Shirley Sherrod says she will sue the blogger
Shirley Sherrod says she will sue conservative blogger Andrew Breitbart who posted an edited video that led to her forced resignation from the Agriculture Department over racism allegations.
“He’ll definitely hear from me,” Sherrod told the National Association of Black Journalists annual conference in San Diego on Thursday.
Does she plan on filing a lawsuit? ”I will definitely do it,” Sherrod said.
“He had to know that he was targeting me,” she added.
Sherrod, who is black, said her bosses at USDA pushed her to resign after conservative media repeatedly broadcast portions of the video in which she seemed to say that she had discriminated against a white farmer. But in the full video of the speech that Sherrod gave to a meeting of the NAACP, she had in fact said that race should not matter.
NABJ said Breitbart had initially accepted an invitation to attend the event but later declined. ”I wish he had come here today because I really would like to talk to him,” Sherrod said.
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack has apologized and President Barack Obama has called her, but Sherrod has not decided on whether to accept a new job offer from the administration.
Mixing it up: Race, Tea Party, NAACP, Palin
The NAACP’s resolution calling on leaders of the Tea Party movement to repudiate “racist elements” within its ranks has set off a political firestorm. The civil rights group illustrated its accusations with photographs taken at rallies that show supporters carrying controversial signs criticizing President Barack Obama.
Sarah Palin, a star of the Tea Party movement, responded with a missive on Facebook saying she was saddened by the NAACP’s charge of racism and accused the group of using “the divisive language of the past.”
Critics of the conservative Tea Party movement have questioned whether it is a racist movement, citing the largely white turnout at rallies and some of the signs carried by supporters. Conservatives say the liberals are using a low blow to counter genuine criticism of Obama’s policies.
David Frum’s FrumForum, which is dedicated to the renewal of the Republican Party and conservative movement, points out a piece on Patheos posted last week that discusses the question “Is the Tea Party Racist?” and offers one conclusion that liberals “were always going to believe that a movement dominated by white conservatives is racist.”
Clarence Page, columnist for the Chicago Tribune, says “nobody is truly accountable for the national movement” which has advantages and disadvantages. He says the feeling of dislike is mutual between the NAACP and tea partiers. “In the universe of political activism, the two groups are ‘Alien vs. Predator,’ a battle of titans from worlds too far apart for them to see much of anything the same way.”
The heated discussion over the Tea Party’s character less than four months before the November elections does suggest the movement has gained ground in the political spectrum, but it won’t be absolutely clear whether it is a force to be reckoned with until the ballots are counted.
Stay tuned…
There is no evidence of racism in the tea party anywhere.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jRJ2UmyHh xI
from Environment Forum:
The Case Of The Forged Letters – a cap-and-trade mystery
A half-dozen fake letters, signed by people who don't seem to exist and who work at made-up jobs, are causing a bit of buzz in the environmental world -- mostly because the letters urged a Virginia congressman to vote against a cap-and-trade system to curb climate change.
The Sierra Club calls it "dirty tricks." The Union of Concerned Scientists points out that the PR firm said to be behind the fake-letter lobbying effort has a history of working against climate legislation. Rep. Ed Markey, who chairs a House committee on energy independence and global warming, said the committee will investigate. The Daily Progress newspaper in Charlottesville published a detailed story.
The congressman, Tom Perriello, voted for the cap-and-trade bill anyway. It passed by a slim margin and the Senate is expected to take up this matter in September.
The alleged forgeries came in letters made to look as if they were sent from two civil rights organizations: the local branch of the NAACP and Creciendo Juntos, a network for Charlottesville's Hispanic community -- neither of which oppose cap-and-trade. The Daily Progress tracked the letters to a Washington lobbying firm, Bonner & Associates. A partner at the Bonner firm apologized to Creciendo Juntos, but that probably won't be the end of the matter.
Jack Bonner, the president of Bonner & Associates, responded to a call for comment by e-mail: "We take our business very seriously. A temporary employee—lied to us—and contrary to our policies sent these letters. We—no one else—we on our own found this out. We immediately fired the person. We then, called those effected, explained what happened and apologized. In the case of the group in the story—we did it in person and by letter. This should not have happened—we had a bad employee—but through our internal checks, we found the problem, and on our own initiative took the step to notify the affected group."
Interesting thing about the Bonner firm: its acknowledged specialty is "grassroots" lobbying -- even though grassroots politics used to mean efforts that come from the ground up, from the rank-and-file members of a group. The Union of Concerned Scientists, which strongly favors the legislation that Bonner's clients presumably oppose, pointed reporters to a now-defunct Web site Bonner put up for the Western Fuels Association to oppose the carbon-capping Kyoto Protocol back in the 1990s.
The association said the site generated 20,000 e-mails in opposition, including one from a mythical "George Jetson." The cartoon character complained that he would have to pay an extra $24,239,987.52 a year if Congress ratified the Kyoto pact. They didn't, and the United States is now the only industrialized country that hasn't joined the protocol.
Row over race hits climate change debate
The battle over climate change in the U.S. Senate spilled into another contentious arena of U.S. politics on Thursday: race relations.
At a hearing to discuss the economic impact of legislation to combat global warming, the head of an African-American business organization accused Environment and Public Works Committee Chairwoman Barbara Boxer of being “racial” and “condescending.”
During a tense exchange, Harry Alford of the National Black Chamber of Commerce said he objected to Boxer bringing up other African-American groups as a contrast to the arguments he was making at the hearing.
Boxer had cited a resolution in support of legislation to combat global warming from the NAACP, an African-American civil rights organization.
“What does that mean?” asked Alford, who was a witness at the hearing. Boxer responded by pointing out a positive comment about the resolution from the leader of another African-American group, 100 Black Men of America.
“Madam chair that is condescending to me. I am (with) the National Black Chamber of Commerce and you’re trying to put up some other black group to (compete) against me,” Alford said. ”You are being racial here and I think you’re getting to a path here that is going to explode.”
Boxer defended herself by saying she was just trying to make a point that “there are definitely different opinions in the black community, just like there is in my community.”
A black man representing a black organization *isn’t* racial? Am I missing something here? Or is it the same old double standard: WE can be racist but YOU can’t. That said, I would question the relevance of Senator Boxer’s references unless the context called for it (e.g., Mr. Alford was discussing to the climate bill’s effect on black-owned businesses or the black community at large). It’s a trap to have all kinds of race-based organizations and then cry “racist!” when someone mentions them. What’s more racist, a racially based organization or a reference to it?
Perhaps enough lawsuits will scare away the “yellow journalist” crowd from Internet blogs.