Month: July 2010

The Narrative Shifts

by digby

This may be the stupidest AP “fact check” in history: “Black racism. Is it a problem?”

Only liberals suggest otherwise.

“White America understands by now, you’d better be very careful in the way you treat people of color. In this history of this country that’s great advice. That’s as it should be. We’ve had a shameful past,” he said. “Now the fear is that the pendulum has swung so far the other way, that white people mind their P’s and Q’s and don’t say anything that can be perceived as racist, but blacks can talk about hurting people.”

Clearly whites have huge grievances against blacks who are taking advantage of the system with all their “special rights ” and all. Unlike Shirley Sherrod, as Will Bunch discovered:

For all the over-warped speed in initially getting that bogus version of the Shirley Sherrod story out there and pushing her our the door at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, other details in this story have been surprisingly slow to emerge. In particular, I’d been waiting to hear more about a comment from Sherrod on CNN that her father had been murdered by a white farmer in 1965.

Now we know a few details. Her dad was named Hosie Miller, and he was a deacon at Thankful Baptist Church in Newton, Ga., toward the southwest corner of the state. He was also a farmer who, according to CNN, grew corn, peanuts, cotton and cucumbers and raised hogs, cows and goats. Forty-five years ago, Hosie Miller was shot to death — in the back, no less — by a white farmer in what his daughter now describes as ostensibly a dispute over a few cows, although the exact circumstances were murky.

A grand jury investigated the case, and no one was charged. All of the grand jurors were white, as was typically the case before the passage of the landmark civil rights legislation of the mid-1960s. From that incident, a movement was born. Indeed, according to this article, Shirley Sherrod’s mother — Grace Hall Miller — became the leader of the civil rights movement in Baker County after the killing, organizing marches and other protests from her home. The then 17-year-old Shirley Miller decided to stay in the South and become an activist; she soon married one of the leaders of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, or SNCC, a man by the name of Charles Sherrod. Shirley Sherrod told CNN that “”I decided to stay in the South and work for change.”

How unusual was it for a black man to be killed by a white man in the Deep South up through the mid-1960s with no one brought to justice. Way too common. We hear a lot about one particular killing in Mississippi — the 1964 murder of a trio of civil rights activists that included two white college kids from up North — but in reality dozens of black men were killed for taking a stand, for trying to vote or just on a whim.

Sherrod got over that, as she testified in her notorious video. But it’s nothing compared to the anguish that Tea Partiers endure at being called to account for things like this:

Certainly the tea party has every right to fight back against obvious reverse racist attacks that suggest signs like that might signal racism. In fact there’s no difference at all between them and Shirley Sherrod. Clearly whites and blacks have been equally hurt in this horror of American racism.

Meanwhile, O’Reilly gave an typical wingnut apology tonight last night. In other words, he said he was wrong for having jumped to conclusions — and then doubled down:

O’Reilly continued to condemn Sherrod’s comments on his show Tuesday night, saying she made a mistake, even after it had emerged that her words had been misrepresented.

On Wednesday, the host said that he “did not analyze the entire transcript, and that was not fair.” Still, O’Reilly called her a “longtime liberal activist” and said the language Sherrod used suggested that she “very well may see things through a racial prism.” He said she belonged in the private sector, not working for the government.

So even though she said that she had learned that the problem is not a matter of black and white, it’s not good enough. She’s a “liberal activist” and only those who are right wing activists (or completely dead inside) should be allowed to work in government. After all, the “private sector” has many opportunities for someone who seeks justice for black farmers. Tons of corporations are heavily invested in that issue.

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They Aren’t Even Trying To Hide It

by digby

Considering the open fearmongering of that video, I guess this is probably only going to get worse:

Opposition to the construction of mosques has skyrocketed in cities and towns across the country, scholars and advocates of Muslim culture tell The Upshot.

Public protests against three planned mosques have made news in the past week: Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin joined others in opposition to the building of a mosque a few blocks from the World Trade Center site. Hundreds demonstrated against a proposed mosque in a small town in Tennessee (pictured above). And the some residents of Temecula, California are opposing the local Muslim community’s plan to build a bigger mosque, saying it could become a hotbed of radical Islam.

Professor Akbar Ahmed, the Ibn Khaldun Chair of Islamic Studies at American University’s School of International Service, is not surprised by the recent spate of public protests. He spent last year traveling to more than 100 mosques in 75 U.S. cities with a team of researchers, and concluded that opposition to mosques, including some attacks on them, is on the rise and is spreading.

“Everywhere there’s a mosque, there’s a tension now,” Ahmed said.

Bush did a good job of keeping the lid on the natural right wing impulse to do this. With Republicans out of office it was always going to explode in one way or the other. It looks like it’s happening.

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Is unemployment about to go back up?

by digby

AFSCME president Gerald McEntee appeared on the Bill Press show and sounded a frightening alarm:

“If we don’t get aide to state and local governments…we stand to lose by the fall 1 million people. That’s one million back in the pool of unemployment. So that figure will stay up. The American people get upset when the unemployment figure is up. These people will lose jobs; they’ll receive unemployment compensation. I mean it’s a bad deal all around. And if the federal government would pass some money for state aide, local government aide then we’d get out of this mess, at least for a while and start to build back. We’ve done it before.”

Considering that the Republicans are still holding up the vote on unemployment, I’m not particularly optimistic. You can hear the whole conversation here.

Oh, in case you were wondering what the Republicans have planned, John Boehner shared their program today:

House Minority Leader John Boehner outlined the top three measures he’d pursue if he becomes Speaker of the House next Congress to create new jobs. But, those who thought he’d outline specific programs and how they would create jobs were disappointed with a familiar litany of wish-list items: repeal health care reform, eschew climate legislation, and renew the Bush tax cuts.

There you have it.

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Teachable Moment

by digby

Jim VandeHei on Ratigan just now saying that the NAACP is getting off the hook on this. But not for the reason you may think — that they jumped the gun in condemning Sherrod. I think everyone agrees that those who relied on clearly doctored videos on Andrew Breitbart’s web site are more than foolish — especially those who should be skeptical after the ACORN fraud. There’s really no excuse for that knee-jerk reaction and they are going to have a hard time regaining the trust of their members for doing it.

But that’s not what VandeHei is arguing. Jonathan Capehart brought up the uncomfortable subject of Andrew Breitbart and VandeHei went into high gear:

VandeHei: Let’s not forget where this thing started. The NAACP came out and makes this charge against the Tea Party Movement. And we’ve probably done more stories about the Tea party movement than any other news organization. We’ve really tried to study this group and they are a very diffuse group. You cannot say that they are racist any more than you can say the Democratic party is racist or the Republican party is racist. So it creates this culture and it’s a dangerous topic and it’s a dangerous fire to light and so this is the outcome.

Ratigan: But, but …

VandeHei: I’m not defending Breitbart. But conservatives are outraged. They’re saying listen, because I’m part of the tea party movement, you’re saying I’m racist, and what Breitbart’s saying is “well I want to push back.”

I’m not saying what Breitbart said was right because clearly it wasn’t right and the outcome was awful for this woman, but both sides I think come off looking very, very bad.

And that’s why Joe Biden and Steny Hoyer said they didn’t agree with the NAACP’s charge.

Capehart pointed out that the NAACPs statement was much more nuanced than that and actually was asking that the Tea Party disavow the “racist element” in the group not that the whole group was racist. VandeHei replied that they should have known that it was dangerous to even imply such a thing and they should have known it would cause a firestorm. He said, “it’s a terrible issue to be talking about.”

So the message is don’t make trouble by pointing out the truth. The wingnuts will get upset and then all hell will break loose.

He’s right about one thing though. Both sides are equally wrong in this. After all, the NAACP pointed out that the Tea Party was racist and the Tea Party Federation “fired” one of its leaders. Andrew Breitbart pointed out that the NAACP was racist and the Obama administration fired one of its employees.

The only difference is that the Tea Party leader wrote a revolting racist screed in response to the NAACP charges and the Obama employee was revealed to have been making a plea for racial healing. Other than that, though, it’s exactly the same. And the whole controversy just proves that the NAACP erred in ever bringing it up in the first place.

Oh, and for those of you who might have missed the “satire” that the nationally known Tea Party party leader and frequent Fox News guest Mark Williams wrote, here it is. It’s a real shame that the NAACP provoked such outrage (and Andrew Breitbart’s justifiable need to “push back.”)

I think we’ve all learned something from this, don’t you?

Update: Credit where credit is due. Tweety has been very good on this. He seems to have had an epiphany about the right.

Update II: On CNN Tony Blankley is saying exactly what VandeHei said. Brietbart was provoked.

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It’s Not An Accident

by digby

Various commentators have recently been making the argument that conservatism suffers from “epistemic closure.” David Frum makes it today in terms of how they are unwilling to toss Breitbart over the side:

On the phone on the evening of July 20, a friend asked me: “Can Breitbart possibly survive?” I could only laugh incredulously. I answered: “Of course he’ll survive, and undamaged. The incident won’t matter at all.”

There will be no apology or statement of regret for distributing a doctored tape to defame and destroy someone. There will be not even a flutter of interest among conservatives in discussing Breitbart’s role. By the morning of July 21, the Fox & Friends morning show could devote a segment to the Sherrod case without so much as a mention of Breitbart’s role. The central fact of the Sherrod story has been edited out of the conservative narrative, just as it was edited out of the tape itself.

When people talk of the “closing of the conservative mind” this is what they mean: not that conservatives are more narrow-minded than other people — everybody can be narrow minded — but that conservatives have a unique capacity to ignore unwelcome fact.

He’s addressing the “conservative intelligentsia” there, but I think this phenomenon is clearly less a matter of narrow-mindedness and ignoring of unwelcome fact than a conscious decision to lie for political ends. The rank and file are misinformed because they are being purposefully led astray by the same conservative intelligentsia which owns and operates the right wing media.

This isn’t a result of “epistemic closure.” It’s a result of professional propagandists successfully applying their trade. Let’s not pretend it’s an accident.

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Stupid and Cruel Or Merely Stupid?

by digby

This is just too ironic:

[T]hree Democratic sources said Deputy Chief of Staff Jim Messina singled out the White House’s initial response to the incident for praise in the regular 8:30 a.m. staff meeting Tuesday morning. The sources differed on the substance of Messina’s praise, but concurred that he had praised the speed of White House communications in response to the flap, which was driven by a misleadingly-edited video posted to Andrew Breitbart’s Big Government website.

One source, who is unhappy with the administration’s handling of the incident, paraphrased Messina’s remarks: “We could have waited all day – we could have had a media circus – but we took decisive action and it’s a good example of how to respond in this atmosphere.”

But two other senior officials present at the meeting, who responded to a call to the White House press office, said the gist of Messina’s words had been conveyed to POLITICO inaccurately, and that Messina — a top political operative and senior manager — was merely speaking in his capacity as Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations and “cheerleader” to boost staffers’ morale.

Messina was merely praising the White House staff for “communicating well, sharing well, basically rising to the occasion” on the Sherrod story, one official said. “It was an institutional or procedural point.”

Messina’s defenders are reduced to saying that he was just a fool rather than a complete jackass.

Either way, I think this says everything we know about the state of the political shop in the White House right now. And none of it’s good.

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“From Glenn Beck To The NAACP”

by tristero

Screenshot from HuffPo taken at 11:25 EST today displaying the full spectrum of acceptable public opinion in the United States: from the extreme right to… the middle of the road.

You couldn’t ask for a better illustration of the problem that I – and everyone else in the liberal blogosphere – have been railing against for over eight years.

What She Really Said

by digby

You’ve all seen the edited Breitbart version of Shirley Sharrods speech by now. The full video has been released, so we can all hear the whole thing. And it’s really quite wonderful.

You’ll recall that the last words were

“That’s when it was revealed to me that y’all, it’s about poor versus those who have, and not so much about white — it is about white and black, but it’s not — you know, it opened my eyes, ’cause I took him to one of his own …”

Here’s how it continued (via Media Matters)

’cause I took him to one of his own and I put him in his hands, and said, OK, I’ve done my job. But, during that time, we would have these injunctions against the Department of Agriculture and — so, they couldn’t foreclose on him. And I want you to know that the county supervisor had done something to him that I have not seen yet that they’ve done to any other farmer, black or white. And what they did to him caused him to not be able to file Chapter 12 bankruptcy.

So, everything was going along fine — I’m thinking he’s being taken care of by the white lawyer, then they lift the injunction against USDA in May of ’87 for two weeks and he was one of 13 farmers in Georgia who received a foreclosure notice. He called me. I said, well, go on and make an appointment at the lawyer. Let me know when it is and I’ll meet you there.

So we met at the lawyer’s office on the day they had given him. And this lawyer sat there — he had been paying this lawyer, y’all. That’s what got me. He had been paying the lawyer since November, and this was May. And the lawyer sat there and looked at him and said, “Well, y’all are getting old. Why don’t you just let the farm go?” I could not believe he said that, so I said to the lawyer — I told him, I can’t believe you said that. I said: It’s obvious to me that he cannot file a Chapter 12 bankruptcy to stop this foreclose, you have to file an 11. And the lawyer said to me, I’ll do whatever you say — whatever you think — that’s the way he put it. But he’s paying him. He wasn’t paying me any money. You know, so he said — the lawyer said he would work on it.

And then, about seven days before that man would have been sold at the courthouse steps, the farmer called me and said the lawyer wasn’t doing anything. And that’s when I spent time there in my office calling everybody I could think so to try to see — help me find the lawyer who would handle this. And finally, I remembered that I had gone to see one just 40 miles away in Americus with the black farmers. So, I —

[tape change]

SHERROD: Well, working with him made me see that it’s really about those who have versus those who don’t.

AUDIENCE: That’s right.

SHERROD: You know, and they could be black, and they could be white, they could be Hispanic. And it made me realize then that I needed to work to help poor people — those who don’t have access the way others have.

I want to just share something with you and I think it helps to — you know, when I learned this, I’m like, oh, my goodness. You know, back in the late 17th and 18th century, black — there were black indentured servants and white indentured servants, and they all would work for seven years and get their freedom. And they didn’t see any difference in each other — nobody worried about skin color. They married each other. You know, these were poor whites and poor blacks in the same boat, except they were slaves, but they were both slaves and both had their opportunity to work out on the slavery.

But then they started looking at the injustices that they faced and started then trying — you know, the people with money — you know, they started — the poor whites and poor blacks — they — you know, they married each other. They lived together. They were just like we would be. And they started looking at what was happening to them and decided we need to do something about it — you know, about this. Well, the people with money, the elite, decided, hey, we need to do something here to divide them.

So that’s when they made black people servants for life. That’s when the put laws in place forbidding them to marry each other. That’s when they created the racism that we know of today. They did it to keep us divided. And they — it started working so well, they said, gosh, looks like we’ve come up on something here that can last generations — and here we are. Over 400 years later, and it’s still working. What we have to do is get that out of our heads. There is no difference between us.

The only difference is that the folks with money want to stay in power and whether it’s health care or whatever it is, they’ll do what they need to do to keep that power.

[APPLAUSE]

[…]

[25:03] SHERROD: I couldn’t say 45 years ago, I couldn’t stand here and say what I’m saying — what I will say to you tonight. Like I told, God helped me to see that its not just about black people, it’s about poor people. And I’ve come a long way. I knew that I couldn’t live with hate, you know. As my mother has said to so many, if we had tried to live with hate in our hearts, we’d probably be dead now.

But I’ve come to realize that we have to work together and — you know, it’s sad that we don’t have a room full of white and blacks here tonight ’cause we have to overcome the divisions that we have. We have to get to the point as Tony Morrison said race exists but it doesn’t matter. We have to work just as hard — I know it’s — you know, that division is still here, but our communities are not going to thrive — you know, our children won’t have the communities that they need to be able to stay in and live in and have a good life if we can’t figure this out, you all. White people, black people, Hispanic people, we all have to do our part to make our communities a safe place, a healthy place, a good environment.

This is not a racist person. Quite the opposite.

But the right doesn’t need that as a reason to hate her anyway. After all, she’s talking about racial equality, solidarity among all working people and caring about the common good. What could possibly be more antithetical to everything they believe in?

You can see the full video here.

And this should be the thing that really scares them:

There’s a couple of reverse racist dirty hippies for you.

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“If Only The Government Moved As Quickly To Remedy Discrimination Against Black Farmers…”

by digby

Yes, this is exactly the type of person no Democratic administration should ever employ. (From July 2009)

Minority Farm Settlement

Justice Achieved – Congratulations to Shirley and Charles Sherrod!

We have wonderful news regarding the case of New Communities, Inc., the land trust that Shirley and Charles Sherrod established, with other black farm families in the 1960’s. At the time, with holdings of almost 6,000 acres, this was the largest tract of black-owned land in the country. Now with a cash award of historic proportions, the group will be able to begin again.

In 1969, New Communities received a planning grant from OEO and was encouraged to expect substantial funding for implementation, but Governor Maddox would not permit further funds for the group to come into the state.

Nevertheless, New Communities built up farming operations to help retain the land. They had highway frontage where they had a farmers market to sell their crops. They raised hogs and sold the processed meat in a smokehouse they built on the highway. Their sugar cane mill on the highway also attracted customers. New Communities was ahead of the times in raising eight acres of Muscatine grapes, which are now widely grown in the area. They also farmed 1,500 acres of row crops, including corn, peanuts and soybeans.

Over the years, USDA refused to provide loans for farming or irrigation and would not allow New Communities to restructure its loans. Gradually, the group had to fight just to hold on to the land and finally had to wind down operations.

In 1985, as the land was being lost, Shirley entered the RDLN program. Previously, she had worked behind the scenes, but as she participated in RDLN, she began to realize her capacity as an up-front leader. She invited the Federation of Southern Cooperatives to sponsor her in the RDLN program, earned her master’s degree with a thesis that continues to provide a blueprint for her ongoing work with black farmers and others, helped orient all succeeding groups of RDLN Leaders, and became vice chair of RDLN’s Board of Directors. As you all know, Shirley is Georgia Lead for both the Federation of Southern Cooperatives/Land Assistance Fund and the Southern Rural Black Women’s Initiative. She has also chaired the board of the Farmers Legal Action Group, which has been active in the minority farmers law suit, along with the Federation and other groups. FSC and SRBWI hosted RDLN’s National Network Assembly in 2006, during which Network members had a chance to immerse themselves in Civil Rights history, with the guidance of Shirley and Charles (the first field director of SNCC), Albany singers and others, and to visit the economic development projects that have grown out of that Civil Rights history.

The cash award acknowledges racial discrimination on the part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture for the years 1981-85. (President Reagan abolished the USDA Office of Civil Rights when he became President in 1981.) New Communities is due to receive approximately $13 million ($8,247,560 for loss of land and $4,241,602 for loss of income; plus $150,000 each to Shirley and Charles for pain and suffering). There may also be an unspecified amount in forgiveness of debt. This is the largest award so far in the minority farmers law suit (Pigford vs Vilsack).

No one can compensate those involved with New Communities for the difficult history they experienced. The award covers only a few of the years in question. Nevertheless, with these funds, New Communities will be able to start work again — forty years later — to realize the promise of their original dream, reconnect with the legacy of the Civil Rights movement, and meet the challenge of the needs and opportunities of the current historical moment.

They haven’t actually paid out the money yet, naturally. They missed the first two deadlines. now it’s attached to war funding. I’m guessing it will have to come out now.

As a commentator on the Ed show mused — if only the government had moved as quickly to remedy systemic discrimination against black farmers as they did when someone accused one African American woman of discriminating against white farmers.

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“I Punch Back”

by digby

A man who routinely defends the party of Michelle Bachman has the nerve to call Alan Grayson a “caricature” of a congressman.(I know, if it weren’t so sadly pathetic it would be hilarious.) But it’s taking it a little bit far to offer money for someone to punch him in the face.

Prominent conservative media critic Dan Gainor has offered $100 to the first member of Congress who punches “smary [sic] idiot” Alan Grayson (D-Fl.) in the nose, reports Media Matters. When fellow conservative Jim Geraghty responded (via Twitter) that Gainor should offer that $100 to Grayon’s opponent instead of “financ[ing] violence,” Gainor tweeted that he was joking, although he would “love to see the video.

Grayson responded to the threat:

“I think he’s overlooking something important: I punch back.”

That’s exactly why they hate him so much.

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