"When I made that commitment, I wasn't making that commitment to Black people, and to Black people only. But, you know God will show you things and He'll put things in your path so that, that you realize that the struggle is really about poor people, you know."—Shirley Sherrod, in part of her speech not aired by Fox News.

For as long as I can remember, I have seen the media take incidents and statements out of context. The "mainstream media" has created racism where there is none and tried to shield racism when it was absolutely blatant. But now it has gone to another level, and the continued distortion of the facts is repulsive and destructive. This week, Fox News Channel, under the parent company of News Corp, which also indecently owns the New York Post, all of which is owned by Rupert Murdock, has once again reared their ugly head at the center of a controversy they created by only including some of what was said and taking statements completely out of context.

Shirley Sherrod, a life-long activist and someone who has been instrumental in helping farmers for well over two decades and served as the head of the Department of Agriculture's rural development office in Georgia, made a speech at an NAACP Freedom Fund Dinner in March. In that 45-minute speech, she talked about her life and her experiences and what made her the woman that she is today. She talked about the incidents in her life that transformed her and the lessons she learned about rich vs. poor.

In that speech, she singled out an incident that occurred with a white farmer in 1986, 24 years ago. She talked about how he came to her for help and how she dealt with the situation.

In the beginning of the story, it appears as if this woman did little to nothing to help this white man who was losing his farm – or at least that is what Andrew Breitbart, a conservative blogger would like you to think. He put up the following segment of her speech on his website. Fox News picked it up as breaking news, and the tale spun like wild fire, leading to the condemnation of Sherrod by the NAACP and her forced resignation. The transcript of the Breitbart clip follows:

"The first time I was faced with having to help a white farmer save his farm, he, he took a long time talking, but he was trying to show me he was superior to me. I know what he was doing. But he had come to me for help. What he didn't know while he was taking all that time, trying to show me he was superior to me, was I was trying to decide just how much help I was going to give him.

"I was struggling with the fact that so many Black people have lost their farmland, and here I was faced with having to help a white person save their land. So, I didn't give him the full force of what I could do. I did enough so that when he – I assumed the Department of Agriculture had sent him to me, either that or the Georgia Department of Agriculture. And he needed to go back and report that I did try to help him.

"So, I took him to a white lawyer that we had that had attended some of the training that we had provided, 'cause Chapter 12 bankruptcy had just been enacted for the family farmer. So, I figured if I take him to one of them, that his own kind would take care of him.

"That's when it was revealed to me that, ya'll, it's about poor versus those who have, and not so much about white – it is about white and black, but it's not – you know, it opened my eyes, 'cause I took him to one of his own."

In mid-sentence the screen goes to black, and the cable television stations, led by Fox News, went on a frenzy saying that this so-called racist needed to be removed. But then on further examination, we found that the whole story had not been told and the greater story was actually a parable with a far different outcome that those who were quick to judge could not have expected. The speech continues below:

"and I put him in his hand, and felt, 'Okay, I've done my job.' But, during that time we would have these injunctions against the Department of Agriculture and so, they couldn't foreclose on him. And I want you to know that the county supervisor had done something to him that I have not seen yet that they've done to any other farmer, Black or white. And what they did to him caused him to not be able to file Chapter 12 bankruptcy.

"So, everything was going along fine. I'm thinking he's being taken care of by the white lawyer, and then they lifted the injunction against USDA in May of '87 for two weeks, and he was one of 13 farmers in Georgia who received a foreclosure notice. He called me. I said, 'Well, go on and make an appointment at the lawyer. Let me know when it is and I'll meet you there.'

"So we met at the lawyer's office on the day they had given him. And this lawyer sat there. He had been paying this lawyer, y'all. That's what got me. He had been paying the lawyer since November, and this was May. And the lawyer sat there and looked at him and said, 'Well, y'all are getting old. Why don't you just let the farm go?' I could not believe he said that, so I said to the lawyer – I told him, 'I can't believe you said that.' I said, 'It's obvious to me if he cannot file a Chapter 12 bankruptcy to stop this foreclose, you have to file an 11.'

"And the lawyer said to me, I'll do whatever you say – 'whatever you think' – that's the way he put it. But he's paying him. He wasn't paying me any money, you know. So he said – the lawyer – said he would work on it.

"And then, about seven days before that man would have been sold at the courthouse steps, the farmer called me and said the lawyer wasn't doing anything. And that's when I spent time there in my office calling everybody I could think of to try to see help me find the lawyer who would handle this. And finally, I remembered that I had gone to see one just 40 miles away in Americus with the Black farmers.

"Well, working with him made me see that it's really about those who have versus those who don't, you know. And they could be Black; they could be white; they could be Hispanic. And it made me realize then that I needed to work to help poor people – those who don't have access the way others have."

Sherrod learned 23 years ago that it was not just about Black and white; it was about the haves and the have-nots, and she was trying to drive that point home to those in attendance and from that part of the speech, her intentions were clear. She was explaining when she came to a point in her life when she was came to racial reconciliation. From that point onward, she helped hundreds of Black and white farmers who came to her for help while she worked for Georgia, not for profit.

It was not just conservative media that condemned Ms. Sherrod. She was forced to resign by the Obama administration, and the NAACP said her comments were shameful. Upon further examination, the NAACP retracted its statement made at nearly midnight Monday evening.

The statement by Benjamin Jealous read in part, "The NAACP has a zero-tolerance policy against racial discrimination, whether practiced by Blacks, whites or any other group. The NAACP also has long championed and embraced transformation by people who have moved beyond racial bias. With regard to the initial media coverage of the resignation of USDA official Shirley Sherrod, we have come to the conclusion we were snookered by Fox News and Tea Party activist Andrew Breitbart into believing she had harmed white farmers because of racial bias.

"Having reviewed the full tape, spoken to Ms. Sherrod and most importantly, heard the testimony of the white farmers mentioned in this story, we now believe the organization that edited the documents did so with the intention of deceiving millions of Americans."

We believe the NAACP nailed the conservative network on the head. This is not the first occasion that Fox has gone after African Americans on issues of race. Last year, they went after Van Jones, running the progressive Black man out of the administration, and they have been trying to trump up charges of voter intimidation in Philadelphia, forcing investigations when there were no complaints from voters.

Fox News has used its airways to promote hate, and in this case, taken the innocent words of a woman who has spent her life supporting poor people and civil rights, and created hate and bigotry. It is time that we remember what our sources are and know that they do not have our best interests at heart. We cannot take Fox or News Corp. at face value because they are here to destroy our communities and our lives. They don't care about us or justice in general.

The NAACP has taken the right steps in correcting a wrong inspired by Fox and has publicly said, "Next time we are confronted by a racial controversy broken by Fox News or their allies in the Tea Party, like Mr. Breitbart, we will consider the source and be more deliberate in responding. The tape of Ms. Sherrod's speech at an NAACP banquet was deliberately edited to create a false impression of racial bias and to create a controversy where none existed. This just shows the lengths to which extremist elements will go to discredit legitimate opposition."