Written By : Donald Douglas

The clip is pretty astounding, listening to this woman, Shirley Sherrod, USDA Georgia Director of Rural Development, confess she would be less likely to help a man — a white man who needed help for his farm — on account of his race. In fact, this makes me sick to my stomach. I’ll let readers make what they want out of the rest of the entry, from Andrew Breitbart, “Video Proof: The NAACP Awards Racism–2010.” (Via Memeorandum.) I’ll simply note that this is a devastating indictment of what appears to be a professional woman in what appears to be a professional context (NAACP Freedom Fund dinner). Are we not a country whereby now we define people by the content of their character and not the color of their skin? What did a 21st century white farmer do to deserve this kind of disparate treatment? I could not live with myself if I said to myself “I can’t help this student. She’s a migrant daughter, and her parents are undocumented. I refuse to help her. I hate her for who she is.” But that’s exactly what Shirley Sherrod is doing. Blacks were sharecroppers, sure. Maybe this white man’s parents and grandparents were contract farmers as well. The South is historically the poorest region in the country. I can’t imagine some post-bellum landed gentry-man going to some USDA office looking for farm support, but for too many blacks in the country today, this guy needing help is a “cracker,” so screw him. We be lookin’ out for our own, ya’ll!

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Cross-posted from American Power.

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