Shirley Sherrod, a black employee has resigned from the Agriculture Department (USDA) over comments at a Georgia NAACP meeting on Tuesday over a manufactured racial controversy.
Following an event in rural Georgia, Sherrod was told by USDA deputy undersecretary Cheryl Cook, the White House wanted her to resign. As she was driving, they called [her] twice," Sherrod told The Associated Press in an interview. "The last time they asked me to pull over the side of the road and submit my resignation on my Blackberry, and that's what I did."
The controversy began Monday when the conservative website biggovernment.com posted a two-minute, 38-second video clip of Sherrod's remarks to a local NAACP chapter. In the video, she says the first time a white farmer came in for help he was acting "superior" to her. She thus, struggled to decide how much help to provide him when so many black farmers were struggling. She said she didn't give him the full force of help she could have, but gave him enough. She said the video posted online Monday misconstrued her message.
"My point in telling that story is that working with him helped me to see that it wasn't just a black and white issue," she told The AP. "It was about those who have and those who do not. That's why I take the time to tell that story is to tell people we need to get beyond it and work together."
