Don’t Shed Any Tears For Shirley Sherrod

For those of you unfamiliar with the story, let’s take it from the beginning. The NAACP decided to smear the Tea Party as racists. Like many Americans, Andrew Breitbart didn’t take kindly to something that has become a daily ritual during the Obama Administration — conservatives being falsely denounced as racists. However, unlike most other people who are sick and tired of being lied about by the Left, Andrew Breitbart had the information he needed to fight back. So, he put out this video of Shirley Sherrod admitting that she discriminated against a farmer who came to her for help because he was white:

Nobody in the crowd at the NAACP seemed to be disturbed about her discriminating against a white farmer. In fact, they laughed at the idea of her not helping the man because of his skin color. Should she have been fired for doing that at the time? Absolutely, but she got away with it. That’s something a lot of people are overlooking because afterwards, she had a change of heart and decided to aid the white guy who came to her for help. Apparently, she put in quite a lot of time and effort and the farmer in question found her to be very helpful.

Breitbart has been criticized because that part of the video wasn’t included and in all fairness, that’s a valid criticism — although it’s also worth noting that what Breitbart did is standard practice in the mainstream media when dealing with conservatives. It’s hard for me to hammer Breitbart for not bending over backwards to put Sherrod’s case out there when very few people in the MSM are ever willing to do the same for conservatives on any issue from the war in the Iraq, to illegal immigration, to the Tea Parties. It’s also worth noting that the fact that Sherrod changed her mind later doesn’t change the fact that she did act in a racist way and abuse her power in a despicable fashion. In other words, Sherrod has actually done more to earn the “racist” label than 99.9% of the people who are accused of it in this country.

But, given that she seems to have mended her ways, should the Obama Administration have fired her or given her the benefit of the doubt? My first thought is that she should be given the benefit of the doubt — but, that comes with some caveats.

First of all, no conservative would EVER be given the benefit of the doubt in that situation. Any conservative who admitted that she discriminated against a black man would be permanently branded a racist whether she claimed to have changed her ways or not. As a matter of fact, conservatives are regularly branded as racists on the Left simply because they’re conservatives. So, it’s hard to be sympathetic to Shirley Sherrod when she’s getting fairer treatment than any conservative would EVER get under similar circumstances.

It’s also worth noting Sherrod isn’t shy about playing the race card herself. For example, you can see her in this video claiming that opposition to health care by Republicans is based on racism and the fact that Obama is black.

So, why should people cry in their beer because this lady lost her job? Give me a break. When does anyone ever shed any tears for the conservatives who get casually smeared as racists by Shirley Sherrod & the NAACP?

PS: It’s actually irritating to see conservatives bending over backwards to stick up for Sherrod — and there are plenty of them. Do they think the favor will ever be returned? If so, they’re fooling themselves. Do they think it’ll help them if they get accused of racism one day? It won’t help at all. They’ll be judged guilty by virtue of being a conservative and the details will be worked out later. How many of these same conservatives who are sticking up for Sherrod have the guts to speak up when someone on their side is unfairly accused of racism every day for political reasons? In all fairness, some of them do — and they know who they are, but most of them don’t because they’re afraid to talk about race unless they’re nodding along with the Left.

Let me tell you something: As long as liberals are allowed to get away with this double standard, they’re going to keep doing it. Conservatives allow partisan liberals like the NAACP, Jesse Jackson, and Al Sharpton to define what racism is in the first place. Then, as Eric Holder might say, these same people lack the courage to say what they really think about the issue and then when the Left gets a teeny-tiny taste of what it dishes out on a daily basis, they fall all over themselves to prove how “fair” they are to people who’d never return the same courtesy to them in a hundred years if the situation were reversed.

As far as I’m concerned, Sherrod’s not a very sympathetic figure, Breitbart was right to publicize that video, and if the Obama Administration feels like they pressured her out of a job too quickly, that’s their problem, not ours.

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