July 20, 2010 11:00 am ET by Oliver Willis
The video of now-former USDA official Shirley Sherrod released by Andrew Breitbart's Big Government discussing work she did with the Federation of Southern Cooperative/Land Assistance Fund was an excerpt from a longer speech. According to Sherrod, the video doesn't show the full context of her remarks and leaves a false impression.
But Tuesday morning, Sherrod said what online viewers weren't told in reports posted throughout the day Monday was that the tale she told at the banquet happened 24 years ago -- before she got the USDA job -- when she worked with the Georgia field office for the Federation of Southern Cooperative/Land Assistance Fund.
Sherrod said the short video clip excluded the breadth of the story about how she eventually worked with the man over a two-year period to help ward off foreclosure of his farm, and how she eventually became friends with him and his wife.
"And I went on to work with many more white farmers," she said. "The story helped me realize that race is not the issue, it's about the people who have and the people who don't. When I speak to groups, I try to speak about getting beyond the issue of race" ...
http://mediamatters.org/blog/201007200022