Yesterday, video was released of Georgia Director of Rural Development Shirley Sherrod admitting in a speech at an NAACP banquet in March that she discriminated against farmers because of their race. Sherrod was appointed last year by Obama’s Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack. After the video was released, where Sherrod told NAACP members that she refused to fully assist a white farmer because of his race, the Obama Administration forced her to resign.
Today, Sherrod told reporters that “she” was the real victim… Not the white farmer she neglected to assist.
Breitbart TV reported:
Sherrod claims she was harassed by the Obama Administration and forced to resign.
Later today Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack stood by his decision to fire Shirley Sherrod for her racists comments caught on tape.
FOX News reported:
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack on Tuesday stood by his decision to demand the resignation of a Georgia official over a controversial YouTube clip, though the ex-official claimed afterward that the Obama administration never gave her a chance to tell her side of the story.
Shirley Sherrod, the department’s ex-Georgia director of Rural Development, said the White House forced her out after the video surfaced showing her telling a story about how she withheld help to a white farmer in trouble. But she claimed the video omitted key context and that the administration just got scared.
“They were not interested in hearing the truth. No one wanted to hear the truth,” she said in a television
interview Tuesday morning.Still, after intense media coverage of the fallout from the resignation, Vilsack released a written statement Tuesday afternoon defending and explaining his decision. He said the controversy itself was enough to make her job difficult.
“Yesterday, I asked for and accepted Ms. Sherrod’s resignation for two reasons. First, for the past 18 months, we have been working to turn the page on the sordid civil rights record at USDA and this controversy could make it more difficult to move forward on correcting injustices. Second, state rural development directors make many decisions and are often called to use their discretion,” he said. “The controversy surrounding her comments would create situations where her decisions, rightly or wrongly, would be called into question making it difficult for her to bring jobs to Georgia.”
UPDATE: The Obama White told reporters today that they did not pressure racist Shirley Sherrod to resign(?)
