Sherrod And The NAACP Are The Racists Who Seek To Divide

From Rush Limbaugh and The Patriot Update:

Shirley Sherrod and the NAACP are the Racists Who Seek to Divide


July 22, 2010



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BEGIN TRANSCRIPT





RUSH: All right, we're gonna talk about Shirley Sherrod, and we're gonna talk about the NAACP, and Andrew Breitbart, and this video, but I want to tell you at the outset I hate it. I hate this story. I despise this story. I'm only talking about this because I must talk about it because I don't want to talk about it. It's a distraction. It's nothing more than the left playing the race card. The NAACP has thrown down the gauntlet because the big-government argument has failed. They are keeping alive the divisions in this country and I hate taking the bait. I hate playing along with it. I simply despise the whole thing. Everybody knows what's going on here. This is nothing more than a failed administration, a failed Democrat Party, a failed civil rights organization trying to stay alive with trumped up this and trumped-up that. This entire thing bores the heck out of me. The story bores me. The topic bores me. It angers me to no end. (interruption) Because I have to go after it, Snerdley, because even Fox caved on this, even poor old Shep Smith went down there and said that everybody's wrong on this, that Breitbart is wrong and so forth.



There are only a handful of us that have the guts to put this story straight. If we don't hammer back, nobody will. We got a bunch of cowards in the conservative media inside the Beltway which will not deal with this honestly. You got Andy McCarthy, Mark Levin, Sean Hannity, got me, got Brent Bozell and that's about it, that are dealing with this up front and honest. And I hate the fact that these people put me in a bad mood. Now, this is not about Andrew Breitbart in the first place. And it's not about Shirley Sherrod. It's about the latest round in race-baiting. It's about the NAACP throwing down the gauntlet with direction and approval from Barack Obama and the White House. This is about the continuing smearing of great patriotic Americans which is all the left has left to do. There's no racism in the Tea Party. They don't have racist signs. They didn't shout the N-word at precious John Lewis on health care Sunday. There's no evidence that any of this happened. But the Ministry of Truth continues to promulgate the lie.



Millions of decent Americans who only want to preserve and save their country are being trashed and they're being smeared. The Ministry of Truth runs with it, they continue to smear, and therefore this has to be discussed. Now, I'm being told, being cautioned: "Remember, Rush, most people haven't heard about this." Haven't heard about what? You know, I got a note last night, "Rush you gotta talk about this. They're calling us racists." So what's new? What's new? We're all racists if you listen to the administration, if you listen to the Ministry of Truth, if you listen to the NAACP. We know where the real racism is in this country, it starts with Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, the whole race movement, it's all based on the continued claim that there is racism and unfairness and that's where the Shirley Sherrod story really picks up here. I kind of resent that I have to spend any time on this whatsoever, but because everybody still cowers, most people still run for the tall grass, a racist charge is thrown at them and they head for the tall grass and they hide, "No, no, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not."



This woman, if you listen to the whole tape that the NAACP asked us all to listen to, she talks about Bush and later Obama being a black president. She's saying that all of us oppose health care because Obama's black. All of us who oppose government-run health care, which is millions of us, oppose it because of racism, because Obama's black. That's not why we oppose it. We don't oppose it for Obama's race. Most of us don't care about Obama's race. For the first three months of this guy's administration, "Don't you have any appreciation of the historical --" Yeah, I got past that in the first day. What matters to me is issues; what matter is the policies that this guy has and what they're gonna mean for the country. I'm not into surface. Surface stuff doesn't mean anything. I want to dig deep. I'm not into narratives. I'm not into templates. I don't carry around a whole lot of guilt and I don't let people offend me or make people inflict their own guilt on me.



So let's deal with this as we must for just a second. Audio sound bites. This is on the Today Show. This is Shirley Sherrod, the former US Department of Agriculture director of Georgia Rural Development. You know, another observation I had looking at this. Would you look at how damn big this government is? We've got rural directors here in every state, US Department of Agriculture -- how many millions of people working in the federal government are redundant and unnecessary and are simply there because the left wants a bigger and more expansive government and a shrinking private sector? I don't know what these people do. They don't know what they do. Anyway, now the template is: "Do you deserve a phone call from the president?" The White House wanted you fired. The White House didn't listen. The White House took it out of context. The White House is afraid of Fox News. For all I know, the White House orchestrated this whole thing. Here's her answer.





SHERROD: I do. I really would not want the president to apologize to me. I would love to have a conversation with him. I'd like to talk to him a little bit about the experiences of people like me, people at the grassroot level, people who live out there in rural America, people who live in the South. I know he does not have that kind of experience. Let me help him a little bit with how we think, how we live, and the things that are happening.



RUSH: He doesn't have any slave blood. He doesn't know what it's like. He has no clue what it's like to be black in this country, he has no experience, didn't grow up being black in this country, he doesn't even know what the hardships are, he doesn't know what discrimination is. I, Shirley Sherrod, I need to go talk to Barack Obama, get him down for the struggle. She's clueless. She's never read any of his books. If she thinks he hasn't talked to any black people, it all he's ever talked to. He sat in Reverend Wright's church for 20 years. I don't care where he's lived, Ms. Sherrod, he has a greater anger about this country's past than you do. It's been instilled in him. On the racists who oppose health care, she says, "You know, I haven't seen such a mean-spirited people as I've seen lately over this issue of health care. Some of the racism we thought was buried. Didn't it surface? Now, we endured eight years of the Bush's and we didn't do the stuff these Republicans are doing because you have a black President."



Melanin or the lack of it never put out a fire. Melanin or the lack of it never fed a hungry child. Shirley Sherrod was in charge of passing out $114 billion in loans. What is the USDA doing giving out loans? Are there not banks for this? What the hell is the US Department of Agriculture doing giving out loans? And what are her qualifications to oversee this? She wants to talk to Obama. She wants to make sure he understands what people like her have gone through. So Meredith Vieira on the Today show said, "What do you think he doesn't understand and a lot of the rest of the country doesn't understand about people like you, and the way you live, and what you're faced with?"



SHERROD: We are people who struggle every day, who do the best we can in our communities, who love this country, we love him, we want him to be successful because we feel he thinks in some ways like we do, and we think that's good for the country.



RUSH: Who is "we"?



SHERROD: Yes, there are issues out there that we are faced with, issues of poverty, issues that I worked so hard on these last 11 months at rural development to try to really have an impact on, mainly because that's me, but, the other thing, I want everything to reflect -- I want a good reflection for him as the first black president.



RUSH: Now, who is it that's focused on race here? What is this "we" business? We are people who struggle every day, who do the best we can in our community, love this country, we love him, we want him to be successful, we feel he thinks in some ways like we do. We think he feels in some ways like we do? And we think that's good for the country. We want a good reflection for him as the first black president. It's all about race to these... [audio dropout] us. It's not about Andrew Breitbart. It is not about the conservative media. What this is all about to us is the regime, is the federal government under this administration and its allies trying to divide us, trying to undermine us, trying to destroy the private sector, the job creation sector, the wealth creating sector of this country. That's what bothers us. We see it each and every day. We see the evidence of it each and every week. I don't care whether it's unemployment numbers or housing sales, housing starts, home sales or what have you. We are being destroyed. Our country is bankrupt and is being further bankrupted every day. And we've got people who only want to look at race and say that the people who do not like what's happening in this country don't like it because there's a black president in charge of it.



I'm here to tell you, Ms. Sherrod, and the rest of you at the NAALCP, this guy could be from Mars and it wouldn't matter. This guy could be Ronald Reagan's son and I would oppose him. This guy could have been adopted by Ronald Reagan. This guy could come from Barry Goldwater's own family in Arizona and if he was doing what he was doing, I would oppose him as stringently as I am now. I don't care what his skin color is. I don't care where he was born; I don't care where he's grown up; I don't care where he went to school; I don't care about Saul Alinsky other than that's who basically formed this guy. I know who he is. I know who his mentors have been, and I know why he's doing what he's doing. I don't like it. It has nothing to do with his race and nobody in the Tea Party is animated because of this guy's race. We are patriots, we are Americans, we know the traditions and institutes that have made this country great, and we have an administration that's undermining those traditions and institutions.





One of the things that has always propelled this country is parents and families working hard to make a better life for their kids, a better life for their grandkids, and it's now impossible to do, becoming harder and harder. The future does not look bright because of policies that have been implemented in just 18 months by people who have views of this country that do not relate. Miss Sherrod, the views of the president of the United States are less than 20% of the thinking of this country. Call them progressives, call them liberals, call them Democrats or what have you, we are being ruled by a minority that has a big chip on its shoulder, it's angry about whatever it's angry about for this country, and it's seeking to take its measure now to get even, payback time, what have you. Frankly the reasons are not the paramount thing. The paramount thing is that it's happening. It's distressing, it is unnecessary, and it needs to be reversed. I am talking particularly and exclusively about policy, philosophy, legislation, all of this stuff.



I'm talking about the things that are real. And none of it is influenced, none of my thinking, none of my reaction, none of my wants, needs, or desires are in any way, shape, manner, or form shaped by anybody's race, which is why most of us are continually fed up because all that does is put another roadblock in front of everybody who wants genuine progress to stop this downward spiral that we're in, that many people feel was created on purpose, and we're not sitting here happy about it, and it has nothing to do with how much melanin is in somebody's skin. Zilch, zero, nada. Nobody's denying this was a slave country. Nobody's denying it. But it isn't now. We're the one country that's gone to war with itself over it. Over 500,000 Americans died to end it. It's over. We've had civil rights legislation, we have had affirmative action, we have addressed every grievance 10 to 20 times, and the people who have made us address these grievances have openly said there'll never be enough redress, this has got to happen in perpetuity. This is doing nothing but dividing the country. It's not dividing it among rich and poor or black and white. It's dividing this country as progress versus anti-progress.



The people in the Tea Party, of which many are black and many are minority and many are Hispanic, are simply standard, ordinary, everyday, extraordinary Americans. They know what it has been that's made this country great. They understand and love the traditions and institutions that they see under assault. And they're under assault not just by a black man. They're under assault by all kinds of white Democrats, too. They're under assault by Hispanic Democrats. I don't care if they're Hispanic, black, racist, whatever, I don't care if they're Asian. If they are liberals they are assaulting this country and it is that which we oppose. We oppose ideas, we oppose philosophies. And it doesn't matter the skin color, it doesn't matter the state, the country, or wherever these people come from. What matters is what they believe. And that's what we oppose.



I resent having to talk about all this because it's nothing more than a giant distraction from the things I have just mentioned in the last ten minutes. So, frankly, I'm through with it. I'm not going to be baited by it anymore. I don't care. Go talk to Obama if you want to. Go and have a discussion about racism. Have a discussion about slavery. Go tell him all you want about it. Go get your job back. Go hold him up for as much as you can, get everybody on our side in the media. In the meantime the rest of us are going to go about trying to save this country for the rest of our children and grandchildren because that's what matters to us. Not your skin color. Not where the president was born, not where he grew up, and not what his skin color is. It's what he thinks. He's wrong.





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RUSH: This regime is tribalizing this country. They are dividing this country. It's not just enough to say that they are dividing us. They are tribalizing this country. We aren't Americans anymore. We're all members of different racial tribes, and we are to be pitted against each other: Black Americans, White Americans, Asian-Americans, Hispanic-Americans. We're all being divided up racially, by tribes -- and this country has never been a country of tribes. This is a country of Americans. There's been a distinct American culture! It led to the greatest nation in the history of humanity that culture. There's nothing wrong with it. It's better than any culture that has ever assimilated, that has ever just happened, which ours did, because we are blessed by God, and our Founders codified that in our Declaration of Independence.



Now all of that is said to be racist and sexist and bigoted and homophobic and all of the multicultural curricula started to come up and divide people in this country into various groups, victims, tribes, or what have you. The American people that I know do not want to be divided up. We want a great country. We want everybody to experience and have access to the greatest opportunity human beings have ever had: The United States of America. We want excellence for everybody. We love everybody. We want everybody to be as great or as good as they want to be. We don't want to hold anybody back. We don't want to divide the country. We're not jealous. We're not envious. The real hope in this country is found in the audience of this program, in the tea parties, in the conservative movement. That's where the real hope, that's where the real faith, that's where the real excellence is to be found in this country, and it must be unleashed and stop cowering to all this.





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RUSH: And while all this is going on, just who the hell is it that's trying to hold black people back? It certainly isn't us. This poor old Alvin Greene in South Carolina, who tried to dispatch him? Was it not the NAACP? Was it not the Democrat Party? Go talk to Carl McCall, who wanted to be a black governor from New York. Who got in his way? Bill Clinton, the Democrat Party. It isn't the tea party that's hindering black people politically in this country. It's the Democrat Party. They are the white plantation holders. They survive. They have kept it alive. Now, the Ministry of Truth -- the hacks, the flacks from the ruling class -- they're going to want this to go on another week, folks. They're going to want Shirley Sherrod to be the focus -- and Obama's going to lap it up. He's gonna lap it up and he's going to want everybody else to be focused on this, too, because they want as many people as possible thinking this country is immoral and unjust.



They want you feeling guilty. They want you feeling like you have to do something to make amends for things that you have not done. They want to establish the notion this country, from its founding, is unjust and immoral. You know, when this whole thing started last week, somewhere at the NAACP convention, when everybody realized the Democrats are in trouble and what did Benjamin Jealous do, the head honcho of the NAACP? He started running around, 'cause the black vote wasn't there they're looking at polling. They're looking at all the energy. Republicans have all the energy, have all the momentum going into the November elections, and the Democrats have none, and Obama's Democrats and Obama's black supporters, Hispanics have none -- and they gotta somehow rev up the old Obama coalition. They gotta get it going.



So what did they do at their convention? Start shouting racism! So I ask myself, "If I'm African-American, and I'm hearing that my party's upset 'cause I'm not excited, what they think they gotta do to get me excited is to tell me there's racism out there instead of going after jobs, economic growth, and so forth?" African-Americans are among the highest unemployed people in this country. The unemployment rate among African-Americans dwarfs the unemployment rate of any other group. Yet what is it that they are motivated with? What's the NAALCP decide to do to get 'em all stirred up? Start shouting racism! When they have the highest unemployment of any group in the country. I would think if the NAACP and Obama really cared about these people they would start talking about the things that matter to them, and that's work, and jobs.



They have families, too. They want the best for their kids, too. But no! Obama and his boys want 'em focused on benefits. Getting their cut. Sit around and wait for somebody else to deliver their cut. So they're gonna try to keep this alive for a full week. Who was it that tried to get rid of Governor Paterson in New York? Who said, "Don't run"? It was Obama. Obama didn't want Governor Paterson, black, to run for reelection in New York, 'cause his poll numbers are down. Andrew Cuomo! That's the chosen guy now to be governor of New York. They didn't want Harold Ford to run. Harold Ford was thinking running for the Senate against Kirsten Gillibrand, and they started dumping on poor old Harold Ford.



(Whispering) "He's got a white wife! He's got a scandal here. Maybe he came by some of his money in an ill-gotten way." It's the Democrats that go after all these people, not us. Who was it fired this Shirley whatever her name is? Tom Vilsack, a white Democrat! On orders from whom? Somebody at the White House! It wasn't us. We couldn't fire the woman. We don't care! Get the woman off television. Get her off the front pages. Can we start talking about economic policies that will bring the country back? Who was it that excused one of these great Democrat senators from being a Grand Kleagle of the freaking Ku Klux Klan? It was the Democrat Party! Who looked the other way? Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, all of the race wizards, the wizards of smart.



Who was it that tolerated a Klansman in the United States Senate? It was the Democrat Party and the NAACP. You know why? 'Cause he was all for government-run health care. He was all for the big government, Democrat-socialist agenda all of those years. And who was it, who was it that excused Bob Byrd for being a member of the Klan? It was a good old Bubba, Bill Clinton! (doing impression) "Hey, hey, hey, yeah. (chuckling) You know what? He grew up in the hills and the hollers there in West Virginia, and a lot of people made some mistakes out there. He went out there, and he did some things he shouldn'ta done but he did it for you. He had to get elected." Oh, okay. So if you're Democrat and you have to get elected, it's okay to not just join the Klan, but to become a Kleagle and recruit for the Klan! It wasn't us. Bull Connor, who turned the dogs and the water hoses on blacks in Selma, it wasn't us. He's a Democrat. Lester Maddox, Democrat. George Wallace, Democrat. J. William Fulbright, Robert Byrd, opposed the Civil Rights Act and filibustered it. Who are they? White Democrats. It wasn't us.





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RUSH: Richmond, Virginia, Matthew, great to have you on the Rush-Limbaugh program, hi.



CALLER: Hey, thanks Rush. It's an honor.



RUSH: Thank you very much.



CALLER: I watched the Sherrod video last night, and as a conservative college student the thing that really jumped out at me, she addressed the black youth in the audience several times, and one of the things she encouraged them to do was to go and get a government job, and she actually joked and she asked the question, "Have you ever heard of somebody losing a government job?" And so I just thought with all this unemployment news, that really jumped out, you know, as far as all the bureaucracy we try to --



RUSH: Right, go get a government job, anybody ever been fired from a government job, it's a benefit, yeah, go get a government job and get your benefits.



CALLER: Yeah, that's right.



RUSH: Yeah, I heard her say that, too. That stood out to me as well. I guess Obama called her. Obama called her today. The White House said that Obama called her at midday today, hours after her television interviews. "The President expressed to Ms. Sherrod his regret about the events of the last several days. He emphasized that Secretary Vilsack was sincere in his apology yesterday, and in his work to rid USDA of discrimination." What the hell? Who discriminated against the woman? The White House discriminated against the woman. To rid the USDA of discrimination? Everything in this country before these people got here was racist, discriminatory, rotten to the core and they haven't been able to fix it. You know, I guess "to rid the USDA against discrimination" is a reference to Reagan and Bush.



Here's Bob in the Jersey Shore. You're next on the EIB Network. Hi.



CALLER: Hi, Rush!



RUSH: Hey.



CALLER: Hey. Say, Rush, great show.



RUSH: Thank you.



CALLER: You know, Rush, when I go on interviews, and I'm a systems administrator, I'm questioned about how many information systems have you worked on? How many systems did you implement? How do you approach an abend? How do you approach these problems with systems? I'm asked specific questions on my experience as they relate to that position, yet Sotomayor talks about her life experiences as a single mother. Kagan talks about her life experiences, okay? Shirley Sherrod talks about her life experiences as a woman in the South. Well, what does that have to do with the job that you're supposed to do? I mean in the case of a Supreme Court nominee, what is your experience and qualifications to interpret the Constitution of the United States as our forefathers --



RUSH: No, no, no. You're not supposed to interpret. You're supposed to be able to have the empathy to be able to rewrite it.



CALLER: Exactly. But, you know, Rush, this thing about life experiences, it seems that this administration is putting life experiences over qualifications. I mean it's ridiculous.



RUSH: Well, of course, wait a second, now. Bob, I'm not getting impatient with you, but of course, because Sotomayor is not qualified. Kagan is not qualified. The whole point of talking about life experiences, who are we talking about here? Sotomayor and Kagan. What are they? They're women. That means they're victims; that means they're minorities; that means they've been discriminated against; that means we owe 'em.



CALLER: Exactly.



RUSH: We owe 'em their life experiences. They've had it tough. They've had it so tough because they've been women in America, and they've been Hispanic women in America, and they've had to play softball as women in America, and the deck has been stacked against them, and because they've had to go through life eating excrement sandwiches every day because of Ronald Reagan and George Bush and Rush Limbaugh, they're owed a seat on the Supreme Court. It doesn't matter if they couldn't spell "cat" if you spotted 'em the "C" and the "T."



CALLER: Exactly. Exactly.



RUSH: Meanwhile, you have to go out and show what experience you've got and while they look at your experience they're going to find out if you you've discriminated against somebody like a Sotomayor or a Kagan in your experience and if you have, buddy, you aren't gonna get the job and you're going to have an asterisk next to your name in every government file in which you appear.



CALLER: Yes. Yes. Yes.



RUSH: Don't even answer, Bob. There's nothing left to say. When I say something, that's it.





BREAK TRANSCRIPT



RUSH: Now, Shirley Sherrod. Here are her thoughts on working for the USDA. She said, "But before I give you -- even before I -- I go into what I have here, I want to -- I want to second something that Olivia said. You know, I grew up on the farm and I didn’t want to have anything to do with agriculture, but she was right. There are jobs at USDA, and many times there are no people of color to fill those jobs 'cause we shy away from agriculture. We hear the word 'agriculture' and think only of working in the fields. And you've heard of a lot of layoffs. Have you heard of anybody in the federal government losing their job? That's all that I need to say, okay? And I -- I might say a little bit more to the young people. It's good to have you all here." So she admits that she didn't want to have anything to do with agriculture, but she couldn't turn down the option of getting a job she couldn't be fired from, which is pretty ironic given that she was fired. "[T]here are no people of color to fill those jobs 'cause we shy away from agriculture." Isn't that stereotyping? Racial profiling, stereotyping?





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