The Shirley Sherrod Situation

[Voronwë the Faithful]

hal, please cite exact quotes of what Shirley Sherrod has said that you believe is racist, not your interpretation of what she said.

[halplm]

It's not "editing" when you excerpt something while providing a link to the complete document, Hal. You or anyone else is free to go to the complete document and find excerpts proving your own points, if they are there.

You are also free (as I've mentioned many, many times to you) to provide links to the things you allege. "What she has said since then is far more enlightening." Which things, where? This story is being heavily covered and you should be able to find links to the statements you're thinking of in a moment's work on Google.

Unless there aren't any, of course—which, in the absence of links, it's reasonable to assume.

No, it's not. I simply assume people who are commenting on the subject have been following it. Sherrod's interview on CNN has been widely seen.

[halplm]

hal, please cite exact quotes of what Shirley Sherrod has said that you believe is racist, not your interpretation of what she said.

What is the purpose of that? Then everyone who wants to disagree will just say my interpretation is wrong... I choose not to waste my time searching for quotes that would be out of context anyway.

There's no point to me making this argument here anymore anyway. You all can believe she's a saint all you want, and Breitbart's the devil. what do I care...

[Primula Baggins]

By those who watch CNN, I guess.

Can you link to the exact statements you say are racist? There are transcripts of all such interviews.

[Primula Baggins]

hal, please cite exact quotes of what Shirley Sherrod has said that you believe is racist, not your interpretation of what she said.

What is the purpose of that? Then everyone who wants to disagree will just say my interpretation is wrong... I choose not to waste my time searching for quotes that would be out of context anyway.

There's no point to me making this argument here anymore anyway. You all can believe she's a saint all you want, and Breitbart's the devil. what do I care...

Or, you can provide evidence for your assertions and we'll have to read it. If there are links, we can't deny it.

Stomping away only gives us more reason to believe that there never was any evidence. It's easier, of course, especially if you're not sure you're right, but it doesn't do much for your argument.

[N.E. Brigand]

When you write a speech (I'm assuming she wrote it herself), you build a narrative that supports your positions. It is carefully crafted to only sound good.

Hal, it was excerpts from this speech, this speech that you claim "is carefully crafted to only sound good", that Breitbart posted with the headline, "Video Proof: The NAACP Awards Racism".

[halplm]

hal, please cite exact quotes of what Shirley Sherrod has said that you believe is racist, not your interpretation of what she said.

What is the purpose of that? Then everyone who wants to disagree will just say my interpretation is wrong... I choose not to waste my time searching for quotes that would be out of context anyway.

There's no point to me making this argument here anymore anyway. You all can believe she's a saint all you want, and Breitbart's the devil. what do I care...

Or, you can provide evidence for your assertions and we'll have to read it. If there are links, we can't deny it.

Stomping away only gives us more reason to believe that there never was any evidence. It's easier, of course, especially if you're not sure you're right, but it doesn't do much for your argument.

It's easier because I don't have to talk to people who see the world entirely different than me any more. I won't win the argument here, and you most certainly could deny it. I don't care if Sherrod is racist... I don't care who the left elevates to sainthood for absurd reasons anyway.

Besides, we've been round and round the "what is racism" bend before, and we always end up defining it differently... mostly because it's accepted as some sort of truth that minorities can't be racist...

[yovargas]

hal, please cite exact quotes of what Shirley Sherrod has said that you believe is racist, not your interpretation of what she said.

What is the purpose of that?

Did you just ask us what the point of supporting your own arguments is?

[River]

Full transcript and video of the speech

She was talking about her life, how she ended up where she was...namely working in agriculture in the first place. As a girl, she really wanted to do something, anything else, but then...

My father was a farmer. And growing up on the farm, my dream was to get as far away from the farm and Baker County as I could get. And picking cotton, picking cucumbers, shaking peanuts for a little while before they, you know... -- the older folk know what I'm talking about -- when you had to shake them and take them up to the pole [ph] and...put them around that, you know -- doing all that work on the farm, it will make you get an education more than anything else.

But I didn't want to just get an education. I wanted to leave the farm and Baker County. It was -- life was -- the older folk know what I'm talking about -- the segregation and the discrimination and the -- and the racist acts that we had to endure during those years made me just want to leave. And you know, we used to have people who'd leave and go north -- you all know how they come back talking and they come back looking. I learned later that some of those cars they drove home were rented.

But it made you want to go north, 'cause you thought they were free up there and you thought everybody was free in the North. So, my goal was not to even go to college in the South 'cause I, you know, I was always you find your husband at college. So, I didn't want to find one living in the South. I wanted to go to college in the North so I could get a husband from the North, never ever come back down here and live again.

But, you know, you can never say what you'll never do. And it was during March, my senior year in high school. I mean my father was just everything to us. I had four sisters -- I'm the oldest. My mother -- there are six of us, but my father wanted a son so bad. We were all girls. We all had boys' nickname[s]. I was "Bill." Now, he loved his girls but he wanted a son so bad. And when my sister was about -- my youngest sister was eight, he convinced my mother to try one more time for this boy.

So, to my surprise -- my senior year of high school -- I thought my mother was just sick. I didn't know what was wrong with her, you know, really worried. And one day my best friend at school said, "How's your mama doing?" I said, "She just doesn't seem to be getting any better." She said, "Girl, your daddy was up at the store yesterday giving out cigars. Your mama [is] going to have a baby." He told everyone that that baby was the son. And he was, in fact, having a new home built. He was the first person to get a loan on his own to build a house. He wanted to build a brick house so bad, but they told him a black man could not borrow money to build a brick house. They had to choose blocks, you know.

So -- and this new house that was being built -- there were five daughters -- there was this one room that was the boys' room -- his son's room. He told everybody it was a boy. And, in fact, it was painted blue. And he came -- he and my mother came to pick me up from school one day early to go to Albany with him to pick the furniture for this boys' room. He didn't live to see him. My brother was born two months after he died, in June of '65.

We started the Movement. But before I get there I need to tell you something I -- and I want to say this to the young people. You know, I told how I looked forward and I dreamt so much about moving north and from the farm, especially in the South, and I knew that after -- on the night of my father's death I felt I had to do something. I had to do something in answer to what had happened.

My father wasn't the first black person to be killed. He was a leader in the community. He wasn't the first to be killed by white men in the county. But I couldn't just let his death go without doing something in answer to what happened. I made the commitment on the night of my father's death, at the age of 17, that I would not leave the South, that I would stay in the South and devote my life to working for change. And I've been true to that commitment all of these 45 years.

You know, when you look at some of the things that I've done through the years and when you look at some of things that happened -- I went to school -- my -- my first two years at Fort Valley -- I know there are some Fort Valley graduates here too -- I did my first two years at Fort Valley but so much was happening back at home -- and then I met this man, I'll tell you a little about him -- that I transferred back to Albany State and did the last two years.

But two weeks after I went to school at Fort Valley, they called and told me that a bunch of white men had gathered outside of our home and burned the cross one night. Now, in the house was my mother, my four sisters, and my brother, who was born June 6 -- and this was September. That was all in that house that night. Well, my mother and one of my sisters went out on the porch. My mama had a gun. Another sister -- you know some of this stuff, it's like movies, some of the stuff that happened through the years -- I won't go into everything. I'll just tell you about this. One of my sisters got on the phone 'cause we had organized the movements starting June of '65, shortly -- not long after my father's death.

That's how I met my husband. He wasn't from the North....He's from up south in Virginia. But anyway my brother and my sisters got on the phone -- they called other black men in the county. And it wasn't long before they had surrounded these white men. And they had to keep one young man from actually using his gun on one of them. You probably would have read about it had that happened that night. But they actually allowed those men to leave. They -- They backed away and allowed them to get out of there.

But I won't go into some of the other stuff that happened that night, but do know that my mother and my sister were out on the porch with a gun, and my mother said, "I see you and I know who you are." She recognized some of them. She'll tell you that she became the first black elected official in Baker County just 11 years later, and she is still serving you all. She's chair of the board of education and she's been serving almost 34 years.

I didn't know how I would go about carrying out the commitment I made that night, but when the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, [name of individual unclear 14:35] -- he was the one who came to Albany and started the movement there in 1961. And he stayed. You know, a lot of them went into the communities and they worked during the early part of the movement and they left. But he continued to stay in Southwest Georgia, and we've done a lot of stuff through the years....Some of the things that have happened to us, you probably be on the edge of your seat if I were to tell you about some of them. We've been in some very, very dangerous situations through the years, but we continue to work.

And, you know God is so good 'cause people like me don't get appointed to positions like State Director of Rural Development. They just don't get these kinds of positions 'cause I've been out there at everywhere grassroots level and I've paid some dues.

But when I...made the commitment years ago I didn't know how -- I didn't...I prayed about it that night and as our house filled with people I was back in one of the bedrooms praying and asking God to show me what I could do. I didn't have -- the path wasn't laid out that night. I just made the decision that I would stay and work. And -- And over the years things just happened.

And young people: I just want you to know that when you're true to what God wants you to do the path just opens up -- and things just come to you, you know. God is good -- I can tell you that.

When I made that commitment, I was making that commitment to black people -- and to black people only. But, you know, God will show you things and He'll put things in your path so that -- that you realize that the struggle is really about poor people, you know.

The first time I was faced with having to help a white farmer save his farm, he -- he took a long time talking, but he was trying to show me he was superior to me. I know what he was doing. But he had come to me for help. 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.

I was struggling with the fact that so many black people have 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 so that when he -- I -- I assumed the Department of Agriculture had sent him to me, either that or the -- or the Georgia Department of Agriculture. And he needed to go back and report that I did try to help him.

So I took him to a white lawyer that we had -- that had...attended some of the training that we had provided, 'cause Chapter 12 bankruptcy had just been enacted for the family farmer. So I figured if I take him to one of them that his own kind would take care of him.

That's when it was revealed to me that, y'all, it's about poor versus those who have, and not so much about white -- it is about white and black, but it's not -- you know, it opened my eyes, 'cause I took him to one of his own and I put him in his hand, and felt okay, I've done my job. But, during that time we would have these injunctions against the Department of Agriculture and -- so, they couldn't foreclose on him. And I want you to know that the county supervisor had done something to him that I have not seen yet that they've done to any other farmer, black or white. And what they did to him caused him to not be able to file Chapter 12 bankruptcy.

So, everything was going along fine -- I'm thinking he's being taken care of by the white lawyer and then they lifted the injunction against USDA in May of '87 for two weeks and he was one of 13 farmers in Georgia who received a foreclosure notice. He called me. I said, "Well, go on and make an appointment at the lawyer. Let me know when it is and I'll meet you there."

So we met at the lawyer's office on -- on the day they had given him. And this lawyer sat there -- he had been paying this lawyer, y'all. That's what got me. He had been paying the lawyer since November, and this was May. And the lawyer sat there and looked at him and said, "Well, y'all are getting old. Why don't you just let the farm go?" I could not believe he said that, so I said to the lawyer -- I told him, "I can't believe you said that." I said, "It's obvious to me if he cannot file a Chapter 12 bankruptcy to -- to stop this foreclosure, you have to file an 11. And the lawyer said to me, "I'll do whatever you say....whatever you think" -- that's the way he put it. But he's paying him. He wasn't paying me any money, you know. So he said -- the lawyer said -- he would work on it.

And then, about seven days before that land would have been sold at the courthouse steps, the farmer called me and said the lawyer wasn't doing anything. And that's when I spent time there in my office calling everybody I could think of to try to see -- help me find the lawyer who would handle this. And finally, I remembered that I had gone to see one just 40 miles away in Americus with the black farmers. So, I --

[audio/video interrupted at source, duration unknown]

Well, working with him made me see that it's really about those who have versus those who don't, you know. And they could be black, and they could be white; they could be Hispanic. And it made me realize then that I needed to work to help poor people -- those who don't have access the way others have.

Bolding was mine.

My dad tried the big law firm thing once. His favorite part was working for Legal Aid. It was something all the associates (maybe partners too) were expected to do for the sake of warm fuzzies and so on. Dad loved it. Didn't exactly bring in billable hours, but he loved it. He told me once that he loved it because there are people out there who will prey on the weak and the poor and the uneducated. The people who don't have the resources or know-how to help themselves. The people who get smooshed by the unscrupulous. And he had it in his power, as a lawyer for Legal Aid, to correct some of that. Some problems are just universal.

I like where the speech ended up (that segment came somewhere near the middle) - basically a call to young people to do well in school, be smart with their money and their credit, and make something of themselves.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

hal, please cite exact quotes of what Shirley Sherrod has said that you believe is racist, not your interpretation of what she said.

What is the purpose of that?

So that you can support your argument with facts. Regardless of what anyone else's reaction would be to it, at least you would have the satisfaction of doing so. Otherwise, your words are just words.

[halplm]

hal, please cite exact quotes of what Shirley Sherrod has said that you believe is racist, not your interpretation of what she said.

What is the purpose of that?

So that you can support your argument with facts. Regardless of what anyone else's reaction would be to it, at least you would have the satisfaction of doing so. Otherwise, your words are just words.

My arguments are based on facts, and they are in the same speech being quoted, the same stories everyone has read or quoted... I don't have a magic source of Shirley sherrod quotes no one else has seen. But if I spend the time to put together a list of quotes showing how she is clearly a racist, people will just pick it apart, claim each thing is not racist (probably because it's taken out of context), and ignore the whole picture... as you would have to to not see it.

But then it just gets back to what is or isn't racist, which clearly I have a different point of view than pretty much everyone here... so I'm not going to waste my time... because I don't really care.

Sure, yov, that's exactly what I was saying.

[vison]

Riverthalos, thank you for posting that. I would say this is a remarkable woman.

I know well enough that I would probably not be as forgiving as she is, would not be able to overcome the bitterness and hate that would have been the natural outcome of what happened to her and her family. She is an example - and we need these examples - of the power of forgiving.

There is no "interpretation" needed, her words shine clearly, revealing her character. It is sad and disheartening that anyone, of any political stripe, would try to use this woman and her life's experiences as fuel for hatred.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

What is the purpose of that?

So that you can support your argument with facts. Regardless of what anyone else's reaction would be to it, at least you would have the satisfaction of doing so. Otherwise, your words are just words.

My arguments are based on facts, and they are in the same speech being quoted, the same stories everyone has read or quoted... I don't have a magic source of Shirley sherrod quotes no one else has seen. But if I spend the time to put together a list of quotes showing how she is clearly a racist, people will just pick it apart, claim each thing is not racist (probably because it's taken out of context), and ignore the whole picture... as you would have to to not see it.

But then it just gets back to what is or isn't racist, which clearly I have a different point of view than pretty much everyone here... so I'm not going to waste my time... because I don't really care.

Sure, yov, that's exactly what I was saying.

I for one would be interested in hearing what precise quotes makes you think this person is racist, precisely because I don't see it. Even if I don't agree with you, at least I would have a better idea of what it is that you are actually saying. As it stands right now, nothing that you are saying is making any sense to me.

[River]

vison, I don't think I'd be so forgiving either.

[Primula Baggins]

Hal, I hope you notice how hard people are trying to listen to you. We are not rejecting your arguments, we are asking you to present them, with the evidence supporting them. Handing you a forum and a microphone and sitting waiting to listen is not suppressing your point of view. You are suppressing yourself by refusing to come to the point. It would be understandable to conclude that this must mean you have no point to make, and/or no evidence to support it (in this case the simplest evidence in the world, copied and pasted quotations from a widely published speech).

[JewelSong]

mostly because it's accepted as some sort of truth that minorities can't be racist...

Racism is defined as the belief that one race is inherently superior to another.

By this definition, someone of a "minority" race or a racial group that is not currently in power, cannot be racist. They might be prejudiced (as in "to pre-judge") but we ALL are prejudiced in one way or another.

I thought Sherrod's speech was moving and heartfelt. I see no inklings of "racism" or deliberate prejudice in it. I see a woman coming to terms with her own pre-judging and learning from it and growing from it.

Hal, your vehement reaction to this is quite troubling.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Just a reminder to please focus on the issues raised, and not on the posters raising the issues.

[halplm]

mostly because it's accepted as some sort of truth that minorities can't be racist...

Racism is defined as the belief that one race is inherently superior to another.

I don't believe that is at all the definition of racism.

By this definition, someone of a "minority" race or a racial group that is not currently in power, cannot be racist.

I think this is logically incorrect, even accepting your definition. However, it is this disconnect that makes it impossible for me to discuss this with people that hold this view.

They might be prejudiced (as in "to pre-judge") but we ALL are prejudiced in one way or another.

I thought Sherrod's speech was moving and heartfelt. I see no inklings of "racism" or deliberate prejudice in it. I see a woman coming to terms with her own pre-judging and learning from it and growing from it.

Hal, your vehement reaction to this is quite troubling.

My reaction has less to do with Sherrod, and more to the general use of race in politics, which this whole affair is a symptom of.

Prim, I didn't mean to suggest I was being silenced, only incapable of communicating across the divide of differing definitions.

VtF... the simplest way I can explain it is when a person uses race (their own or others') to manipulate people and their opinions. This only divides people, it does not bring them together.

IMHO it does not good to say black and white people need to get along better, because that implies there is some way the two are at odds. The only way eliminate racism is to remove "black and white" from the equation.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Thank you, hal. That at least gives me a better idea of where you are coming from.

[yovargas]

So does that make anybody who points out that racism still exists (or perhaps any form of bigotry) a racist in your eyes?