A heartfelt speech in March for an N.A.A.C.P. event in Douglas, Ga. has led to a whirlwind of drama for Shirley Sherrod, the head of the Department of Agriculture’s rural development office in Georgia. The speech was based on her experience as a child losing her father to KKK and dealing with her feelings of anger that led to a reawakening from helping out a white farmer for her job. But the comments she made were completely taken out of context and went viral on several conservative sites, making her seem like a racist.
Soon after the chopped up video was viewed, Sherrod was asked to resign from the USDA and the N.A.A.C.P. denounced her. Even President Obama supported the USDA’s decision to let her go, according to Agriculture Secretary, Tom Vilsack.
After all that, the complete video was posted and the white farmer she helped, who is now in his 80s, vilified her innocence and everyone feels bad for wrongly accusing her.
According to The New York Times:
Ms. Sherrod said she was pressed to resign after the video whipped around the Web. But she said the clip was misleading. According to Ms. Sherrod and people who have seen the full video, she went on to say in her speech that she had learned from working with the farmer that all people must overcome their prejudices.
After seeing the full video, the N.A.A.C.P. said Tuesday that it had been “snookered” into believing Ms. Sherrod had acted with bias.
“We are in a moment where there is heightened sensitivity and concern, including within the N.A.A.C.P., about discrimination against white people,” said Benjamin T. Jealous, the group’s president. He said the N.A.A.C.P. wanted “to be clear that there’s a single yardstick by which civil rights are judged.”
It’s insane that in this day and age, nobody thought to YouTube the complete video instead of jumping to conclusions. The hardest thing for people to do is apologize, but when you’re wrong, you’re wrong. Just admit it so we can all move on.
