Sadly, the story of Shirley Sherrod is not the first time an administration has cowered as a result of racial sensitivities.   Racial sensitivities were aroused earlier in the history of the US Department of Agriculture and forced the resignation of Secretary Earl Butz.   Butz told a crude and disgusting racial joke on a flight that immediately followed the Republican Convention of 1976.  He was Secretary of Agriculture under both Nixon and Ford.   The disgusting racial joke made it into a Rolling Stone article and although he was unnamed in the article there was a reference to a cabinet officer and eventually an enterprising journalist traced the joke to Butz.  His career was ended.    He was forced to resign.  

I think it impossible to defend the comments of Secretary Butz but I would also find it difficult to defend the more recent comments of Shirley Sherrod that defined racism as the motivation behind the outcries against the Healthcare Bill.   Certainly Secretary Butz's comments were more egregious and were magnified beyond compare if only due to the fact that the off-color joke was a racial joke told by a cabinet officer.   Shirley Sherrod didn't have similar power in her organization and as such my position would be that he should have turned in his resignation.   Shirley Sherrod need not turn in hers but she should be reprimanded.

But let's take a deeper look at the careers that can be and have been destroyed even if only temporarily by unreasonable expectations regarding racial content of speeches.   There is no Constitutional right to never be offended.   Despite this we seem intent as a nation to purge all persons with impure or negative "racial" thoughts.   Is this possible?   Is this reasonable?   Should a racist have a right to serve in the government without being required to have first become pure of heart?   Must he/she also be pure of thought?   Is it not enough that we insist this person not act on that racism?  Must the person never be allowed a bad or awkward moment?   It would be my position that the individual leave his/her racism outside and not allow it to enter the workplace.  Once it has entered the workplace it has an uncompromising influence on the job that person does and the work that person performs.   But this goes for Shirley Sherrod as well.   In her position at the USDA, has Shirley Sherrod created a poor work environment by declaring opponents of Obamacare as racist or by referring to "my people" separate from "his people?"  Shouldn't her view be that we are all Americans? 

Taken to extremes you can easily see how David Howard was harmed by persons who jumped to a conclusion that he had made a racial remark when in reality, he had used a word to express a budget as being stingy or miserly.  He used the term "niggardly" in an internal comment that so infuriated a council member that a formal complaint forced David Howard to resign.   His sin?   His vocabulary was greater than that of his accuser and his accuser assumed the meaning of a word on the basis of "sounds like...."  It is high time that the charge of racism be reserved for matters of significance.  Too many use the term to discredit a political opponent as a substitute for the lack of a substantive argument.  Persons like the man who complained about the word "niggardly" deserve to be admonished.    The cry of racism needs to be reserved for those matters that are real, that can be substantiated and that truly have caused someone harm.

Perhaps we need to legislate a special kind of slander and allow the individual falsely or unreasonably accused of racism to seek redress in the courts regardless of his/her public status.   Make the accuser prove that the individual is a racist or face the penalty of slander or libel.  

Don't call anyone racist because of a single remark.   Look at the full body of their work and how they have historically conducted themselves among others.  This is your indication, not the position he/she takes on a matter of policy.