Filed under: News, Politics, President Obama, Race and Civil Rights
Now that she has made amends with the NAACP, the next stop on the Shirley-Sherrod-'I-Deserve-an-Apology" tour is in Washington, D.C. That's where Sherrod, who was wrongly fired from her job at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), will meet next week with her former bosses about coming back to work for the agency in an increased capacity.
Sherrod was forced to resign after conservative blogger Andrew Breitbart released a heavily edited tape of a speech she gave to the NAACP that made it falsely appear as if she had discriminated against a farmer because he was white. Sherrod was universally condemned and quickly fired before anyone bothered to check the facts. She actually had helped the white farmer and her speech was about being against racism.
Instead, Sherrod became a poster child for the conservative push to highlight psuedo-reverse racism against Caucasians from blacks in this country. When the truth came out, even President Barack Obama called to apologize.
Sherrod has been incredibly gracious, accepting apologies and sitting down to have conversations with the people who wronged her, despite the fact that she could have sued her old employer and dozens of media outlets. She met with NAACP president Ben Jealous for several hours and will appear with him at a rural development conference.
The only person who will see Sherrod's wrath is Breitbart, whom she rightly plans to sue.
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack offered to make Sherrod the deputy director of the office of advocacy and outreach at the USDA, which would probably mean a big increase in pay and responsibility from her previous position as Georgia state director of rural development.
Advocacy and outreach is definitely what's needed at the USDA right now, especially as the agency deals with the fall out from the huge discrimination lawsuit it settled with black farmers.
The farmers say they were not given access to the same loans and equipment subsidies as their white counterparts. The blatant racism likely put tens of thousands of black farmers out of business. Now Native American and Latino farmers are organizing, because they say they've experienced similar discrimination.
John Boyd, president of the National Black Farmers Association, told Aol. Black Voices that one of his biggest concerns, besides the delay in the settlement payout, was that no one was punished for the racist behavior outlined in the lawsuit and that the problems that plagued black farmers from the USDA still exist.
"We need more outreach to black farmers on technical assistance and to resolve the backlog of administrative complaints. If she takes the position in the USDA, I am hopeful she will make a difference," Boyd told Aol. Black Voices from North Carolina, where he participated on Friday in a roundtable event on the black farmers issue with Senator Kay Hagan.
Sherrod, with her patience, wisdom and years of experience, seems like the perfect person to reach out on behalf of an organization that needs to work on its community relations efforts.
I hope she accepts the USDA's offer, but only under the condition that her office be given real power to help change the policies of the organization. Otherwise, going back to the USDA would be a waste of Sherrod's talents and time.
Even she shouldn't be that forgiving.