Sherrod’s profits

Garrick writes:

Not one word about Pigford so not a good summary

Sherrod and husband won a Pigford lawsuit that got their black farmer co-op that has been non-existent for 20 years … got it $13 million dollars. Where is that money going to? Plus she and husband got $300,000 outright from Pigford when the usual settlement is $50,000.

Your guide to the Pigford reparations racket Check out the top two VDARE links and then the others

- end of initial entry -

Thucydides writes:

The two VDare articles you link will come as a revelation to your readers. The Pigford case was a lawsuit against the United States Department of Agriculture alleging discrimination. The USDA had no records regarding alleged applications that were the subject of discrimination. The Clinton administration settled the case offering payments of up to $50,000 not only to black farmers, but also to any black who claimed to have attempted to farm during the years in question. One wonders whether a case that may have had some legitimate basis in certain instances was converted into a giant scam to pass out money to Democratic constituents.

Since anyone is eligible who supposedly attempted to farm, it would seem the opportunity for fraud is blatant. According to the VDare articles, there have been several prosecutions for multiple fraudulent Pigford claims. The articles report that a number of USDA employees were alarmed at what was going on. Why was Sherrod, a black farmer activist, hired at the USDA? Possibly as a person who might oversee the distribution of monies to claimants without worrying too much about validity of claims? One wonders exactly what the nature of the Sherrods’ “black farmer cooperative” is, and what is the validity of the underlying claims that have resulted in a $13,000,000 settlement.

If we had any sort of decent press, there would be some investigative journalism going on. Instead we get the false narrative of a wronged woman, a woman who had an epiphany on race, and case closed. A close listening to the clips shows that the reality is that Sherrod did not so much dismiss the race issue, as say that it was not the only issue, that there was also a class issue. In other words, Sherrod seems to be a Jeremiah Wright-style black separationist Marxist. Sherrod did not take back the idea of referring the farmer to “one of his own kind,” a white lawyer. She evidently did in the end help the white farmer. Later in the full NAACP tape, she reaffirms her racist attitudes by claiming that opposition to Obama’s health care plan was motivated by racism.

The rush to canonize Shirley Sherrod shows just how anxious our bien pensant press is for a narrative of racial redemption. Last week’s effusions in the WSJ by Peggy Noonan are typical. The press is likely also terrified at the electoral damage that could result from a public perception that justice has been corrupted by racial spoils.

The sudden request to Sherrod to resign may have reflected panic at the White House that the whole Pigford business was about to be opened up. But the wronged woman narrative seemed to pass at face value, and now nobody in the press wants to look into what Sherrod’s connections to Pigford claims have been, or why Sherrod was hired, or what she was hired for, and what is the legitimacy of the claims of her black farmers cooperative.

LA replies:

It’s right out of The Spy Who Came in From the Cold, a novel I recommend to those who haven’t read it (I recommend the novel, not the movie, which is cold and depressing). An accusation is made against an individual, who gets in serious trouble. Then the accusation is shown as false; and along with that dismissed accusation, everything suspect about that individual is dismissed as well. He is given a clean bill of health and becomes unchallengable.

Brandon F. writes:

Subject: Saint Sherrod

I’d like to know what her next move is going to be. She isn’t taking the job they offered her right now. I think she is weighing all options including the modus operandi of so many blacks, a lawsuit.

Thucydides writes:

Here is Derbyshire on Sherrod, contra the saintly victim narrative.


Posted by Lawrence Auster at July 26, 2010 10:24 AM | Send
    

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