Posted on 07/26/2010 10:17:09 PM PDT by This Just In
Sherrod Story False
By Jeffrey Lord
It isn't true.
Shirley Sherrod's story in her now famous speech about the lynching of a relative is not true. The veracity and credibility of the onetime Agriculture Department bureaucrat at the center of the explosive controversy between the NAACP and conservative media activist Andrew Breitbart is now directly under challenge. By nine Justices of the United States Supreme Court. All of them dead.
But first, it's important to say this.
After Shirley Sherrod's firing I wrote a column congratulating Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack for removing her -- based on a viewing of the now infamous edited Breitbart clip. I was wrong. I should have waited to see the entire video or read the transcript before writing a word. So my apologies to Ms. Sherrod.
The problem?
I have now done exactly what I should have done originally. So there's no mistake about "selective editing" of videos or speech transcripts, here is a link to the website of the NAACP, where they have made a point of posting the full video of Shirley Sherrod's speech. I have seen the entire speech as supplied by the NAACP. The now-famous speech runs just over 40 minutes. If you don't have the time, here is a link to the printed transcript of her speech supplied by a site called American Rhetoric Online Speech Bank. The transcript is taken in full from the video version of her speech, which American rhetoric also supplies. I have read the transcript as well.
Let's get to this.
In her speech, Ms. Sherrod says this:
I should tell you a little about Baker County. In case you don't know where it is, it's located less than 20 miles southwest of Albany.
(Excerpt) Read more at spectator.org ...
Your raise an interesting point by inference. Did Sherrod lie, or was she telling the truth, when she said that someone from the White House asked her to resign? Was it the Dept. of Agriculture liaison to the White House, the White House itself, Secy of Agric. Vilsack (aka SackofShit), and/or others?
This has never been satisfactorily settled.
Shirley has given us the gift that keeps on giving. Tis better to receive, than to give, in this case.
No. “Lynching” is the execution of an individual for a real or false crime by a group acting without judicial sanction. Death can be by hanging, shooting, burning, drowning, bludgeoning, dragging, stabbing, cutting, etc. Sherrod’s usage is not colloquial, but Jeffery Lord's is. This may be from watching a lot of Westerns.
She knows it better than the author. Lynching isn't just by hanging.
No. “Lynching” is the execution of an individual for a real or false crime by a group acting without judicial sanction.>>>>>>>
The sheriff and three civilians beat the man to death. There is no judicial sanction there plus the sheriff looks like part of a lynch mob to me. A small lynch mob but with 3,000 lynching (of white, black and Indian) in our history I’m sure there have been other small lynch mobs too
I am suspicious that her father was caught stealing those cows. I noticed when I read the story about her father being “murdered” over a “dispute about some cows” it seemed like a smoke screen. One of the articles even said something to the effect of “the details are fuzzy.”
Yeah...I just bet they are.
>> No wonder Republicans and conservatives have an uphill battle.
But it’s not for the reason you cited.
It would be good for people to drop the apologies regarding the reactionary reactions to the “edited” tape. It’s f’n annoying to have to wade through guilt associated with presumptuous indignation so many experienced in response to Breitbart’s “hasty” release.
The “full” version shows more racial hostility than the “edited” version. The segment depicted by the “edited” version is a non-starter in every sense except for the sober, historical concern of racism and the effect it has on Blacks today. But, we don’t talk about that - it’s too difficult. Instead, it’s all about the superficial, politically divisive racism designed to get Black to vote Left. So, let’s keep it there - where it’s about the votes.
If the pubbies are to attack this issue, they need to recognize the nature of the battle they’re fighting. It ain’t about overreacting to the “white man” nonsense of individuals. It’s about the institutional racial divisiveness that’s pushing the Country Left.
The hypercritical hysteria over someone’s anger needs to take a rest. Sherrod’s pissed, I don’t blame her. But we need to push back on her promotion of Leftism and Socialism as the cure for what ails the Black Community - it’s a damn lie, and Sherrod was wrong for promoting it using the veil of poverty.
The American Soectator has gone way downhill. :-(
And every time some conservative politician or pundit thinks they can get way with a racial comment or ethnic joke, apologies, retractions and resignations follow.
The particular incident in this story adds nothing to the discussion about whether this woman is a racist or not. (The more she talks, the more she reveals herself to be.) What the article does is makes conservatives look like petty racists because they are saying that there is such a huge difference between lynching someone and beating them to death, that using the wrong definition makes one a liar. It's a stupid argument.
A political savvy editor would have never let it be posted.
So that makes the lynching / beating to death okay?
I'm not impressed either. His argument on that point is extremely weak. He does make an interesting point about the white New Dealers being promoted to top levels by FDR thanks to their commitment to the New Deal and despite their open, flagrant racism.
I appreciate your comment, and you’ve highlighted some important points, but to focus on winning the “votes” is shortsighted. To be sure, the fight is complex, and there is no easy solution.
But to tiptoe around these issues involving such volatile topics is doing precisely what the Left wants us to do, which is to dictate public discourse, and how and what we should discuss.
I, for one, do not struggle with “White guilt”. I suggest the rest of our FReepers do the same.
Sherrod's not the evil one here. She appears to be a good person afflicted with a mental disease, liberalism, which, alas, seems to strike blacks with special severity. Sherrod is collateral damage in Andrew Breitbart's fully justified attack on the NAACP.
There is no reason to doubt her account of being asked to pull over to the side of the road and email her resignation to the White House (LOL!). Her account shows the Administration's crashing incompetence. The NAACP had the full video. The White House had ample opportunity to get it and review it and determine what it really showed. But they guiltily thought they already knew what it showed (namely, what Breitbart was trying to prove), so they rushed to judgment in an attempt to prove the opposite!
Nice work, Andrew!
It's good that they tried to find out whether or not she was telling the truth, but the title "Sherrod Story False" is misleading and inflammatory. That is exactly what was not needed here. I vote they keep the story but change the title.
So if it's worse why not call it that instead of being "lynched"?
And by putting the murder on the Sheriff was to create another Bull Connor in the minds of her audience. Nothing beats a good lynching by the local sheriff. That's the stuff legends are made of. Hence the lies and embellishing
You and I know darn well lynching isn’t just hanging. When the pals lynched the two Israeli soldiers in Ramallah, they literally beat their brains out.
Having said that, Shirley Sherrod and this whole fiasco was a setup and Breitbart got scammed right into it because he reacted in anger.
Sherrod is a racist to the soles of her feet and so is her hubby. Now she gets a free pass and the naalcp and the aboministration is loving every minute of this.
This article is just stupid. It isn’t just stupid. It’s ridiculous, as if the author is grasping at straws to make a point that doesn’t even exist.
There is a LOT we can do to counter Sherrod and the left on this march to hell, but this ain’t one of them.
The author of the article gets the definition of “lynching” wrong, not Sherrod!!
Some of the information in the article may have some value, but for the personal tone it takes and for the baseless accusation of lying, the author owes Sherrod one great big apology, IMO.
Saint Shirley tell a lie?!
Never! Impossible!
/sarc
“baseless accusation”? Hardly. Reread the article.
Sherrod is the individual who should be issuing apologies. Everyone knows what lynching means, and in this case, we know exactly what is meant by such a description.
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