At the end of a long painful week, Shirley Sherrod's been offered a new job with the USDA's Office of Civil Rights and Community Outreach. She's still considering, though, and who can blame her?
In an interview on Good Morning America Sherrod said Thursday that she wasn't ready to accept Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack’s job offer. She said she wanted to hear more from the Secretary and his boss. She wants to know that the President is "fully behind" her." “I would hope that he is…" she said. "I would love to talk to him.”
And that's where we're at. Yesterday in our studio, Harry Belafonte noted that we don't have a national conversation about race, we have a confrontation. People from different races still don't know one another. As he put it, in an interview with ColorLines: "The person from whom you're thinking of taking life, or land, have you heard their story, have you sung their song?"
While the race- like the red-baiting by the Right- is the most obvious crime in the Sherrod story, the question of who believes whom and why, comes next. It may even be a bigger problem -- after all, it's only because of misplaced trust -- that the baiting works.
Tom Vilsack, in his apology to Sherrod Wednesday, said he didn't think before calling for resignation. But that's not quite true. He did think. And he chose to believe the baiters first. That's the first problem. Why did they, not she, win his first gut-level confidence?
Melissa Harris-Lacewell pointed out on MSNBC Wednesday night, had Vilsack known Sherrod's history better -- he'd have known that her father was shot in the back by a white farmer when she was 17; that she had history with the civil rights movement. That her husband worked with the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee and he'd have known of her involvement with a lawsuit, recently settled, representing black farmers, long dispossessed as part of the post-Reconstruction backlash against emancipated blacks. If he'd understood those things, if they'd resonated -- he'd have known they made her a perfect target. If he'd known that -- and felt it -- there's a chance that even at the gut-level, he'd have heard an echo of past, similar fabrications -- not a fact.
Indeed, if the entire USDA heard and felt that history, they'd not have dragged their mostly-white feet so long in getting black farmers justice.
Eric Holder was right. We're still a nation of cowards on the issue of race. But here's another opportunity to grapple with it. We don't need a debate over whether we're post-racial -- clearly that's settled. As is the matter of whether the Fox News Channel is a journalistic project.
What we need now is what Sherrod's asking for from the president -- time to talk. We need true conversation, that starts with learning one another's histories. Not the whitewashed sort that Texas and Arizona textbooks want to teach, but our real histories - and why they matter. It's not just a question for the President. It's for all of us. Do we as a nation have Sherrod's back?
My indignation says I have Shirley Sherrod’s back. But what are the actions I can take, now and in the future, to really make a difference to black public servants such as Sherrod?
By beej on July 24th, 2010 at 7:07 pm
At Obama’s first news conference, he was asked: Now that you’ve been elected, is “The Great Race Debate” finally over? His answer: “How long did this last? Maybe 5 minutes. So no”.
How come there won’t be a full and honest debate about race? Because it’s an “goldmine for the corporate MSM” (an actual quote from a former CNN executive who’s name I’ve forgotten). And unless you cut into their profit margin, nothing will change.
Example: Don Imus on MSNBC. For years he got away with unchecked racism. Why? Because everybody (Imus, the network and all the “names” that appeared on his program) made money off it. The only reason he got fired was because of complaints and then boycotts. If not for those, he’d still be there.
When you think of people of color on the MSM, which ones come to mind (other than Jackson and Sharpton)? Why does MSNBC think that Eugene Robinson from the Washington Post speaks for all people of color? The answer? All of these people know that they can only go so far. Otherwise, they get labeled as “uppity” and lose their platform. And, like Jackson once told the late Arthur Ashe, sometimes you have to be arrogant to be heard. Lots of people say Jackson is an arrogant publicity-hungry leftover from the ’60s that nobody cares about. On the other hand, you can’t deny that he draws attention to legitimate problems. But even he knows his limits.
Why are most of CNN’s reporters of color only on the weekends? How come many African Americans said that Soledad O’Brian’s “Race In America” series was frankly embarassing?
When Obam ran, he had to put up with two years of endless racism from the MSM. And the unwritten rule was, do you want this job? If you do, then you have to shut up and take it. Because we can do and say any damn thing we please. Because it’s called “free speech”.
Now, unless any of the above changes, “The Great Race Debate” will never happen.
By Tom on July 25th, 2010 at 1:29 pm