Shirley Sherrod and “liberal journalist” hoax, Fox News latest boogeyman

The right-wing propoganda machine is out to inspire white fear

I think the folks over at Faux News are getting desperate. I think it is because they are worried over how their tea party-backed team of right-wing candidates will actually do in the mid-term elections. Think Rand Paul, Sharron Angle, etc. They have been working tirelessly in recent weeks to fabricate stories stoking white racial resentment. First there was the New Black Panther story. Then, there was the crucifixion of Shirley Sherrod and the so-called “liberal media” protected Barack Obama during the presidential election B.S.

Sherrod was forced to resign from the U.S. Department of Agriculture after a doctored video surfaced by Andrew Breitbart and was widely distributed by Fox News. In the video, it appeared as Sherrod was saying she did not help white farmers as much as she could have because she was biased against white folks. The video was so damning and was so widely circulated that the NAACP released a statement within hours saying just how repugnant her actions were and were demanding her resignation. But by the end of the news day, it was revealed the entire video was a hoax. It was complete B.S.

Here’s what she said:

“What he didn’t know while he was taking all that time trying to show me he was superior to me was, I was trying to decide just how much help I was going to give him,” she said. “I was struggling with the fact that so many black people had lost their farmland, and here I was faced with having to help a white person save their land. So I didn’t give him the full force of what I could do. I did enough.”

And here’s the rest of what she said, the part edited out by Big Government and the folks over the Faux News. Keep in mind Breitbart is the same guy who edited the ACORN “pimp and ho” video, the one that effectively destroyed that nonprofit.

“The story helped me realize that race is not the issue, it’s about the people who have and the people who don’t. When I speak to groups, I try to speak about getting beyond the issue of race,” Sherrod continued.

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Moreover, there have been a host of white farmers who have come out in support of Sherrod, saying she saved their farms. But guess what, they got their scalp anyway. And it really doesn’t seem to matter that the truth of what this woman said and did on behalf of all farmers is the complete opposite of what Fox News and Big Government is pretending. it is that the NAACP and the Obama Administration took the word of the conservative bloggers and Faux News without even asking Sherrod what really happened. But it is also an indictment of the media. This was a blatant attempt to misinform. This was a complete and utter lie. Fortunately, however, we figured it out pretty quickly. Just think how long it took folks to realize how untrue the whole ACORN crap was?

After learning all the facts, the NAACP has retracted their initial admonishment of Sherrod.

With regard to the initial media coverage of the resignation of USDA official Shirley Sherrod, we have come to the conclusion we were snookered by Fox News and Tea Party Activist Andrew Breitbart into believing she had harmed white farmers because of racial bias.

Having reviewed the full tape, spoken to Ms. Sherrod, and most importantly heard the testimony of the white farmers mentioned in this story, we now believe the organization that edited the documents did so with the intention of deceiving millions of Americans.

The fact is Ms. Sherrod did help the white farmers mentioned in her speech.  They personally credit her with helping to save their family farm.

Moreover, this incident and the lesson it prompted occurred more that 20 years before she went to work for USDA.

Finally, she was sharing this account as part of a story of transformation and redemption. In the full video, Ms.Sherrod says she realized that the dislocation of farmers is about “haves and have nots.”  “It’s not just about black people, it’s about poor people,” says Sherrod in the speech. “We have to get to the point where race exists but it doesn’t matter.”

… Next time we are confronted by a racial controversy broken by Fox News or their allies in the Tea Party like Mr. Breitbart, we will consider the source and be more deliberate in responding.  The tape of Ms. Sherrod’s speech at an NAACP banquet was deliberately edited to create a false impression of racial bias, and to create a controversy where none existed.  This just shows the lengths to which extremist elements will go to discredit legitimate opposition.

We hope Tom Vilsak and the White House will also have a change of heart as well.

Then, there was the “liberal media” hoax. In a story by the daily caller called the “Death of Journalism,” conservative advocates on the Internet make the claim, and they are aided by the massive distirubution arm of Fox News, that the media shielded Barack Obama from the scandal of Jeremiah Wright during the presidential campaign.

“Newly discovered documents prove that at several points during the 2008 presidential campaign a group of liberal journalists took radical steps shield Barack Obama and bury the “G-D America” Jeremiah Wright story,” the Daily Caller claims.

Watching this all at home were members of Journolist, a listserv comprised of several hundred liberal journalists, as well as like-minded professors and activists. The tough questioning from the ABC anchors left many of them outraged. “George [Stephanopoulos],” fumed Richard Kim of the Nation, is “being a disgusting little rat snake.”

Michael Tomasky, a writer for the Guardian, also tried to rally his fellow members of Journolist: “Listen folks–in my opinion, we all have to do what we can to kill ABC and this idiocy in whatever venues we have. This isn’t about defending Obama. This is about how the [mainstream media] kills any chance of discourse that actually serves the people.”

Journolist is a listserv. It is not a news source. The mainstream media was all over the Jeremiah Wright story. If any of them had any qualms with pelting Obama with his former preacher, they sure as hell didn’t show it. What they did seem to have issues with was exploring real issues of race and racism that revealed itself during the campaign. They didn’t hit John McCain for his association with a known racist. They didn’t even bother questioning Sarah Palin over the fact that she apparently, according to her own father, decided no to go school in Hawaii because she was uncomfortable being around so many minorities. The mainstream media didn’t touch any of that. But they examined every element of Obama’s race, from his white mother to his Kenyan father, to his birthplace to the controvercy surrounding his alleged birthplace, to his religion, etc.

It’s just absolute crap. And America keeps falling for it. Why? Would White America somehow feel vindicated if they could feel oppressed by racism? Would that make them sleep better at night? Would that allow them to unleash the vitriole that seems to be apparently boiling right below the surface?

I am disappointed in the White House for forcing this woman to resign. I am saddened as an American that a woman with a heart as big as her Sherrod’s would be sacrificed for political reasons. I am ashamed as a (former mainstream media) journalist that no one really has the balls in both these cases to “call a spade a spade” for the lack of a better term. Folks thought when Obama was elected we could put all our race crap behind us, but it appears his election and his presidency has somehow made things worse. How can that be?

See the story. See the full, unedited video of Sherrod’s speech.

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Devona Walker