From the President to the press, months of broadly categorizing the GOP as racist and in linking it to the Tea Party, may have finally paid off. After Andrew Breitbart at Big Government, a noted Conservative blogger, published a post citing Shirley Sherrod of the Department of Agriculture as racist based on a portion of a speech she made to the NAACP last March. Democrats having painted Mrs. Sherrod as a victim has helped confirm public opinion that Conservatives and Republicans are as they have been branding them for months, racist.
Breitbart was not just set up by whoever provided him with the tape, he was set up in general by Democratic strategists. All of their careful negative branding and linking of groups on the right as racist was a trap set for the first person who would come at them prior to or during the November election and take them on over their labeling practices.
Breitbart is no doubt correct that during the Tea Party march on Washington, the black and other Congressmen who marched through Tea Party ranks to get back and forth to their destination did so to set Tea Partiers up for a confrontation. There were a few in the Tea Party crowd who yelled out racial slurs but they were not the majority of people in the mall that day. [BigGovernment]
By the time the head of the NAACP , Benjamin Todd Jealous, had come out to insist that the Tea Party renounce the racists in their organization and to henceforth put down racist outbursts at their rallies (months after the Tea Party DC rally), it made perfect sense to the American people. Most had quietly gone along with the Democratic strategy to paint the Republican and Tea Party landscape in dark colors. And now Democrats through the NAACP were about populating that landscape with one example after another of excess by any member of the right they felt they could bait. They knew Breitbart had only a partial tape of Sherrod’s address or that he was only posting it partially and they took out after him.
Andrew Breitbart has said that in putting the Sherrod tape out there that he was attacking the NAACP. But few will listen because Shirley Sherrod has been painted as a victim of his editing. Not really.
Her argument was that she went from viewing the poor white farmers as the member of a repressive class to a view that blacks and they had poverty in common. But a full epiphany about race just did not happen with her. Like Breitbart’s tape, it was a partial epiphany.
Democratic propaganda over generations has caused a linkage between the Republicans and the elite wealthy in America. Sherrod’s edited history of a time a couple of hundred years ago when poor whites and blacks were equal and compatible- a time when both were indentured servants - gave no quarter to wealthy whites. She saw them as agents of the introduction of segregation to separate poor whites and blacks. Blacks became permanent indentured servants – slaves.
Her awakening was not of racial coming together but of the discovery of an economic link between all lower class people: “it’s about poor people,” she exclaimed. Class warfare had reared its ugly head here in the middle of a an argument about race. So her acceptance of whites was limited to those who were poor.
Perhaps now that Senator Kerry has a new 7 million dollar yacht but has avoided Massachusetts sales tax on it will convince many blacks that there are equally as many wealthy Democrats.
The question remains: who brought the Sherrod speech to Breitbart’s attention? Breitbart will not reveal his source and has stood his ground in saying that the full tape does not absolve her of racism and in this he is correct. She still hates rich whites especially those who are Republicans. Class warfare and racism are now linked in the public mind to Republicans and tea partiers. It appears that Shirley Sherrod’s speech was carefully crafted. It’s a model of Democratic dogma.
steve
July 30, 2010
Class warfare and racism is the two most effective tools in the Democratic party. It’s simply amazing how effective they’ve been in portraying the Republicans as the party of the rich.
The saying “tax-cuts for the rich” makes we want to puke as it is picked up by every left wing blogger. Jeez, the Bush tax-cuts was all inclusive, but I read time after time the Congress needs to let the Bush tax-cuts for the rich expire. What a bunch of dumba$$es!
Conservatives had better grow some cods and stop playing nice.
samhenry
July 30, 2010
Hi there Steve. We are in complete agreement. Mrs. Sherrod’s speech was carefully crafted.
DarcKnyt
July 31, 2010
I find this interesting, because all the political blogs I follow indicate the “race card” isn’t working very well. People, in seeing BHO’s complete and total disregard for the voters who put him in office, are realizing race wasn’t the best way to cast a vote in ’08, and are jumping ship like rats from a sinking barge in the East River. Your story indicates the race claims are effective though. So I guess I still don’t know what’s going on.
I do know, however, this is the only card they seem to be able to play, and it’s not the trump they had at one time. I believe a lot of Democrats are recognizing this, and if Shrillary Rotten Clinton makes another presidential bid in ’12, it will be VERY interesting to see who the DNC gives the nod to, don’t you think?
If I’m off-topic — because I don’t really do political things — please feel free to delete this. I won’t be upset at all.
samhenry
July 31, 2010
Geeze, a writer who is self-correcting. Who would not want his words on her blog. It is on topic because really the subject of the post was race and that the Democrats seem to be the only ones ALLOWED to play it and get away with it and that it is, as you say, their hobby horse. They will play this no matter who runs against Obama.
I was silent out of respect to my lack of talent at the time and the fact that I have had back problems and can’t sit long periods of time. So it only makes sense that I accepted a part time job working from home sitting at the computer 5 hours on 5 days per week doing customer service. I’m getting back all that is dished out. I am the worst customer. I know better that customer service or anybody so I dare you to take me on. Actually I will be a customer service representative wanting to be liked and getting hate in return. Hello Sherrod.
samhenry
July 31, 2010
PS thanks for your caring concern.
blackwatertown
August 2, 2010
A belated comment on your third paragraph about the racial slurs and the likelihood that they came from a minority of Tea Partiers. You may well be right, but that way of looking at things makes me a little uneasy.
I’ve frequently experienced situations where a small minority of people on a march/protest/demonstration explicitly say or shout or do offensive things. Afterwards, it is said that one should not brand the inoffensive majority because of the behaviour of the few. Fair enough. And yet, I notice that the many appear to do nothing to quell the minority within their ranks, nor to dissociate themselves nor to expel the “unrepresentative minority”.
Sure, it’s hard to control who says what within a disparate group of people, especially as it grows into a popular movement. And there are lots of reasons why you might not want to.
But as far as I am concerned, it has always undermined the bona fides of the so-called decent majority, when I see them conniving with, or at least tolerating, the offensive behaviour of the minority amongst them. Do they share the same views?
“By their friends you shall know them.” It sounds Biblical, though it may not be. (And I appreciate you can turn that around to bolster the more obviously bad guy in a pairing.)
Or as the Specials put it: “If you have a racist friend/Now is the time for your friendship to end.” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1DkVljeRfM
(Though I guess you could invest some time and effort into persuasion before ending things.)
By the way, I’m not equating Tea Party enthusiasm with racism. I’m making the point that tolerating racism in your group is not a million miles from expressing it personally.
samhenry
August 2, 2010
Thank you for this needed expansion to the post. I agree with you and would have added it if I had been thinking straight. We get mad at Muslim moderates because they don’t speak out against the more aggressive among them or terrorists. Yet we do the same thing. I did read where some major tea party groups had done just that – deplored their actions and banned them and will continue to do so.
The problem with the tea party movement is that it is not a single unit just a disorganized collection of groups. At least some of the groups were powerful enough to get the head of the Tea Party Express to resign – a great improvement. He was just ridiculous and that is being kind.
DarcsFalcon
August 3, 2010
My understanding is that her husband was a big deal in the civil rights stuff from the early 60s. His speeches are very racially oriented, apparently.
samhenry
August 3, 2010
Ah ha. Where there’s smoke…. You always keep this blog up to date and well-informed and I mean that. Thanks friend Falcon.