re: #82 wrenchwench

Cooper refers to Sherrod’s speech as being about her “change of heart”. I think it can be argued that she was not a racist even at the time of the 1980s incident she spoke of. She talked about her experiences with racism, but not her own racism. She started with the lynchings of her relatives, which one would think give her a reason to be anti-white. When she gets to the white farmer who came to her for help, her attitude was a reaction to his. I can imagine the farmer was not happy about having to seek assistance from a black woman, which may be why he was taking an attitude with her. She didn’t give him the “full force” of help she could, because he was being rude to her. Maybe that was wrong, but that’s not racist, that’s self-preservation in a bureaucratic job.

He needed a lawyer, and she sent him to “one of his own”, thinking that meant he would get the help he needed. When she found out the white lawyer screwed the white farmer, that was her eye-opener. She had spoken earlier about black people helping each other out, and she was surprised to find it wasn’t that way with white people.

Of course, I don’t know her, I’m just going from what’s on the video tape. But at least I’m going from the whole video tape.

She ended up, I believe, giving him the full force of help that she could.

The speech was about her own process of reflection, thought and growth, a process probably many of us have (or should have) undergone on any number of issues over of the course of our lives. She chose to speak about this particular process.