Memo To Feodor

I ran across the following quote from Shirley Sherrod, whose dismissal by Pres. Obama was among his most disgusting moments as President. Set up as that most elusive of creatures, a "reverse racist", through the judicial use of simple editing equipment, Obama fell for the bait, only to discover with the rest of the country, that she and the people she supposedly dissed in her speech, are larger and more magnanimous (in the original, Aristotelian sense of "great souled") than many a political appointee to come down the pike in the while.

Is this "anecdotal evidence"? Why, sure it is. It is used, however, to make a point.

The entire post I wrote below, writing about my own sense that the liberal tendency to hyperventilate about the Tea Party is overblown nonsense, was guided not by anything other than looking at what the Tea Party is, what its political positions are, and what it is working for. The "racist" label, tossed around so easily, not only makes it easy to dismiss them; it also makes those who toss it feel good about themselves. What happens, however, when we encounter someone who just adamantly refuses to surrender to the easy path of we virtuous versus those ugly racist hicks, whether they're from Tioga County, New York or the country outside Albany, Georgia?

I say, we set aside our desire to be both right and good, and listen carefully. But then again, I know that sounds just like a white guy, huh? Me and Shirley Sherrod . . .

Sherrod is taking Ben Jealous and some colleagues from the NAACP on a tour of her home county in Georgia.

She took them to a cooperative for rural black women that she helped organize, where the women shell pecans and make candy, and to an old school that has been converted into a community center and commercial kitchen for local residents.

“She was always there for the farmers,” said Cornelius Key, a peanut and soybean farmer who met the group. “She helped us set up markets with Whole Foods and other stores.”

As the tour neared its end, Sherrod took Jealous and the others past a 1,664 acre plantation on the edge of Albany called Cypress Pond. “It’s just beautiful,” she said. Her family and the others who invested in the New Communities cooperative that sued the federal government have placed a bid on the land and want to turn it into a modern version of their old project.

“Today, this land will belong to black people, white people, poor people,” Sherrod said. “Anyone who is a part of us. It belongs to us.”(emphasis added)

"Anyone who is a part of us," she said. Anyone.

Anyone.

It would be nice if more liberals felt that way, and acted on it, than decided it was far better to show the world how much better "we" are than "they" are.