Racism As a Political Weapon

Now that we're into the second year of our "post-racial" administration, we find that racism is coming into much heavier use as a political weapon.  Earlier this year racism burst into the news when three African-American congressman, all Democrats, claimed they were spat upon by an angry crowd of Tea Party protesters. Abusive, derogatory and even racist behavior directed at House Democrats by Tea Party protesters on Saturday left several lawmakers in shock. Preceding the president's speech to a gathering of House Democrats, thousands of protesters descended around the Capitol to protest the passage of health care reform. The gathering quickly turned into abusive heckling, as members of Congress passing through Longworth House office building were subjected to epithets and even mild physical abuse. A staffer for Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.) told reporters that Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.) had been spat on by a protestor. Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), a hero of the civil rights movement, was called a 'ni--er.' And Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) was called a "faggot," as protestors shouted at him with deliberately lisp-y screams. Frank, approached in the halls after the president's speech, shrugged off the incident. But Clyburn was downright incredulous, saying he had not witnessed such treatment since he was leading civil rights protests in South Carolina in the 1960s. At one time this might have been an open and shut case.  The congressmen charged racism, and as expected the mainstream media quickly reported the charges without the slightest shred of skepticism.  End of story?  Not quite.  Times have changed.  We live in the age of YouTube.  Several videos of the congressmen walking through the Tea Party crowd show no evidence of spitting and no audible racial epithets.  Tea Partiers disputed the accusations, and demanded the congressmen prove them.  Surely, somebody would have made a recording that could back them up, you would think, but no such video or audio corroboration has surfaced, even after Andrew Breitbart offered $100,000 if anybody could produce it. It was March 20, near the end of the bitter health care debate, when Reps. John Lewis, Andre Carson and Emanuel Cleaver say that some demonstrators, many of them tea party activists, yelled the N-word as the congressmen walked from House office buildings to the Capitol. Stung by the charges of racism, conservatives and tea party activists insist it never happened. And one of them is offering big money if anyone can prove it did. With so many media and citizen cameras at the demonstration, any epithets would have been caught on tape, says Andrew Breitbart. He's the web entrepreneur who released the video of ACORN workers counseling actors posing as a pimp and prostitute, and has pledged $100,000 to the United Negro College Fund if anyone provides proof of the epithets. "It didn't happen," said Breitbart, who wasn't there. "This is 2010. Even a racist is media-savvy enough not to yell the N-word." So the hundred grand is still on the table.  Meanwhile, the legacy media continues with the occasional drive-by slurs.  References to the congressmen's accusations pop up in stories that mention Tea Parties.  Old media treat it as established fact.  The new media push back. Andrew Breitbart is the Internet media entrepreneur and proprietor of Big Government, Big Hollywood, and Big Journalism. Breitbart and his team doggedly pursued the story behind the allegations of Reps. Andre Carson, John Lewis. Emanuel Cleaver and James Clyburn that Tea Party protesters abused black congressmen with racial epithets while demonstrating against Obamacare on Capitol Hill on March 20. The story was reported as fact by news organizations including Fox News and McClatchy News, but Breitbart called baloney and exposed it as a concoction of the congressmen who peddled it. One can say this with something approaching metaphysical certainty because of the utter lack of evidence supporting it under circumstances where there would have been such evidence had it happened as alleged. The key to the case was Breitbart's offer of a $100,000 reward to anyone producing video of the epithets being shouted. There were no takers because it didn't happen. Andrew Breitbart is at it again.  What set him off this time is when the NAACP decided it ought to adopt a resolution condemning racist elements within the Tea Party.  Breitbart countered that they would do better to pass a resolution condemning racism within the NAACP.  He would be more than happy to provide them with video to prove it exists. The NAACP and the Congressional Black Caucus do not want racial harmony. They want political victory, and the race card is their Stradivarius. [...] And by bringing up race, and demanding a zero tolerance of racism, the left, and the NAACP in particular, has opened itself up for scrutiny. We are in possession of a video from in which Shirley Sherrod, USDA Georgia Director of Rural Development, speaks at the NAACP Freedom Fund dinner in Georgia. In her meandering speech to what appears to be an all-black audience, this federally appointed executive bureaucrat lays out in stark detail, that her federal duties are managed through the prism of race and class distinctions. True to his word, Breitbart produced a video of Shirley Sherrod, an African-American official in the Agriculture Department, director of Rural Development in Georgia.  She is speaking to an NAACP audience.

"He had to come to me for help. What he didn't know while he was taking all that time trying to show me he was superior to me was I was trying to decide just how much help I was going to give him," she said. "I was struggling with the fact that so many black people have lost their farmland and here I was faced with having to help a white person save their land -- so I didn't give him the full force of what I could do. I did enough." Shirley Sherrod resigned.

Comments

[PJ Smith]

Tom, your usual great job with the first half of the story. If you've been watching Fox, by now you know how this story turned around. It's going to bite someone. I hope it's not Breitbart. It could even bite Obama, but Shirley Sherrod comes out looking victimized by everyone.

I'll leave it to you to tell the rest of the tale. You'll do a better job than I could.