Shirley Sherrod

Shirley Sherrod who was ousted from her post on the charges of racial misconduct was given a ray of hope as the Agriculture secretary Tom Vilsack said that he would contemplate the department’s decision.

Sherrod whose remarks about not giving help to a white farmer 24 years ago caused the ruckus has said that her words were taken out of context and that she was speaking about learning from her mistakes rather than racism.

The matter had garnered enough importance to reach Obama’s ears and he had supported the decision to oust her but now the mounting pressure from all sides has changed things. Even NAACP has turned around on their earlier stand and is now supporting Sherrod.

The farming family too supports Sherrod and had this to say – “We probably wouldn’t have (our farm) today if it hadn’t been for her leading us in the right direction, I wish she could get her job back because she was good to us, I tell you.”

The clip on BigGovernment.com is said to be edited out of context and has Sherrod saying the following – “I was struggling with the fact that so many black people had lost their farmland, and here I was faced with helping a white person save their land, I didn’t give him the full force of what I could do” and only gave him enough help to keep his case progressing, his situation “opened my eyes” that whites were struggling just like blacks, and helping farmers wasn’t so much about race but was “about the poor versus those who have.”

This 2min 38sec clip has been used as evidence and site’s owner Andrew Breitbart backs his claims.

Vilsack had to retrace his words under the increasingly mounting pressure of support for Sherrod. Sherrod meanwhile had this to say about the trauma of the whole experience – “It hurts me that they didn’t even try to attempt to see what is happening here, they didn’t care,” Sherrod said. “I’m not a racist. … Anyone who knows me knows that I’m for fairness.”