A nation of cowards?

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, was describing a country where the workplace is, for the most part, racially integrated, but where Americans self-segregate in their private lives and in their leisure activities.

"We have to have the determination to be honest with each other," he told justice department employees a few months ago, adding that, "in things racial, we have always been and, I believe, continue to be in too many ways, essentially a nation of cowards."

There has certainly been evidence of much cowardice over the past week.

An undated photo of Shirley Sherrod, who was ousted Tuesday by Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack over her comments that she didn't give a white farmer as much help as she could have 24 years ago. She was later reinstated and offered another job when the comments were found to be false. (United States Department of Agriculture/Associated Press)

It began when conservative activist and blogger Andrew Breitbart posted on his website a video of Shirley Sherrod, an employee with the U.S. department of agriculture.

A black woman, Sherrod was speaking to a National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in her native Georgia.

Sherrod has worked in and out of government for about four decades now, helping poor farmers keep their land by fighting foreclosure notices, arranging for government loans, battling the huge agricultural businesses and, sometimes, just holding hands.

Breitbart's video showed Sherrod telling her audience that she once had not been inclined to help a white farmer who was facing eviction as much as she could have or would have had he been black.

The problem with the video clip, though, was that it had been taken completely out of context and no one sought to check.

Inexcusable

For his part, Breitbart posted the video clip because, he said, he was angry that the NAACP had denounced "racist elements" in the conservative Tea Party movement that is sweeping through America at the moment.

But then the incident took on a life of its own.

Fox News, which has worked with Breitbart in the past, jumped on the video and began to air it, while several of its hosts branded Sherrod a racist.

The network interviewed Newt Gringrich, the former Republican House speaker, who expressed his outrage. Other Fox talking heads agreed and the network's star, host Bill O'Reilly, ended that first day by calling for Sherrod's resignation.

Other media then picked up the story and continued the onslaught.

Questions were asked at the White House, at the department of agriculture and at the NAACP. No one put their name forward, but the responses were always the same: "intolerable," "inexcusable," "no place for that kind of thinking here," and so on.

Eventually Sherrod was contacted by an official at the department of agriculture and asked to resign. Sherrod was told this was because of the coverage on Fox News and because the White House was demanding it.

Strike a blow for equality and civil rights? Well, not quite.

'No difference between us'

Sherrod was not going down without a fight. She went to CNN headquarters in Atlanta with the complete tape of her 43-minute speech.

It exposed a vicious smear job that had been done, as Sherrod said, "by slicing and dicing."

A subtle but important element of her story: Sherrod was not a government employee 24 years ago, as Breitbert described her, when the incident in question happened.

Rather she was working with a non-profit agency that assisted black farmers when an impoverished white farmer approached and asked for her help.

Yes, she told the NAACP meeting, she had thought of not helping the white farmer, but quickly decided she couldn't do that. It was, she realized, her job to help all the poor.

The speech made the point that she recognized her prejudice and that "there is no difference between us."

On several occasions, she urged her audience to put race to one side and, in this particular case, she went on to help the farmer save his land.

To drive the point home, CNN went out and found that farmer, Roger Spooner, who agreed Sherrod had, indeed, saved his farm.

"I tell you what," he said. "I was never treated no better than Shirley."

At this point, it would be great to praise CNN. But the truth was that the network, too, had joined in the early coverage, slandering Sherrod.

But at least its producers took the time to look at the tape Sherrod brought them.

'Look at the tape'

After the CNN story, the denunciations began to fall away.

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs apologized: "Members of this administration, members of the media, members of different political factions on both sides of this have all made determinations and judgments without a full set of facts."

That's an understatement.

No media organization, nor even the NAACP, the Tea Party, the USDA or the White House ever took up Sherrod's plea, "just look at my tape."

At Fox News, O'Reilly apologized for the initial attack at least but never really explained how a doctored tape made it to air; nor what relationship Fox has or will have with Breitbart.

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack apologized, offered Sherrod a new job and admitted contritely that he and his agency reacted too quickly without ever listening to Sherrod's side of the story, something she had pleaded with them to do.

The president even called Sherrod to apologize but there still is some question as to the exact role of Barack Obama's White House in all of this.

Did it push the USDA to fire Sherrod, as many suspect was the case?

Vilsack says it was entirely his decision but Sherrod says she was told it was the White House who wanted her out of the way and the minister has admitted there was communication between his agency and the White House.

Courage, boys

So we get back to the issue of cowardice that Attorney-General Holder talked about.

There can be little doubt the government and the NAACP reacted too quickly for the fear of being caught on the wrong side of the race issue.

The conservative media moved too quickly because it clearly felt it had some fresh meat to feed its viewers and readers.

The mainstream media didn't show the courage of its convictions — accuracy and fairness — probably because the big outlets are being continually attacked of late for not jumping on internet-inspired stories. Besides, they were getting reaction from the USDA and the White House. Why check further?

Then there is Breitbart. What would possess someone to try to make a scapegoat out of a 62-year-old African-American woman in rural Georgia whose whole life has clearly been centred around helping poor farmers, white and black?

Cowardice? There is more than enough here to go around.