The White House apologized on Wednesday to a black Agriculture Department employee who was sacked for her remarks about race, acknowledging that officials didn't know all the facts when she was fired.
The dismissal of Shirley Sherrod after an edited video circulated online has landed the Obama administration in a sea of criticism for its response.
In the nearly three-minute clip posted Monday by BigGovernment.com, Sherrod describes the first time a white farmer came to her for help. She said the farmer was acting “superior” to her and she didn’t know how much help she’d give him."I was struggling with the fact that so many black people had lost their farmland, and here I was faced with helping a white person save their land," she says. "I didn't give him the full force of what I could do."
After referring the farmer to a white lawyer because she thought he would benefit from someone of his own race, she said, she learned that whites were struggling just as much as blacks, and helping farmers wasn't about color but "about the poor versus those who have."
In the full 40-plus-minute speech, Sherrod tells the story of her father's death in 1965, saying he was killed by white men who were never charged. She says she made a commitment to stay in the South the night of her father's death, despite wanting to leave the rural town.
"When I made that commitment I was making that commitment to black people and to black people only," she said. "But, you know, God will show you things and he'll put things in your path so that you realize that the struggle is really about poor people."
Sherrod has said the edited clip distorted her actual speech, and since the video's release the farmer and his wife have come to Sherrod’s defense in televised interviews.
Above,we have posted the video in its entirety as posted by the NAACP; below, we have posted the edited clip that has become viral online and on numerous news outlets.
Did the White House react too swiftly? Should Sherrod take her position back? After watching the unedited portion do you think her comments were negative? If you were Sherrod would you accept your job -- and the apology -- after being forced to resign?
-- Gerrick D. Kennedy