Shirley Sherrod has shown extraordinary grace under pressure. She has reconciled with the NAACP, even after president Ben Jealous wrongly and prematurely condemned her as racist.
Jealous traveled to Sherrod's Georgia home to apologize in person two weeks ago, spending four hours with Sherrod, including driving to local farm cooperatives in the area. The pair will appear at a rural development conference in Alabama on Saturday.
"That's behind us, and the last thing I want to see happen is my situation weaken support for the NAACP," Sherrod said in a letter to the NAACP. "Too many people confronted by racism and poverty count on the NAACP to be there for them, especially those in rural areas who often have nowhere else to turn."
Jealous said that while he was "hoodwinked" by the edited clip, he now intended to use the incident as a teachable moment.
"What Andrew Breitbart intended for evil, we will use for good," Jealous said.
Sherrod was wrongly fired by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, after they viewed a heavily edited tape of a speech she gave to the NAACP that made it appear as if she had discriminated against a farmer because he was white. This was part of a conservative push to stoke fears of racism in white Americans in the wake of the election of the first African-American president.
On the video, Sherrod actually spoke about how she had to overcome her feelings of prejudice and help the white farmer - it was a speech against racism.
After seeing the heavily edited tape from conservative blogger Andrew Breitbart, though, Sherrod was fired and quickly condemned by Jealous.
"Racism is about the abuse of power. Sherrod had it in her position at USDA. According to her remarks, she mistreated a white farmer in need of assistance because of his race," Jeaous said. "We are appalled by her actions, just as we are with abuses of power against farmers of color and female farmers."
The incident shows how right-wing conservatives are trying to use fears of reverse racism to their electoral advantage. Recent examples of the concerted effort to incite racial paranoia include the charges from a former Justice Department lawyer-turned-conservative-advocate that voting discrimination charges against the New Black Panther Party were not pursued because the civil rights of white Americans are not protected. The charges have been strongly discredited by the facts of the case.
After the truth was revealed, Sherrod was offered her job back and everyone from Bill O'Reilly to Jealous to President Obama lined up to apologize
Sherrod has said she will sue Breitbart. She also said in her letter that she will not let this incident ruin her.
"I didn't yield when, just months after my father was killed, they came in the middle of the night to burn a cross in front of our house with my mother, four sisters, and the baby brother my father never got to see inside," she writes. "And I'm surely not going to yield because some Tea Party agitator sat at his computer and turned everything I said upside down and inside out."
13-Aug-10 - Well-known conservative talk show host Dr. Laura Schlessinger said the N-word 11 times to a caller who reached out to her for help regarding her interracial marriage.
13-Aug-10 - Well-known conservative talk show host Dr. Laura Schlessinger said the N-word 11 times to a caller who reached out to her for help regarding her interracial marriage.
13-Aug-10 - Former Detroit Police Chief Warren Evans resigned. Evans, though, is striking back by revealing text messages between Lt. Monique Patterson and interim police chief Ralph Goodbee.
10-Aug-10 - The niece of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. Dr. Alveda King says that same-sex marriage will lead to "extinction" and "genocide."
09-Aug-10 - It appears that Glenn Beck enjoys the idea of comparing black people to monkeys. Beck's latest rant featured him comparing President Barack Obama's America to "the damn 'Planet of the Apes.'"
03-Aug-10 - South Africa's Dudu Tshabalala, a once-high flying executive, now says that she is being ostracized for speaking up against racial injustices at L'Oreal.
05-Aug-10 - Dr. Cornel West apparently has a bone to pick with President Barack Obama. Over time, the good Dr. West has become increasingly vocal in his critique of Obama, and even went as far as to say that Obama treated him "like a cub scout."
05-Aug-10 - Actress Maia Campbell, who was just recently videotaped performing a host of alleged drug-induced antics on a California street, has been arrested, according to Young, Black and Fabulous.
04-Aug-10 - Omar Thornton's family added some details to early reports that he was the victim of workplace racism that was ignored by higher-ups at the company.
