The Attempted Assassination of the Redemptive Spirit of Shirley Sherrod

Andrew Breitbart, an advocate for the political group the Tea Party, in an appalling proactive measure to admittedly shore up contempt for the NAACP, procured video footage of the then U.S. Department of Agricultural Georgia Director of Rural Development Shirley Sherrod during a speech she gave before many NAACP members and extracted a selective byte from the video which viewed as a snippet might suggest that the former director as a black official discriminated against a white client. Even after the exposure of Breitbart’s subterfuge, worked by exploiting an excerpt of a lecture in order to take sparse words out of context to misrepresent the actual message, and thereby hopefully support his own party line, he offered a sophistical defense of his actions which asks the public to forego the realization that Sherrod is not presented by the video to have been espousing racism. According to Breitbart the video still makes his point of alleged reverse racism so to speak conducted by the NAACP. He contended that despite Sherrod’s ultimate message being innocent of a charge of racism, that one might still observe that the NAACP audience applauded her recount of the subject incidence in which she admitted to feeling deflated in her zeal to help a white farmer (whom notably has publicly accredited Sherrod for providing his family with abundant assistance) and he supposes this show of appreciation by the audience evinces racial bigotry. The problem with the revised theory is that acceptance of it asks the public to believe that an audience which could not reasonably be considered to be anticipating any racist central message nonetheless was approving of a supposedly bigoted statement within it. Viewing of the video presents that the audience acclaims the humility of Shirley Sherrod as she describes her own unenlightened thinking which occurred many years earlier and was being testified to as showing her personal evolution, used to convey her central message being offered to community youth that a humane people’s charity must be driven by the understanding that impoverishment is an issue subjecting classes of haves and have nots, not one of racial disparity. The responsiveness of Sherrod’s audience to her spirited account of anticipatable progression of mindset is an exercise of traditional communal etiquette paid to a speaker known as call-and-answer, a most common practice in African American forum. In light of this Breitbart’s last chance effort to attempt to redeem integrity of his actions simply exacerbate the already apparent misdeed, for instead of summoning the courage to admit to his widely-observed wrongdoing he instead chooses to stubbornly cling to loyalty out of reason to his party line, even exploiting a people’s cultural traditions to attempt to provide evidence for it. However, doctoring videos and attempting to recriminate civil rights protection agencies underlie the higher offense in this matter, for what Andrew Breitbart has done is to attempt to assassinate the redemptive spirit of Shirley Sherrod.

The message brought by Sherrod on that day and directed towards a community’s youth is one of much needed healing required by far many more in our nation and in our world than only those boys and girls. Scripture accounts for us that when the Christ was taken into custody to be crucified; even His faithful disciples met such despair that there were lapses of faith and denials of the Spirit. (Mark 14:27). Although the most infamous of betrayals occurs by the kiss of Judas (Mark 14:43-46), the most inspiring occurred with Peter who denied knowledge or association with Yashua when queried. (Mark 14:66-72). Eventually Peter by the Spirit saw the era of his ways and hosted a Spirit of Redemption by memorial of the words of Christ. (Mark 15:72). It is indeed a great inspiration for the many of us who have floundered in faith or for awhile stray our path to know that even such a tried and true disciple such as Peter wavered from truth, but in the end he found strength through self-compassion. So were those children whom Sherrod imparted her tale inspired by her Spirit of Redemption which surmounted even her trauma of her own father’s racially-charged murder to eventually become a witness to the virtue of racial diversity and empowerment of community. In our world today, where so many are feeling tested in their faiths and many others already on paths to spiritual abandonment, we need the testaments of those who have been where we have been and yet have reached where we seek to reach. Our mentorships may come in the form of Peter or Judge Mathis, or anyone who we can see triumph over adversity. Shirley Sherrod stands as a monument of yet another human being to host a Spirit of Redemption. Andrew Breitbart has attempted to assassinate the redemptive spirit of Shirley Sherrod, and by his continued denial of right blocked his own redemption, but for all of us who heed the call it is still here. Keep the spirit alive!