Videos

Government official fired for making racist comments at NAACP rally

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UPDATE: Upon viewing the full video, I think that the incident isn’t really as bad as I initially thought, so I am retracting this post.

Here’s the video:

There’s your racism – and at an NAACP event, no less. They’re the ones who are obsessed by race.

Big Government has the story. (H/T Hot Air)

Excerpt:

We are in possession of a video from in which Shirley Sherrod, USDA Georgia Director of Rural Development, speaks at the NAACP Freedom Fund dinner in Georgia. In her meandering speech to what appears to be an all-black audience, this federally appointed executive bureaucrat lays out in stark detail, that her federal duties are managed through the prism of race and class distinctions.

In the first video, Sherrod describes how she racially discriminates against a white farmer. She describes how she is torn over how much she will choose to help him. And, she admits that she doesn’t do everything she can for him, because he is white. Eventually, her basic humanity informs that this white man is poor and needs help. But she decides that he should get help from “one of his own kind”. She refers him to a white lawyer.

Sherrod’s racist tale is received by the NAACP audience with nodding approval and murmurs of recognition and agreement. Hardly the behavior of the group now holding itself up as the supreme judge of another groups’ racial tolerance.

And she’s been fired for it. (H/T Hot Air)

Excerpt:

The Agriculture Department announced Monday, shortly after FoxNews.com published its initial report on the video, that Sherrod had resigned.

“There is zero tolerance for discrimination at USDA, and I strongly condemn any act of discrimination against any person,” Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said in a written statement. “We have been working hard through the past 18 months to reverse the checkered civil rights history at the department and take the issue of fairness and equality very seriously.

Finally we find some racism at a political rally – and it’s all on the left side of the aisle.

UPDATE:

Another video:

From the BlogProf.

News

Rhode Island police idle as gay activists disrupt marriage rally

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Story here from the National Organization for Marriage.

Excerpt:

We had about 200-250 people show up for today’s rally outside the Rhode Island State House. A little while later, about 150 gay marriage protestors showed up in red shirts. Initially they came around the back of our rally and tried to shout over us.

Then they came right into our crowd (we had a permit for use of the area, as at all our rallies), getting in people’s faces and shouting at our marriage supporters. As Father Codega was trying to speak, they got up behind him on the steps, shouting him down. At one point when I was at the microphone, I was physically surrounded by three people trying to shout me down as Capitol Police did nothing.

These activists simply embarrassed themselves and their cause today. Mocking religion. Mocking children. I mean, what kind of adult goes up to a 7-year-old child and sneers, “Mommy raising you to be a good little bigot?”

The biggest disappointment was that the Capitol Police, although they tried to keep order, failed so badly in keeping the crowds apart. We had a permit protecting our First Amendment right to speak and assemble on the South Steps today, and the police simply failed to protect those rights.

Photo:

Jennifer Roback Morse was in attendance and reports the details in the account are accurate. The link above has more photos.

News

Caroline Crocker’s new book recounts her experience of being expelled

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Caroline Crocker
Caroline Crocker

Story from Evolution News.

Excerpt:

One of those incidents took place at George Mason University (GMU), where Caroline Crocker was ousted from teaching biology because she challenged to neo-Darwinian evolution and favorably mentioned ID in the classroom. Dr. Crocker later appeared in Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, but now many more details about Caroline Crocker’s story are revealed in her new autobiographical book, Free to Think: Why Scientific Integrity Matters.

Free to Think tells the story of a biology professor who cares deeply about students, received glowing student reviews, wouldn’t compromise her integrity when challenged to disregard anti-cheating rules, and produced high quality curricular tools. But Crocker had one fatal flaw: she would not capitulate to the Darwinian consensus in the classroom. When some GMU administrators learned that she’d challenged evolution, they told her that she had to be “disciplined” because she taught “creationism.” While GMU now denies that Crocker’s dismissal had anything to do with evolution, her book explains that this is most definitely not what she was told behind closed doors.

But Free to Think is not some sob story. It contains heartwarming and amusing accounts of Crocker’s interaction with students. What struck me were the lengths to which Crocker would go to accommodate and help students facing difficult life circumstances. It is saddening (though not surprising) that she has received many attacks on her character from evolutionists who know neither Crocker nor her story.

[…]At the very time Crocker was told by her Department Head that she would be disciplined for challenging Darwin, she received a performance review from her Provost that called her teaching “outstanding” as “evidenced by unusually high student rankings”! The Provost even praised her, saying, “This kind of teaching quality is essential for this vital educational program, and we’re very grateful for your successful efforts.”

Such statements hardly describe a teacher who would otherwise be expected to soon lose her job. Yet Crocker did subsequently lose her job, and we know exactly why. As Crocker documents in her book, her administrators didn’t want her challenging Darwin.

There’s more here.

And you can even listen to an interview she did with Casey Luskin about her new book.

I like Caroline Crocker a lot. I don’t talk about her as much as I do about Michele Bachmann or Jennifer Roback Morse, but she’s one of my heroes. I was disgusted with George Mason University for doing this to her. I remember Walter Williams saying at some point (maybe when he was guest hosting for Rush Limbaugh) that GMU is a normal liberal university with conservative departments of law and economics. That explains it.