burying the pigford under a blanket of smears
Yesterday I speculated that Shirley Sherrod, far from being just a random attempted “gotcha!”, was specifically targeted by the right wing for who she is. Married to Charles Sherrod, one of the SNCC organizers of the Albany Project, a Civil Rights activist herself, and both of them party to the recently settled – but not funded – Pigford case, a long-running court case involving the USDA and Black farmers. For all the bellowing about the tape of her “racist” speech to the NAACP, it’s the last that seemed to send the Right into total freakout territory, judging from the Google results.
Well, it seems I was not the only one thinking along those lines. Rachel Slajda (TPM) does some reporting today: The Real Anti-Sherrod Agenda: Stopping The USDA Race Case
It’s also important to understand that Andrew Breitbart’s timing of the release of the grossly distorted video of Sherrod, which he admits having had for weeks, may not be entirely random. Congress will soon vote on whether to fund part of a settlement between the USDA and African-American farmers who faced acknowledged discrimination — farmers like Sherrod and her husband used to be. It’s a tiny piece of the upcoming war supplemental bill.
The USDA settlements with African-American farmers are a longtime bête noire of the right, which they deem a giveaway to a core Democratic constituency. It’s not clear whether Brietbart’s release of the video was specifically intended to hurt the chances of other African-America farmers to receive recompense from decades of discrimination that caused them to lose their farms, but conservatives immediately used the video to attack the settlement. The discrimination claims, known globally as the Pigford settlement, is the elephant in the room, so here’s the background.
[...]
According to multiple sources that TPMmuckraker has not independently confirmed, Sherrod and her husband, Charles, were two of only 170 plaintiffs that chose Track B. Vilsack acknowledged in his press conference that Sherrod was a claimant in the Pigford settlement.
Earlier this year, Sherrod’s story was featured as part of the Fort Valley State University’s Middle Georgia Oral History Project. Her story describes her view of the incidents leading up to the end of her case before the Pigford v. Vilsack arbitrator.
[...]
Harry Reid’s spokesman, Jim Manley, said it “remains unclear” whether the bill could pass with the settlement attached. The money was also included in the unemployment insurance extension; but the Pigford settlement, and other funds, had to be stripped in order to break a filibuster.
Conservatives immediately jumped on the Sherrod video — issued by Breitbart in the wake of Reid’s promise to bring the war supplemental (including the Pigford settlement money) to a vote — to condemn the Pigford case.
Rep. Steve King (R-IA), for example, tweeted immediately on Tuesday morning, after the Sherrod case hit the news, that many Pigford claims amount to fraud:
Shirley Sharrod fired by Vilsack 4 racism in her USDA position. America needs to know that, not all, but billion$ of Pigford Farms is fraud.
Sherrod gave the speech in March, Breitbart reportedly got the edited video in April, so whatever it was meant for, it was not recorded in retaliation to the NAACP press release of July 13, asking the Tea Party to repudiate the racists in their midst.
Nanette is | Topic: Living History, stuff | Tags: Charles Sherrod, Pigford Case, Shirley Sherrod, USDA
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