WILL THE REAL SHIRLEY SHERROD PLEASE STAND UP

Shirley Sherrod might want to start toning down her indignant rhetoric. Talk of lawsuits coupled with her claims that she thinks Breitbart wants to send black people back to the times of slavery will continue to keep her in the headlines but something tells me she's going to want less of that in the coming days. I also continue to suspect that the White House's knee-jerk reaction to force her to resign may have had less to do with being 'snookered' (NAACP's word) and more to do with what they actually know about Ms. Sherrod.

The background in question has to do with a group Shirley and her husband Charles founded, called New Communities. Tom Blumer at the Washington Examiner has been following this one very closely and has a very interesting update that features an interview with a man named Ron Wilkins, who used to work for the Sherrods. Quoting Wilkins via the Examiner:

Imagine farm workers doing back breaking labor in the sweltering sun, sprayed with pesticides and paid less than minimum wage. Imagine the United Farm Workers called in to defend these laborers against such exploitation by management. Now imagine that the farm workers are black children and adults and that the managers are Shirley Sherrod, her husband Rev. Charles Sherrod, and a host of others. But it’s no illusion; this is fact.

If true, this would mean that all of those oppressed workers the Sherrods allegedly fought for when New Communities joined on to the Pigford v. Vilsack lawsuit were actually mistreated by the Sherrods themselves. As part of the settlement in the Pigford case, each claimant was supposed to receive $50,000. Shirley and Charles received $150,000 each ($300,000 total) as part of the award of $13 million to New Communities.

As Blumer points out, wouldn't it be interesting to know how much of that $13 million went to the farmers that Wilkins speaks about?

This is another story that reminds me of John 12: 1-6

Read Blumer's entire piece.