Looking for the truth

— Of all the wicked and repulsive attributes of human nature, certainly the tendency to pass judgment based on the flimsiest evidence is one of the worst.

This notable character defect exists right next door to fear, anger and greed.

The “high-tech lynching” of Shirley Sherrod brings to mind the story of a certain local radio host who got on his high horse one fine morning because of the front-page photograph of a certain high-ranking Little Rock School District official. As is always the case with public education inside Pulaski County, the situation was desperate and the stakes incredibly high.

The image represented school administrators waiting to go inside a federal courtroom for yet another public thrashing. When your superintendent is hauled into court, there is a high probability that things will not end well. In this instance, the LRSD interim superintendent, Vance Jones, was caught attired in business suit and tennis shoes.

So there they go again. Don’t those imbeciles downtown understand that the rest of us just want to get this lawsuit over with and get back to educating kids? But no! The obviously incompetent buffoons entrusted with managing the district have nothing else in mind but to antagonize federal judges and make things even worse for regular folks.

It was a great spiel. Such an outpouring of contempt and indignation has a liberating effect. The spontaneous release of poisonous emotion cleanses body and soul. There was only one slight problem with this screeching denunciation. It was completely wrong, a factual train wreck.

This particular well-intentioned, and typically virtuous, host had one bit of good luck that day when the secret “not for broadcast” studio line lit up. Someone from the school district office called in with a juicy tidbit. Oops. It appears that Jones had foot surgery the day before and an ironclad alibi for the seemingly inappropriate shoes. The radio guy had nothing but egg on his face.

The only thing you can do in a situation like this is apologize profusely and hope that nobody presses it too hard. Yes, the photo told the story, but not the whole matter. A reasonable mind would have sensed that a professional person might have some sort of explanation for the sneakers. It might even be possible that the intention was something other than to deliberately and maliciously throw the legal proceedings into further disarray.

Fear, anger and greed are enemies of clear thinking. It is these two emotions that motivate many of our worst life decisions. With greed in the mix, you probably would have every possible bad choice covered. These negative forces seem to be hard-wired into human character and it is an unending battle to keep them under control.

To my everlasting shame and disgrace, I also was among those taken in by the video recordings purporting to show ACORN employees participating in all sorts of disreputable conduct. When your side is taking a brutal beating every day and your character is constantly called into question because of politics, it wears one out emotionally and physically.

The same wrecking crew that went after ACORN selectively edited Sherrod’s speech at a Georgia NAACP meeting. She spoke on the subject of racial reconciliation. The edited clip, however, portrayed a powerful black woman ruthlessly taking advantage of poor white farmers. It was a total misrepresentation.

When things heated up on cable television and the blogosphere, Sherrod was reportedly asked to resign using her mobile phone. That is what due process looks like in the Obama administration. Fear and anger never pass up any opportunity.

Perhaps reasonableness is weak. It draws back from that which is too loud or too sure of itself. Reasonableness says to wait for the facts, while the darker emotions plunge forward with giddy determination.

Sherrod’s dismissal was based on a single videotape, and it never occurred to anybody to find out what the entire speech was about. That is as dumb and foolish as some local radio hotshot not calling the school office to find out why the superintendent was wearing tennis shoes to federal court. Facts tend to get in the way of our favorite misconceptions.

While Sherrod has been offered a new position, the delicious irony of this story is the extraordinarily swift and decisive decision by a federal bureaucracy. It might be wise for President Obama to lend some of his elite U.S. Department of Agriculture hatchet men to whoever it is who regulates deep-sea oil drilling.

Yes, it is the same USDA that summarily dismissed Sherrod for alleged racial discrimination. This is the very entity that has paid out $1 billion in settlements to black farmers because of discrimination.

Fear, anger and greed cloud the brain and keep us from seeing what would become obvious if we would wait for the facts. Otherwise, we are bound to always be deceived by untruth and the half-truth.

Free-lance columnist Pat Lynch has been a radio broadcaster in Central Arkansas for more than 20 years.

Editorial, Pages 13 on 07/26/2010

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