The problem is that Breitbart knowingly (if he truly did not know the whole video, he’s a terrible journalist) posted a snippet of video out of context to pillory a woman to make political points at the expense of race relations in this country.
If, as he says, the reason he posted was to show the audience’s reaction, he’s a liar there as well, because the audience reaction is taken out of context as well since we did not hear their very positive response at the end to the redemptive message given.
Of course there will be negative crowd response at a meeting of people who have been discriminated against, the woman herself had her father shot by a white man who a jury refused to convict. But the video in its entirety shows Sherrod bringing the audience forward into a better realization of the racial situation in America.
And she’s right, it isn’t race, it’s class. Poor sucks regardless of the color, and poor whites and blacks are fertile ground for racist hate speech from both sides blaming others for the problems that exist.
Misrepresenting the truth is wrong, professionally and ethically. Breitbart should at the absolute minimum apologize for the damage he has done.
Maybe, just maybe if this causes people to discuss race in intelligent ways it might have been worth it. But even a broken clock is correct a couple of times a day. Fearmongering pandering muckraking right-wing blowhards have done nothing for this country but hurt it to score cheap political points.
Everyone is oversensitive about race, and this crap does nothing to help. We both know that if the woman did not leave her post immediately and the charges were substantiated the press (led by Faux News) would have had a field day with it. Look at Rev. Wright and what was made of his (admittedly dumb, but not untrue – the tuskegee experiment did happen, one of the things Wright condemned America from the pulpit for) connection to the President.
So we have an environment where the idiots on both sides are grasping at everything they can find to discredit the other side.
At best, Breitbart is a hypocrite, doing the equivalent of posting one racist protester’s poster out of an entire teabagger (screw them, where were they during the Bush the lesser years) rally to tar the group. At worst he is a pandering race-baiting idiot who is fomenting race war because he wants to be important.
If you know anything about farm loans and recent history, you know Black farmers got prejudiced against, and that settlement has been held up by the GOP for ages. Systemic RACISM currently exists in banks to this day as demonstrated in their lending policies.
This country needs to have an honest discussion about race. Hopefully this idiot may create the environment where thinking people say “enough is enough” and sit down and discuss this problem as passengers on the same ship of destiny.