I listened to Olbermann's Special comment and I have read diaries here that express similar frustrations: anger and disappointment that Obama is not decisive and bold! That he and those around him, live shell-shocked and fearful of the right-wing nose machine. So much so, that Sherrod was fired for nothing at all.
But, as I listen to this view point my own frustrations and anger start to rise to the surface. I identify strongly with Obama's defensive position. I know what it is like to be black in a room where being black is not OK. Where, one is torn between helping other black people and the ignorance that lets some people not really be able to tell "you people" apart if you dare to help to black people.
It is a sicking feeling. It is horribly lonely. I have run it to it at work. But I have also encountered that feeling on this website. During the debate over Rev. Wright numerous people here on dialykos made it clear that Rev. Wright was just too black... just too weird for Obama not to sever ties. This old man who has done nothing but live his life to help others need to be CONDEMNED by the very same young man that he once mentored. I argued with these people, I defended Rev. Wright, all the time trying to maintain that, though I am a black person and even though I was defending him, I am not his twin. I don't believe everything he believes. Still, good liberal people started to confuse my views with those of Rev. Wright the more I defended him, and I cam to understand why Obama had to cut ties.
The conversations from that period are still vivd. and I remember watching so many people posting comment after comment condemning Rev. Wright for being "too loud" and for having "strange views" -- views that, if you found their equivalent in a white man of his age ,would not amount to anything shocking at all. But he is black and Obama is black so the bar is in a different place. Looking back it is hard to even know what it was all about--
They just kept playing that clip-- out of context, and the talking heads babbled on and on about what it meant, getting it wrong every time, painting a cartoon image of how black people see America. I felt like and outsider, not just in general but at this website -- a place where I thought I would find common ground and like minded-people.
As so many people explained to me: "we need to think of what America will think of this. Be pragmatic!" (I am, clearly, not a big enough part of "America" to count.)
I expected that what happened to Rev. Wright would happen to Sherrod when I first found out about her. In fact, I think the only thing that stopped it was the fact that a white person directly involved with the alleged racism (the farmer's wife) spoke out. Without her I think we'd still have half of the media asking in a serious voice "just how racist IS Sherrod?" --I have a friend who tend to lean right. He was bothered "by the way those people were laughing" in the video. He wonders if maybe the fact that they were making noise like that means that they are racist.
(At this point, I'm starting to wonder if there are some people just don't like the sound of a room full of black people doing things together. That was the other "damming" aspect of Rev. Wright... he was speaking to a room full of black people and reaching them. Getting them all fired up! And he was so animated. A lot of people don't know jack about black culture, or they don't even know that it is culture. Or they are still mad, subconsciously, that blacks can assemble in groups of more than 3 people without a white person present.)
Rev. Wright didn't have enough white people defending him. He was stranded. While so many so-called liberals fretted "I don't know... he's just ... loud..." --or thought the Rev. Wright was a "black issue" -- ie. something that they didn't need to take a stand on.
There was no reason to expect that anyone would defend Sherrod especially after ACORN was taken down without any real evidence of anything. That's just how thing work now that we have a black president.* But now that the media narrative has turned there are a lot of people suddenly mad at Obama for failing to shield her?
I ask were you mad about Rev. Wright? Mad about Acorn? Where were you then?
*Ironic isn't it?