college documents of his they won't let us see tell us about him ... especially given this? 

Ultimately, given all this now beginning to come out as a result of Andrew Breitbart's original work makes him a hero in my book. These are the tough questions the press doesn't even want to ask. It brings to the front important issues on race and racism, black, or otherwise, the press and the WH don't wish to confront. But that's what's suppose to happen in a genuinely free, open and democratic society.

As things stand, an extremely controversial woman is sitting there with a free ticket for a promotion at the USDA from an incompetent in the WH who created this mess by appointing her, then firing her too quickly for some reason. This isn't Breitbart's mess. This is now Obama's mess to clean up, or justify, as far as I'm concerned. Heckuva job, Barry. Heckuva job. At least we're starting to get used to it. I believe the word is: incompetent.

Obama really does seem to have some of the strangest friends, just like Joan Walsh, of Sherrod's white media conspiracy against blacks. Who'd a thunk it?

The Examiner piece referenced at end of video is here.

Comments

[Chuck]

9:00 AM Blockbuster of a post. No wonder Ms. Sherrod could not be found on any Sunday talk show. She seems to have vanished.

I'm betting President Obama wishes Gore had not invented the internet.

[Mad Monica]

FANTASTIC WORK!!!! Of course none of this will be reported anywhere, unless someone at FoxNews goes racist again. Seriously, Mr. Riehl, you've done a fantastic job that no one else would. I figured that this woman would turn out to be and have strong ties to some of the more nasty elements of liberal politics. Thanks to you, the deification of this woman has proven to be yet another clusterf*&^ by the Obama Zombies.

Great job and thank you.

[Dave C]

This blog is obviously RAAAAACIST (notice there are five 'A's in Racist).

/sarc off

[Chisum]

Very well done, Dan.

Can't wait to see how Little Green Mothballs spins this!

[Jeff]

Brietbart used a classic move that media bomb throwers have historically used against conservatives. Kind of a new media "Made you Look" moment. The more we learn about and hear from the Sherrods the more we understand why the White House wants this to go away quietly.

a 6,000 acre farm that can't generate enough revenue to cover the mortgage ??? what am I missing here ???

from:
http://www.ces.uga.edu/Agriculture/agecon/pubs/comm/pdf/CASH%20RENTS%20PAID%20FOR%20GEORGIA%20FARMLAND%20IN%202007.pdf

Dry land, no particular crop: 42.27 per acre (average)

lease out 2,000 acres for $84,540 annually ...

on a 6% mortgage 84K would service $1.4 million ... since they have been on that land for decades I would suspect their mortgage was alot less than that ...

Marxism in action, inherit a 6,000 acre farm and run it into the ground ...

[HANOI JOHN KERRY]

I really HATE the Internet! http://www.LIVESHOT.cc

[Lester]

Bob Johnson on CNBC now saying we should dramatically expand affirmative action. He is suggesting blacks get a special income tax break - among other things. This is truly amazing.

About Ms Sherrod, she is just plain stupid. If opposition to ObamaCare(tm) is because he is black, then why did we oppose HIllaryCare(tm) and RomneyCare(tm)? Racism makes you stupid. Or stupid people are racist. Both?

[RefudiateObama2012]

Excellent!

[Jeffersonian]

Wow. Just wow. If there's any attention paid to this at all at this point, this will be a bombshell. These people are truly insane.

[richard]

Fantastic work! Dig deep enough and you can always come up with some dirt, especially when it's out of context and you read deep, dark things into it. Why are we going after this woman, seeking to destroy her? We've all said things we regret. You can always find something bad. Why the campaign to villify a woman who has been through so much, and who acknowledge the dark feelings she has had and comes to terms with them, overcoming them and becoming a true role model? I can imagine the kind of language you might have used years back had your father been murdered by Muslims or blacks. Context, my dear boy, context.

This is so wingnutesque. It is so sickening.

[Mrs. Peperium]

"As things stand, an extremely controversial woman is sitting there with a free ticket for a promotion at the USDA from an incompetent in the WH who created this mess by appointing her, then firing her too quickly for some reason. This isn't Breitbart's mess. This is now Obama's mess to clean up, or justify, as far as I'm concerned. Heckuva job, Barry. Heckuva job. At least we're starting to get used to it. I believe the word is: incompetent."

Cue to Don Imus talking to historian Michael Beschloss,

MICHAEL BESCHLOSS: Yeah. Even aside from the fact of electing the first African American President and whatever one’s partisan views this is a guy whose IQ is off the charts — I mean you cannot say that he is anything but a very serious and capable leader and — you know — You and I have talked about this for years….

DON IMUS: Well. What is his IQ?

MICHAEL BESCHLOSS: Our system doesn’t allow those people to become President, those people meaning people that smart and that capable….

DON IMUS: What is his IQ?

MICHAEL BESCHLOSS: Pardon?

DON IMUS: What is his IQ?

MICHAEL BESCHLOSS: Uh…..I would say it’s probably – he’s probably the smartest guy ever to become President.

[Jeffersonian]

So now we go from denying the Sherrods' racism to justifying it. Well done, Richard.

[Reaganite Republican]

This came out real, real nice- I too respect Brietbart's work, as well as your support, great work here.

The race-exploiting Obammunist era is a golden opportunity for us to draw a line in the sand on this ceaseless double standard crap- I'll be damned if I'm going to be held to standards that somehow don't apply to the race-pimping industry

And does Dear Leader even know ANY normal people?

[NJConservative]

"Kenyatta" is another charming name. Jomo was quite the racial and ethnic divider in his own right!

[David Brooks]

MICHAEL BESCHLOSS: Uh…..I would say it’s probably – he’s probably the smartest guy ever to become President.

Oh, and the crease in his trousers! I just can help it, I simply HAVE to touch myself...

[Crabtree]

Smartass. And God bless you for it!

[kansas]

No wonder Shirley was AWOL from all the Sunday talk shows.

[Pasadena Phil]

Gosh, I can't imagine that this would be why the WH canned Sherrod without knowing "the facts". Maybe they were acting on a different set of facts other than the NCAA speech?

[Teresa in Fort Worth, TX]

The most ironic thing is, I don't think that Andrew Breitbart was targeting Shirley Sherrod - he was letting the NAACP know that they'd better cool it with their baseless accusations of RAAAAACISM against Tea Partiers. Who knew that BamBam could move that fast? And now he's got another embarassment on his plate - one that isn't going to go away, since she now holds all of the cards.

Interesting what comes scurrying out when you shine a light.....

[itsMike2Cents]

With the way you guys think, you might not wanna be so against minority rights - cuz (thankfully) you certainly are one
Be grateful nobody is trying to suppress the dipsh*t vote.
And as for context, I'll give you guys credit that you actually help in that respect.
Gonna be fun watchin' you all circle jerkin' this b.s. and the next CPAC...

[ronnor]

The Sherrod's just recieved $150,000 apiece in a law suit and another $13,000,000 in that same judgement has disappeared. The Sherrod's were also a part of the $1.15 billion settlement that Obama and Holder had set up early last year, thats the one where there were 3000 litigants to begin with and 80,000 at the end of it. $13,000,000 and $1.15 billion are such small sums in the Obama scheme of things, he thinks in the $$Trillions but since its tax payer money could someone find out just what this is about. Maybe Joan Walsh could write something on this, maybe an Uncle Tom or White Devil ran off with it and gave it to that red necked farmer Ms. Sherrod was speaking of at the NAACP meeting where every one was laughing.

[clifford]

So, Unlike Sarah Palin, Shirley Sherrod really CAN see Russia from her Living Room!

[King Simar Shabazz (D-black panther)]

Hey dare baby cracker 2penny,, glad to see you hold'n up my end up in here!! You tell 'em good 2penny cracker, you tell 'em good cracker boy!

[Jeff]

Richard ...

you think this woman is a role model ? really ??? after what she has said in the last couple of days ? you obviously haven't heard what she has been saying ...

Al Sharpton in a dress ...

[King Simar Shabazz (D-black panther)]

Oh and one mo thang 2penny,, even thouse yous my favorite cracker, jus remember dis,, I don't like not one iota 'bout no cracker, not one!!!

[John Bibb]

***
Good job putting out the words of the true racists in this story. The Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King's words on what our country's racial goals should be stand out in stark contrast to the words of these Black Racists. Complete racial and ethnic equality with identical fair treatment for all is the only rational goal.
***
John Bibb
***

[Bill H]

You had better try to get copies of those videos. Dan. You KNOW they're coming down shortly.

[kansas]

I'm sorry but for the Sherrod's all video must be played in its entirety.

[horrified]

Vote black. Not vote for the best person. Vote black and you'll get something back. Our nation is becoming a competition between gene pools manipulated by the hate-filled.

[drjohn]

Some people just don't know when to shut up.

This is amazing. No one makes more clear than Sherrod that there is no "American" interest- there are only "black" interests and "white and Uncle Tom" interests.

Obama sure helped bring us together by appointing people like this.

[Sissy Willis]

The Sherrods can see Russia from their house. Great work, Dan.

[gus]

Dan, this is why Obama wanted Sherrod gone immediately. He knows what else is out there. I certainly hope you have contacted Walsh at Salon to fill her in on this matter.

[bandit]

It's incredible how dumb lefties are - the more these dyed in the wool racists blab - the worse it gets.

[itsMike2Cents]

John Bibb -
You are truly fooling yourself if you think most of the folks here hatin' on Shirley Sherrod have great respect or admiration for MLK and the Civil Rights Movement.
Do keep tunin' in.
The black racists myth is just a part of all this...a small part.

[Jmj]

None of this changes my opinion that Breitbart played this badly. THEY trumped HIM with the valid accusation that he put out a misleading tape by omitting her lead into the story. Now the IMPORTANT parts can be dismissed by all mainstream because no one will quote Breitbart or ANYone who does.

BAD move, IMNHO

[Aye Chihuahua]

Dayum!

That's gonna leave a mark.

[Paula]

I went to YouTube and watched the entire video from which this clip was pulled. First of all, I learned from Mr. Sherrod that until white Americans came into it, slavery was just fine. It was good for all involved until US WHITE FOLKS in the US of A got involved and then, WHOA, we made it a bad thing.

Having been born after the Civil Rights Era, I guess I don't understand something. Didn't Dr. King want us to all live as one people, judged only by the content of our character? Mr. Sherrod (and many, many others) never seem to want to be one with "us" because we are evil. The leaders from this era don't want to live Dr. King's dream. They want us to pay for the evils of the past and want to keep us separated by race - otherwise, who could they blame for the failures of their society? Are people blind to the problems this thinking has caused? By continuing to act like we have segregationist policies in place and that white people (mainly Republicans) want to oppress all black people, blacks have actually held themselves back from succeeding.

One only needs to look to other minority groups (Asians, Indians, etc.) to see groups that embraced the freedoms that America has and the opportunities available to them. The Chinese were treated poorly when they came, Roosevelt sent Americans of Japanese descent to detention camps - do you see those groups complaining that they need to stop the white man from stealing their elections? NO! They are participating in society, adding to the fabric of the nation. They embrace the entrepreneurial spirit upon which this nation was founded.

The Dems have cultivated the welfare state in the black community and this is what they want to harvest. Blacks voting only for blacks who want them to stay on the plantation, not those evil Uncle Toms who actually think for themselves.

I am sad for my country. Instead of going forward, I think people like Mr. Sherrod, Al Sharpton, etc., are dragging us back into racial discord.

[Rick]

I suspect Rastaz is a satellite of M2cents, a Think Progress phony. The "old Klan" was an action arm of the Democratic party, much as some folks would like to forget.

And Mike...are you from the UK, or from Canada, NZ or Australia?

Cordially....

[Ralph Gizzip]

"Just a bunch of RACIST BLAK SCUM!!!!
Where is the OLD KLAN when you NEED THEM!!!!!!
Posted by: Rastaz | Monday, July 26, 2010 at 12:10 PM"

Sorry, Rastaz, but Robert "Sheets" Byrd (D-KKK) just passed away. You'll need to go elsewhere to find old Klansmen. Try Daily Kos or FireDog Lake. They were pretty fond of Sen Byrd.

[dwbh]

Guilt by association. Yawn. That worked so well in 2008, didn't it.

[itsMike2Cents]

Sorry, Rick...wrong on Rastaz.
Do you think maybe 'King Simar Shabazz' is a sattelite of Dan's?
Or maybe it's more of Mark William's 'satire'....

I'm from US (and keep my papers handy in AZ to prove it!).
I know from a previous post that you suspected my spelling of 'humourless' was some sort of indication of foreignness. That's actually perfectly swappable with humorless here - sort of like 'grey' and 'gray'.
Not in league with 'cheque' for example.

Cheerio, mate!

[Rick]

You mean like VP Cheney and "Big Oil?" George W. Bush's grandfather and the Third Reich? Still tops the charts after all these years.

Cordially...

[MMonides]

The racial obsessions of the rightwing nutjobs never cease. Do y'all really think that your never-ending war with brown people is going to turn out for you well, electorially or demographically?

[tx pro-life patriot]

Mr. Sherrod's description of the 5 years drought, then the 3 years fighting the USDA to 'save' them reminded me of "Democrats on an Escalator."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QFwso2gTTM

So many similarities!

Maybe he needs to read Star Parker's column today... Here's an excerpt:

"In January of this year, well into our recession, and well into the emergence of the Tea Party movement, the Pew Research Center surveyed black attitudes.

In answer to the question, "When blacks don't make progress, who or what is to blame?", 52% of blacks responded that "blacks" themselves are "mostly responsible", and 34% said "racism." This is the reverse of how blacks responded to this question just 15 years ago, when 56% said that racism was the impediment to black progress.

In the same survey, blacks responded almost identically as whites to the question of whether success in life is "determined by forces beyond one's control" or whether "everyone has the power to succeed."

Seventy seven percent of blacks and 82% of whites said that "everyone has the power to succeed" and 16% of blacks and 12% whites said success is "determined by forces beyond one's control."

And when blacks were asked in this same survey about the main problems facing black families, the response was overwhelmingly exactly the same as the general result of the Gallup poll of last week. Jobs.

So, Americans of all colors today generally feel responsible for their own lives and the main concern of most is the sick state of our economy.

So let's have that discussion."

Read more: http://www.gopusa.com/commentary/2010/07/parker-why-are-we-discussing-racism.php#ixzz0uo9ZU26r

[cooldude9366]

Perhaps reading this article will give you some idea of Joan Walsh's mindset.

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2000/02/17/guilty

[Bunni]

Great detective work, Dan.
Keep exposing these racists.

[RWC]

2cents

you truly are a dumbass. MLK would be rolling in his grave to hear this black/white BS. I'm sick of the racists holding up MLK as a shield to spout their BS. "Content of their character" seems to mean nothing nowadays.

[Ron Olliff]

As someone whose family had a farm in Georgia for generations, I can tell you that 6000 acres is not a family farm, its a corporate farm. Most family farms run 100-300 acres. Anything larger is too big for a family to run. To give some perspective, 6000 acres is over 9 square miles

[CT]

Nice google work. I have a few lingering questions: 1) Obama offered Sherrod a fancy new position at the USDA (when she was still being characterized as today's Nelson Mandela or Rosa Parks). Is it standard procedure for the USDA to invent special positions just for people they have erroneously fired? What are the Civil Service rules for that sort of thing? Will this position be filled if she declines it?

2) Why did Shirley Sherrod get her original position at the USDA only days after winning a big judgment against the USDA? Is it standard procedure for the USDA mto appoint people who have won a lot of money from them?

3) She said she e-mailed her superiors to warn them that the video of her speech was going to come out, but that they did not respond to her. HOW DID SHE KNOW the video was going to come out?

[Gary]

The whole speech really didn't make her look that much better; worse in fact. Didn't even A.B.'s clips show her saying "I realized it wasn't about white and black, it IS about white .... but it's not, it's about rich vs. poor. (paraphrasing).

But in the full tape she's exposed as really just a redistributionist. She's running a large arm of an unofficial reparations program. Isn't that perhaps the reason they wanted her gone? She was being too vocal about THAT? Especially with poll numbers dropping?

I don't think they were "snookered". I think some hack in the WH told them: Here's how we can spin this. We can cut down Breitbart and Fox and R/W bloggers in general with this spin. And my buddies in the media will run with it, guaranteed.

Trouble is, even this new info on her husband will be viewed through their falsely created prism as un unfair racist attack. It's too bad Breitbart didn't have this from the beginning; but he does now.

It's no wonder they wanted Foxnews marginalized from the beginning in people's minds. It's no wonder they threatened other outlets for repeating anything they broke. Because they're about the only place outside of blogs that Dan's video will get any play. As someone once brilliantly said: Their problem is NOT that Foxnews is not a real news channel, it's that it IS.