"Shirley Sherrod’s True Revelation"

[bobbolink]

Shirley Sherrod’s True Revelation
by Valerie Elverton Dixon 07-22-2010

The controversy over the injustice done to Shirley Sherrod, the African-American woman whose comments on race were taken out of context, misreported, and who was fired from her job at the U.S. Department of Agriculture does not capture the essence of her personal journey. While we focus on the media and the craven haste of her dismissal, her testimony fades into the background. Shirley Sherrod’s testimony is that she came to realize that the major problem in the United States is not race, but class.

~~snip~~

One day a white farmer came to her office for help. She says he came with an attitude of superiority that was off-putting. She decided to put him in touch with a white lawyer she thought could help him. When she learned that the white lawyer refused to do all he could to help the man save his farm, she called everyone she knew who could help the man. In the end, she was successful and the man was able to keep his farm.

The episode was a revelation to her. She realized that: “It’s about the poor vs. those who have. It opened my eyes.” In her speech she goes on to recall the history of race in America. There was once a time when both blacks and whites worked as indentured servants. The moment slavery for life was instituted only for blacks, the racial divide was established and has haunted this country from that day to this. Shirley Sherrod’s revelation is that this racial divide serves the elite. The rich get richer, and the rest fight over the scraps and race.

At the end of Martin Luther King Jr.’s life, he was in the midst of organizing a Poor People’s March on Washington. He had come to recognize that poor people of every race were suffering the same injustices and living economically marginal lives. It is time to begin again where King ended and refuse to let race divide us as we work for economic justice in the United States and in the world.

Dr. Valerie Elverton Dixon is an independent scholar who publishes lectures and essays at JustPeaceTheory.com. She received her PhD in religion and society from Temple University and taught Christian ethics at United Theological Seminary and Andover Newton Theological School.

http://blog.sojo.net/2010/07/22/shirley-sherrods-true-revelation/

[Poboy]

1. This needs to be talked about!

I agree, this is the most important point that no one has mentioned.

k&r

[bobbolink]

6. the resistance to discussing this (and more importantly, *fighting* it!) is HUGE.

And that includes among "progressives".

Ignoring it leads to stuff like this:

[scarletwoman]

2. Excellent find! This can't be emphasized enough!

Shirley Sherrod’s testimony is that she came to realize that the major problem in the United States is not race, but class.

<snip>

Shirley Sherrod’s revelation is that this racial divide serves the elite. The rich get richer, and the rest fight over the scraps and race.

Exactly!

[bobbolink]

4. Race is very important, and needs to be swept *out* from under the rug, but this issue is much more

divisive, and is almost totally ignored.

I have been watching movies about the Suffragettes, and how long it took to overcome the resistance to women's rights.

I can't bear to think how long it will take to overcome the class divide! :cry:

and, please also see this...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x8798890

[proud2BlibKansan]

3. Shirley speaks for me. I've been preaching this for decades.

When I was a rookie teaching in a school that was 100% African American, I often sought the advice of one of my elders who was an African American. Her room was right across the hall from mine. One day two of my kids were fussing at each other in class and I told this teacher about it and said I didn't understand what had caused the disagreement, and I asked what she thought. I was actually trying to figure out how to prevent it from happening again but she thought I was asking her to explain a cultural difference.

I'll never forget it. She looked at me and said "You know, I have more in common with you and your culture than I do with these kids." She went on to explain that the kids we taught came from a different culture than we did because they were poor. I was young and naive and had never until that moment considered that economics created social classes that had stronger bonds than race.

It was a powerful lesson that I will never forget.

[Jennicut]

5. I went through that too when I worked with kids in a group home.

Many had been neglected and abused and grew up very, very poor. I came from a middle class background and grew up in a wealthy town in Connecticut. These kids came from the cities in CT. They were white, black and hispanic. They all had something in common...they grew up with so much less. They were operating on pure survival and there were hardly any racial conflicts between the kids. Like you, I won't forget those kids and it has been 10 years.

[bobbolink]

8. Interesting that in that context, race didn't seem to matter so much.

Reminds me of Maslow's Heirarchy of Needs:



If you don't have the necessities, the rest is very hard to come by!

[Jennicut]

10. The kids I worked with barely had the basic needs before they came to live at the

group home. They barely had clothes or food.

[bobbolink]

24. That is so terribly sad... but mostly just WRONG.

I'm at a loss for words that this is the case in the richest country in the world.

We badly need some high-profile people shining a big light on all of this!

[bobbolink]

15. What a brilliant teacher.... very insightful.

How fortunate you met her when you did.

I have been pondering this... just how much of a visionary this teacher was. Teachers are just awesome! I think its that love of vulnerable people....it opens eyes.

[lunatica]

7. It doesn't matter what color you are when you're poor

The white lawyer mistreated the farmer because he was poor. That was what opened her eyes. The lawyer treated the white farmer just like he treated poor black farmers. As inferior beings.

And that goes all the way to the top. In this country poverty is a mortal sin.

[bobbolink]

9. "In this country poverty is a mortal sin." Excellent!

That would make a GREAT bumpersticker... maybe I quote you?

:applause:

[lunatica]

11. You can quote me.

Gosh :blush:

[bobbolink]

12. Thank you, and here's a gift for the use of your words.

My fave quote of all time... I posted it in another thread, and it belongs here, too:

The Gift of the Poor
The people with the best sense of what is essential to a community, of what gives and maintains its spirit, are often doing very humble, manual tasks. It is often the poorest person - the one who has a handicap or who is ill or old - who is the most prophetic. People who carry responsibility must be close to them and know what they think, because it is often they who are free enough to see with the greatest clarity the needs, beauty and pain of the community.
- Jean Vanier, Community and Growth, p. 262

[misanthrope]

13. It will never be addressed in this nation because...

...the United States' culture is intrinsically based upon stepping on others to "lift" yourself into positions of higher prestige. The demonization of the poor is a central ethos of America.

[bobbolink]

14. People said the same thing about all the civil rights issues of the past.

As long as you believe it won't be overcome, and don't join in any effort to change the situation, you will be proved right.

[surrealAmerican]

29. That, and the fact that we live in denial about the existence ...

... of a rigid class system.

The vast majority of Americans, both rich and poor, if asked will say they are "middle class".

[bobbolink]

30. What are we doing to convert that denial?

????

[pinboy3niner]

16. Dr. Valerie Elverton Dixon nails it!

Social justice is a constant, uphill struggle. And people like Shirley Sherrod are an inspiration.

[bobbolink]

18. You got it... we mistakenly believed that we made progress during LBJ, so we slacked off.

Economic justice *is* a constant struggle, but it is one that "progressives" aren't willing to commit to.

[mrcheerful]

17. The problem is every since Nixon used the code words Law and Order then plotted a southern

strategy that basically told whites that the evil criminal black man was coming to take their stuff but he Nixon would stand tall and stop the evil hoards of criminal black people by locking them away in prison it worked not only in the south but by 1979 northerners were fearing the same evil black hoards. Then along came Reagan and welfare queens that were eating up the hard working white mans tax dollars and even worse the black hoards were taking the white mans jobs with the help of the liberal Democrats and their evil affirmative action laws.

Before Reagan told these nit wit racist assholes that tax dollars were theirs most Americans knew their tax dollars were pooled together to help provide Americans less fortunate then themselves a safety net so they could provide a roof over their families heads and food on their tables. Another thing Americans knew was it was better for the rich to pay high taxes then have their own taxes rise. But Reagan told them that wealth trickled down from the top and in order for more money to trickle down, the rich needed to pay less taxes, besides, through Reagans wonderful trickle down economics soon the working stiffs would need those tax cuts to protect their wealth that they earned from their hard work.

Reagan didn't do this alone, he had the fundies spreading the big lie to their congregations, really the leaders promised them it was God's plan for them to have that wealth all they had to do was keep their faith in God and Reagan and spread the word to non believers. Only the faithful were played for suckers, all their efforts did was provide more wealth to the likes of Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell, who had very limited success until they worked out a deal with the republicons then they were able to build their mega churches or worse case we saw was the Bakers and their million dollar dog house.

So today we find ourselves supporting a center right Democratic president who just happens to be a black man, the racist's biggest fear realized, surely this is a sign of the end times. So the racist's have picked up the don't thread on me flag believing they are fighting to take back the country from the scary evil black man and even though it hasn't been said in media, yet, what they are really thinking is everything Obama has done will only turn out good for the non white people they are searching for proof because the birther ideal failed even though they still know Obama is hiding his birth country but because of the so called liberal media who are experts at distorting truth tore the birther ideals to shreds.

The racism has been there all this time hiding below the radar, the same racism that caused white police to sic their dogs on peaceful civil rights marchers, who in the 50's caused the president to send the NG to a school in the south to prevent black children from being lynched from the schools flag pole. Frightened people are easy to control and will always vote against their own interests just to keep brown people from getting the same life style they the white man enjoy because brown people having the same rights and power as the white man is just to scary.

[BurtWorm]

19. There is no doubt that classism is behind all the other isms.

No doubt that Shirley Sherrod saw this. No doubt that this needs to be seen and discussed and struggled with and eventually--the sooner the better--solved somehow.

I would only say that Sherrod was attacked because of her race, not because of her class, which is by now firmly middle and professional. The rush to judge her within the administration was motivated by race, not class, by a desire to placate, not the wealthy but the white on the right (as well as the weak-willed NAACP), so as not to be seen to coddle "reverse racism."

Yes, class is important, but don't downplay racism here. Racism is what's going on.

[bobbolink]

20. It doesn't matter what anyone else says, it doesn't matter how many quotations you see from other

sources---including Ms. Sherrod herself---you are determined to downplay the class issue and insist that it is about race.

I see that, and understand that is where you are, so there is no use of any further "debate" with you.

[BurtWorm]

22. Shirley Sherrod was not persecuted because of her class.

You're beginning to sound like a one-trick pony.

[Orsino]

21. It was an attack on Obama and the Dems...

...but it was also a distraction from our deep class divides.

Win-win for the Right.

[bobbolink]

23. But, that class divide distraction will be ignored by "progressives".

We simply don't want to acknowledge it in any form.

[QC]

27. Yes, the cluelessness about class among self-styled "progressives" is epic. See example below:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&client=firefox-a&hs=SR9&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&channel=s&q=toothless+redneck+site%3Ademocraticunderground.com&cts=1279934561352&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=

[bobbolink]

28. The fact that "it" is still there says it all.

:(

[Fuzz]

25. The right wing hates the underclass just as much as minorities.

[bobbolink]

26. More, I think. It is the deeper issue.

And certainly one issue not likely to be dealt with any time soon.

[Karenina]

31. Actually her TRUE REVELATION is what a cesspool of white supremacy

the USDA is and HAS BEEN for at least the half century I've been aware of it. It's absolutely HILARIOUS that their first high profile public firing for "racism" falls on Shirley's head. The decades of work she did to get to where she was will be put under a microscope and spun and spun and spun. DO NOT TAKE THEIR OFFER GIRLFRIEND!!! Sure as shootin' they'll LYNCH YOU AGAIN.