Shirley Sherrod, the Media and Conservative Fantasies

[babylonsister]

http://www.theroot.com/views/shirley-sherrod-media-and-conservative-fantasies?hpid=topnews

Shirley Sherrod, the Media and Conservative Fantasies

For right-wingers who seek to prove that black people are angry and racist, the now-famous videotape seemed like a dream come true. Unfortunately, the news media pretended it was journalism.

* By: Joel Dreyfuss | Posted: July 21, 2010 at 10:23 PM


The best thing that could come out of the injustice done to Shirley Sherrod is a warning to America of the explosive danger of allowing a volatile topic like race to be driven by proto-journalists with political agendas in a news ecosystem that has no quality filters or brakes.

snip//

Those of us who started out covering race as young reporters in the late 1960s and early 1970s learned quickly how volatile the issue could be. We had to tread our way through competing interests and competing motives -- and sometimes dodge bottles, tear gas and police nightsticks. We had to fend off editors who wanted to apply their own biases to the stories and who looked for signs that we were too sympathetic to the victims of racism, especially when we were also members of minority groups.

Today the racial story is not so clear-cut. In the face of obvious progress, white Americans have grown impatient with complaints of racism. As polls show, the majority of whites no longer believe that racism is a major issue. For some conservatives, racism is simply a political weapon used by blacks to leverage power.

Breitbart's work attempts to fulfill a particularly virulent conservative fantasy: that black people are just as racist as whites, that they secretly harbor hatred for whites and are prepared to take revenge. It is a recurring theme in commentaries on the Fox News Network and the conservative blogs. These white anxieties have escalated as African Americans acquired real power -- culminating in Barack Obama inside the White House. Now black people can do more than just talk about racism -- they can do something about it.

That's why Glenn Beck calls President Obama a racist. He must be, right? Ultimately, the Sherrod scenario presented by Breitbart was a dream fulfilled for the right. Here was a black bureaucrat admitting to secretly taking revenge on a white man, and a roomful of NAACP members nodding in agreement with her. Since Breitbart couldn't actually find the damning footage, he just made it up. Apparently, there was no one at Fox News who could say, "Let's wait a minute; does this sound like the NAACP, or someone who has worked in the government for 25 years? And why does Breitbart want us to run this?" The important issue is why no one asked those questions before forever disrupting the life of Shirley Sherrod.

[Bitwit1234]

1. CNN has the most misleading headline

It says Rush slams Fox News. When you get to the article it boils down to the fact that he is blaming the Democrats for the controversy over Sherrod. He says the Democrats are so outrageous they forced Fox to pull a tape that told just how black people are...or something to that effect. I was so mad I didn't really read it I skimmed it. It is on the ticker

www.cnn.com when you get to the front page scroll down to ticker where is says rush slams fox news click on and read the article. I'm not going to.

[babylonsister]

2. Guess what, Bitwit1234. Anything coming from faux or rush

isn't worth even reading. I stick with Media Matters; they tell me what asses these folks are, and can be fact-checked.

:hi:

[Zoeisright]

3. Yep, repukes are fixated on projection and fear.

They project their own truly vile behaviors and beliefs on others, then they run scared because they know they're a bunch of fucking cowards.