Shirley Sherrod & To Kill a Mockingbird

While not all conservatives had access to the real story like Breitbart might have, I'm wondering if, when he scoured the tapes to edit them, he might have been incensed at the real message in Shirley Sherrod's speech: that someone grew past their racial hatred to realize they are the same as the hated other, and worse, that a black person was in a position to feel sorry for and help a white and the whites wanted and were grateful for it.

The last time I heard a story like this was TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD.

If you haven't read the book or seen the movie, a black man is accused of raping and beating a young white woman.

It becomes clear at the trial though that she was lonely,and was constantly asking the black guy to do chores around her house, which he did for free. Then when they were alone, she finally came on to him, but rather than kiss or have sex with her, he ran away.

Her father saw her advances through the window and beat her after the black man left.

It should have been clear to the jury that the black man couldn't have choked and punched the girl since he had one useless, deformed arm.

But the black man made a fatal mistake on the stand: when asked why he did the chores for free, he said he felt sorry for her.

And that struck at the jury's racist pride--they convicted him.

So it was with the Shirley Sherrod story.

Breitbart and Fox News peddled a story that fit the prejudices of their conservative audience: if a black person had any power, they would use it to harm or withhold help from whites (just as the conservatives know they would do themselves to blacks, Latinos, Muslims, gays, and others in that position).

But more outrageous to them than her imagined offense was the real one: her racism melted, she saw some white farmers as more like her own family than not, did everything in her power to help them, and they were grateful.

Maybe more offensive to them than that was she was in the position of power and the whites in need, was that her actions reminded conservatives why they are dying.

Not just through legislation and the Civil Rights movement, but slowly a person or family at a time, racial fear and hatred are being chipped away, until only the most hateful and ignorant hang on to it, like their favorite doll or teddy bear from childhood.

And their power will be dead when black and white folks alike can look at them and not feel fear or hatred, but simply sorry for them, like we would for a Boo Radley in our own family we were trying to draw out of his shell.

We aren't quite there yet though when the NAACP and the president of the United States still jump when our disturbed cousins say so, and abandon their posts as our Atticus Finches.

McCain prepares concession speech for Republican convention tonight

John McCain is putting the finishing touches on the concession speech he will give at the Republican National Convention tonight.

Normally, such speeches are given after the election when enough votes have been counted to convince a candidate he has lost.

The McCain campaign says they already see that they have lost months before a single vote has been cast.

"We hoped that adding Sarah Palin to the ticket would shore up our religious right base and rope in some women swing voters," said a top campaign official speaking off the record.

"We got the religious right back on the bus with Palin, but our polling and focus groups show we lost the few conservative Democrats we had, lost swing voters, and even lost some Reagan Republicans like Peggy Noonan. We shot ourselves in the face."

Another long time confidante of McCain said he is conceding not so much because he is certain he will lose but because he is afraid he may win. "The party has all kinds of tricks to pull the rabbit from the hat from ginning up military conflicts like Georgia to terror alerts to rumor emails about Obama to purging Democrat voters in states where the Secretary of State is GOP," said the confidante.

"But John's basic views have not changed since 2000. He still believes the religious right are 'agents of intolerance' as he said back then, and when party insiders forced him to take one of them as his VP, and one who has all the worst qualities of the Bush administration, the religious hypocrisy, corruption, profound ignorance about foreign policy and the Constitution, and using political power for personal vendettas, John said enough."

McCain will throw his support behind Barack at the end of the speech, and wish his presidency well.

The move is not without precedence since McCain twice approached the Democrats about switching parties during the Bush years.

The McCain confidante said, "John really believes in our fight against fundamentalist fanatics in the Middle East. He doesn't want to see the same thing happen here if he dies in office and the presidency falls to someone just a few steps to the left of the Taliban."

The confidante concluded, "John hopes tonight will be the GOP's greatest moment since Lincoln freed the slaves." The confidante seemed unaware of the irony since the Republican Party platform includes the repeal of Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation.