Friday, July 30, 2010
Shirley Sherrod, an African-American employee of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) who was ousted last week, has said that she will “definitely sue” conservative blogger Andrew Breitbart over a video clip posted online at BigGovernment.com, operated by Breitbart, that made her appear racist.
Formerly the director of rural development in Georgia, Sherrod was referred to on Breitbart’s site as a “racist govt employee,” and the video had been edited to make her appear to have discriminated against Caucasians. Sherrod had been speaking in March of this year at a NCAAP meeting. Instead of deliberately not giving full support to a white farmer because of his race, as it appeared in the clip, the full video revealed that Sherrod was actually speaking about racial reconciliation and the lessons she learned after the episode. The incident had also occurred over two decades ago. However, because the full video had not been released yet, after the edited clip was released, the USDA asked Sherrod to resign. The farmer mentioned in the video and his wife later stated that Sherrod had actually helped to save their farm, and after the full video was made public, US Department of Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and US President Barack Obama apologised and Vilsack offered Sherrod a new job with the USDA. However, Sherrod said that she has not decided whether to accept the new position.