SALON

Sunday, Jul 25, 2010 4:25 AM UTC

Does Obama need more black people around him?

Post-Sherrod, Jim Clyburn says yes. I say he needs more people who know civil rights lessons, whatever their race

By

Topics: Shirley Sherrod, Race,

Does Obama need more black people around him?Shirley Sherrod answers questions during an interview at her home on Friday, July 23, 2010 in Albany, Ga. Sherrod was fired from her job at the Agriculture Department amid accusations of racism. (AP Photo/Steve Cannon)(Credit: AP)

I’m on CNN’s “Reliable Sources” at 8 am ET Sunday, to talk about the smearing of Shirley Sherrod. Since it’s a show about media, I’m going to try to keep my observations in that realm. I’m disgusted by the way, even in disgrace, Fox News and Andrew Breitbart have managed to change the subject from their own corruption and lie-spewing, to the admittedly lame over-reaction by the NAACP and the Obama administration. This is mainly a media story.

But when it comes to the Sherrods, it’s hard to detach my deep sadness about American politics from my disgust at the media. (You can watch my discussion at both on MSNBC’s “The Ed Show” at the end of this post.) I’d like to get a few observations about politics out of my system, letting me focus on media tomorrow morning.

I have found myself saying to many people this week, black and white people, that I’m surprised President Obama didn’t have someone close to him who recognized the Sherrod name right away, especially in the context of Georgia – at least the name of Shirley’s husband, Charles, a major figure in the civil rights movement, if not Shirley herself, a long-time civil rights and agricultural reform leader.

But I was sad to read Maureen Dowd’s column in the New York Times tonight, even though she seems to agree with me. Dowd, who pretends to be liberal, needles Obama in her column by suggesting that Bill Clinton would have known the Sherrods, and thus would have acted more responsibly.

Let me just point to a couple of ways Dowd is wrong – morally wrong. I’m not sure about factually.

First of all, Dowd has savaged Bill Clinton at every opportunity since early in his presidency. She never missed an chance to trash Hillary Clinton in the 2008 primaries. She wasn’t terribly kind to Obama, either, naming him “Obambi” and regularly questioning his manhood, but there’s no doubt the Clintons drew the worst of her venom. So to see Dowd use Bill Clinton’s racial bona fides to attack our first black president just shows what Obama is up against. Even supposed “liberals” are gunning for him now, and they’re shooting garbage.

But Dowd’s column also reminds me why I thought it was so wrong for so many Democrats to tar the Clintons as racist in 2008. She quotes South Carolina Rep. James Clyburn, perhaps the first major Obama supporter to accuse the Clintons of playing the so-called race card, excoriating Obama and his administration for not knowing about the Sherrods. “He needs some black people around him.”

Wow. With all due respect, Rep. Clyburn, I’d like to urge you to edit your statement to Dowd. I think perhaps you meant to say that Obama needs “some people around him” who know the heroes and the lessons of the civil rights movement, whatever their race. I would argue that the most important moral heroes in this story, behind the Sherrods, are Roger and Eloise Spooner, the white farm couple Shirley Sherrod told her story about — ultimately she helped them save their farm — and they came forward to tell CNN about it. When I called Taylor Branch, the great historian of the civil rights movement, he told me he knew immediately who Sherrod was when he heard the news: “I said, ‘Oh my God, it’s Shirley Sherrod?’ She is such a gem, and he [Charles] is such a gem,” and Branch spoke from memory about the bravery and importance of both of them. Branch is also white.

It’s clear that there are white people who know and honor the Sherrods’ work, and black people who apparently don’t. Why go to race, Rep. Clyburn, when it’s a black president whose administration disrespected these fine black people?

Also: And why go to Maureen Dowd, who never misses a chance to cheap-shot a Democratic president? Even if, to do so, she has to champion the one she’s cheap-shotted the most, Bill Clinton. There are a lot of political lessons for Democrats in the Sherrod scandal, but I’ll try to keep my focus on the media on Sunday.

Here’s the MSNBC video:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

 

 

 

Joan Walsh

Joan Walsh is Salon's editor at large and the author of "What's the Matter With White People: Finding Our Way in the Next America." More Joan Walsh.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 102 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: Chekhov's story mirrors Russia's own

Recommendations