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Ummm…because I can?

You know, I might be the first person who ever digitally altered someone’s race.

I drove an early photo manipulation workstation in the mid Eighties, several years before Photoshop existed. We were doing this primitive computer simulation/game that involved lots of static head shots of various characters. It was a training thing. We had just finished, when it dawned on some clever sod that there weren’t any persons of color in it.

So, I took one of the characters — the one my boss had modeled for, as it happened — and made him a brother. It was a perfectly harmless bit of illustration. He looked handsomer in color, if I do say so myself.

Management was -=HORRIFIED=- when they saw it. They could quite put their finger on what was wrong about it, but they made me erase it on the spot and gave me to understand I’d done a Very Bad Thing and Must Never Tell Anyone.

Anyhow, a funny thing happened on the way to the national conversation on race we were supposed to be having…

So, I confess, I’m far too lazy to go listen to Part Two of the Shirley Sharrod/NAACP speech that was supposed to exonerate her and leave egg all over Breitbart’s face.

Because, frankly, I’m having a hell of a time imagining anything she could have said in Part Two that would get her off the hook for Part One. Except, maybe, “Oh my god, I was such an asshole, those things I was saying a few minutes ago…”

Did anybody listen to the whole thing?

Comments


Comment from Allen
Time: July 21, 2010, 11:13 pm

Yeah, I did, Weasel. As I suspected from the beginning there was more to this. Here’s my boiled down version through my NC filter.

The cast:
Shit scared white farmer, with attitude, who finds himself asking a black woman for help.

Black woman, who has been screwed over a time or two herself.

White man: “You pay attention to me now girl, I need some help.”
Black woman: To herself ‘he can kiss my black ass.’
Black woman: “I can only do so much” (screw you, cracker.)
White man: “I’m really being screwed by the the man.”
Black woman: “That’s different, we’re all gettin’ screwed by the rich man, I’ll help.”

That’s about it.


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: July 21, 2010, 11:30 pm

So race warrior discovers she’s even more of a class warrior.

It’s the language that bothers me. “One of his own kind” indeed.


Comment from Allen
Time: July 22, 2010, 12:13 am

I suppose some people think playing the tape recorder from the past is some kind of conversation about race.

The best thing I ever heard about this kind of the thing, from a friend’s grandfather. He was the biggest landowner, owned the local bank, and the local John Deere dealership in Smithfield-Selma NC.

When asked: “Boy, I measure a man’s character on his ability to re-pay a loan.” He was a hoot, he used to throw M-80’s at the Kluckers when they would do a march.


Comment from Spad13
Time: July 22, 2010, 1:34 am

I have one thing to say about the people who scream about “context”. Does this maen Trent Lott gets his job back?


Comment from EZnSF
Time: July 22, 2010, 1:36 am

So much for the promised transcendence of race that was supposed to occur.

It’s time to party like it’s 1962!

Lizzy, Queen of the Aboriginals?

(Can we say the word Aboriginals? or is that a no word? She looks Aboriginal.)


Comment from EZnSF
Time: July 22, 2010, 1:38 am

Nope. Wiki says the proper terminology is ‘Aboriginal Australians’.

Quote: The use of “Aborigine(s)” or “Aboriginal(s)” in this sense, i.e. as a noun, has acquired negative, even derogatory connotations.

The new term is much better.


Comment from Pavel
Time: July 22, 2010, 2:42 am

Thread winner to Spad13.

Answer: no.


Comment from Scubafreak
Time: July 22, 2010, 4:26 am

I swear, some people have such a NEGATIVE view of Obama…..

http://drudgereport.com/rm.jpg

😉


Comment from David Gillies
Time: July 22, 2010, 1:21 pm

I think she got mugged. And I say that as a huge Breitbart fan. If you listen to the whole thing, gist of it goes: “I was prejudiced against this guy because he was white and I was black. So I helped him, but not to the full extent of my abilities. Then I discovered he was actually an OK guy. I became friends with him and his family.”

She might in most other respects be a dreadful Marxist harridan, and so her ouster is a tactical victory, but in all fairness I don’t think it was merited here. Otherwise there is no path to redemption for any of us who have ever, in ignorance or spite, expressed a bigoted opinion. I’m a very different person from my ten year old, upper middle class, privately educated former self, and I wish I could un-say some of the things I said. Not only does one have to be able to change, one has to be able to do so in the knowledge that others will take your attempts to do so in good faith.

I was never really down on Robert ‘Exalted Cyclops’ Byrd for being a vile racist back in his past. I think he was genuinely contrite. What I hated about him was the way every penny-ante public construction in West Virginia had his goddamn name on it. Racism is bad, m’kay? But squandering the public’s money on pork barrel crap and sticking your monicker on it is bad too.


Comment from steve
Time: July 22, 2010, 2:43 pm

OK….

Stoaty does irreverant photoshops of her maj, as clearly demonstrated, above….

And then she wonders why the loyal subjects keep flunking her in her drivers’ tests…..


Comment from porknbean
Time: July 22, 2010, 3:39 pm

Actually, the rest of the tape, from the NAACP website seems to be worse as it goes along. Very class warfare and partisan, to put it lightly. RACIST!!

I’m thinking Breitbart was set up. Look how fast they canned her and look how fast the ‘Savior’ came to her rescue when ‘the rest’ of the tape magically appeared. From whom?

Oh, and wasn’t she in that position to begin with due to the Pigford vs. USDA, suit?

Full video here -> http://www.marklevinshow.com/Article.asp?id=1885066&spid=32364


Comment from porknbean
Time: July 22, 2010, 3:44 pm

More on connections between Shirley, Pigford, and her convenient position at the USDA.

http://tinyurl.com/26tubhj

An announcement of Ms. Sherrod’s July 2009 appointment to her USDA position at ruraldevelopment.org gives off quite a few clues:

RDLN Graduate and Board Vice Chair Shirley Sherrod was appointed Georgia Director for Rural Development by Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack on July 25. Only days earlier, she learned that New Communities, a group she founded with her husband and other families (see below) has won a thirteen million dollar settlement in the minority farmers law suit Pigford vs Vilsack.

What?


Comment from David Gillies
Time: July 22, 2010, 4:44 pm

Oh yeah, porknbean, this was definitely a false flag operation designed to damage Breitbart. Doesn’t look to have worked in that regard.


Comment from porknbean
Time: July 22, 2010, 5:04 pm

….to damage Breitbart….

And to distract from everything else the NAACP is doing/connected to, the congress, and Barry’s hand in all the corruption/protection of said group/connections.


Comment from Mantesdoca
Time: July 22, 2010, 6:24 pm

Frankly, I don’t care one way or the other. Breitbart’s doing the Lord’s work.

Plus, don’t Photoshop the Queen. Some things are sacred, and the Queen definitely is. Also, how’s them chickens doing after the high winds?


Comment from Scubafreak
Time: July 22, 2010, 6:49 pm

I agree with Ann Coulter. Breitbart needs to reveal the source on this one, since they apparently were NOT acting in good faith…


Comment from Steve Skubinna
Time: July 22, 2010, 6:53 pm

Yeah, fine, she ends her speech with an “And I was wrong, we lumpenproletariat need to stand together even if some are honkies” line. That does NOT absolve the racists in the NAACP audience laughing and murmuring with approval as she describes giving this poor schmuck less assistance than she could have, and fobbing him off on “one of his own kind.”

That’s the real bust. Maybe now these assholes will figure out the race card works both ways, if they find themselves hoist on that petard.


Comment from Scubafreak
Time: July 22, 2010, 7:42 pm

Meh. I was hoping for at least ONE good chuckle from the Obama post…… 🙁


Comment from ChicagoJedi
Time: July 22, 2010, 8:15 pm

Here’s the synopsis of the long version: racist black lady is still racist but thinks class warfare is far more important than her racial prejudices. The end. And the NAACP crowd laughing at how she screwed over the white farmer before ever hearing how she changed her mind was the whole point. Oh, and Shirley Sherrod is a race hustler… http://tinyurl.com/28lzvp9


Comment from Rich Rostrom
Time: July 22, 2010, 8:35 pm

Ed Morrissey, Jonah Goldberg, and Charles Krauthammer all viewed the whole tape and said she should get her job back.

Morrissey added that he disagrees with her politics, and thinks she should not have been appointed in the first place – but this was a frame-up and a railroad.

False flag? Idunno. Breitbart has been damaged. The left was already claiming that the ACORN videos were sliced-n-diced; now they have “confirmation”. (Though in fact the Sherrod video was hacked by whoever sent it to Breitbart; he posted the entire video as supplied, and now has posted the unedited video.) Breitbart got burned and should have known better. When something is “too good to be true”, it almost certainly isn’t true.

There is collateral damage to the Obamacrats. Obviously they panicked and threw an innocent underling under the bus. No matter what they claim about the right-wing lynch mob, they’re the ones who acted.

There may also be some collateral benefit: both media and the public have been made aware of how easily recordings can be edited and statements taken out of context.


Comment from Mrs. Compton
Time: July 22, 2010, 9:13 pm

I was so happy being in countries where I didn’t speak the language and therefore received no news. And I was even more thankful for the lack of internet connection. Tho I did miss ya’ll.


Comment from Uncle Badger
Time: July 22, 2010, 10:55 pm

Scubafreak – Obama is like a German joke. No laughing matter…


Comment from Skandia
Time: July 22, 2010, 11:34 pm

I was just watching the Fox panel give their opinions on this tragic tale of woe and I just couldn’t stop laughing. If you believe the tale of enlightenment, and redemption you’re being played for suckers.

The President was invisible until after the dust settled, the conservative media was gullible, and an army of internet trolls, mobies, apologists, and enablers was unleashed to create a story line that white conservative media members of the ruling class could swallow.

It was the funniest 36 hours, and the most fun two days of my life.


Comment from BK
Time: July 24, 2010, 12:37 am

Breitbart is my hero. The woman’s a racist, probably a Marxist and has said Breitbart wants to return to slavery days. Jonah Goldberg says she owes Breitbart an apology and he’s right. The bigger story is (more) evidence of the racism of the NAACP on display in the video. Now we get our president telling us all to look inward in the aftermath of this fiasco. Cuz we all have “biases” don’t ya know.

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