Black president from Hawaii needs more blacks from rural South near him, black Democrats say

We rarely take major note of opinion columns, but when they make assertions of fact that ring true and at least offer a fresh perspective, as Maureen Dowd does about the White House and race in The New York Times today, we make an exception.

The issue is the Obama admimistration's summary ouster of Shirley Sherrod from her job as the Department of Agriculture's Rural Developent director for Georgia, and Dowd's best source appears to be Rep. James Clyburn, the No. 3 Democrat in the House and, for our money, one of the most solid people in Congress. Clyburn represents most of rural lowland South Carolina (NationalAtlas.gov map).

“I don’t think a single black person was consulted before Shirley Sherrod was fired — I mean, c’mon,” Clyburn told Dowd – who calls him “so temperate that he agreed with an op-ed piece in The Wall Street Journal on Friday by Senator James Webb of Virginia, which urged that 'government-directed diversity programs should end.'” (Actually, Webb said they should be continued for African Americans.) Here's Clyburn's punch line: “The president’s getting hurt real bad. He needs some black people around him.”

Dowd notes that Obama was "raised in the Hawaiian hood and Indonesia," and writes, "Unlike Bill Clinton, who never needed help fathoming Southern black culture, Obama lacks advisers who are descended from the central African-American experience. . . . The West Wing white guys who pushed to ditch Shirley Sherrod before Glenn Beck could pounce not only didn’t bother to Google, they weren’t familiar enough with civil rights history to recognize the name Sherrod. And they didn’t return the calls and e-mail of prominent blacks who tried to alert them that something was wrong. Charles Sherrod, Shirley’s husband, was a Freedom Rider who ... was a key member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee."

Implicitly dismissing Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack's contention that he made the decision on his own, without consulting the White House, Dowd writes of Obama, "His closest advisers — some of the same ones who urged him not to make the race speech after the Rev. Jeremiah Wright issue exploded — are so terrified that Fox [News] and the Tea Party will paint Obama as doing more for blacks that they tiptoe around and do less." Vilsack has offered Sherrod a civil-rights job in USDA, or her old job; Dowd has another suggestion for Obama: "He should give her a new job: Director of Black Outreach. This White House needs one." (Read more)