Dissappointment in the Administration...

At least with me, continues to grow. Their handling of the Shirley Sherrod situation is an exercise in extreme cowardice, and my respect for them continues to diminish. If you are not familiar with the issue, I would point you here, here, and here.

This episode dredges up some extremely virulent racial anxieties I have.

I forget, from time to time, that being a minority makes you the other in this country. Even if your family can date its roots back to the antebellum south, you are somehow still not American enough. I am sure most people have no idea what I am talking about here, tribalism being what it is. But it is the reason why I would be loathe to run for any sort of national political office.

I would be hounded to the end of my days about whether I was pursuing a "black agenda". Rarely are any Caucasian candidates/office holders/pundits, questioned in this way. Don't believe me? Just look at the sorts of accusations the president has to deal with, Glenn Beck on the Affordable Care Act: "It's Reparations!". Why? I am not really sure. I think it has something to do with all black people being poor, and our half-black mooslum President wanting to make all those hard working white folks out their pay up for slavery.

Or it is instead about trying to beat a political opponent through whatever means are necessary. Even if it means destroying the life of a woman with this background:

Sherrod is an obscure bureaucrat who helps rural farmers. She is black. As a little girl, she lived in a place where there were lynchings and cross burnings, and she dreamt of going north. Before she came of age, white men murdered her father and were never jailed for it. As a result, she made a pledge to herself: that rather than abandon the South, she would help as many of its black residents as possible.

In a moving speech before the NAACP, she explained how that attitude persisted until an occasion 24 years ago, when she was working for a small nonprofit. She was assigned to help a white farmer whose superior, less-than-friendly attitude she resented.

At first, she gave the farmer less help than was in her power, pawning him off on a white lawyer. Soon, however, God helped her to see the error in her ways, she helped the farmer to keep his land, and ever since she's understood that her calling to help people isn't about black and white, it's about aiding poor people of any color.

This woman was fired, when she should be lauded for what she has done. She has shown amazing courage and this was her reward. Mr. Coates and Mr. Greenwald I think have the best comments on this episode.

I expect more of the President then this. Not because he is black. But because he is the god damned President, and he should not cater to these glorified bomb-throwers.

Mrs. Sherrod deserved better then this.

So absolutely shitty job, by the media, the NAACP, the Administration, and of course the Right wing activists who have no interest in anything other then destroying their political rivals.

I am sure the media that fell for this will be more skeptical in the future....oh wait, I remember the 90's.


-Cheers