Sherrod wants conversation with Obama

Ousted Agriculture Department
official Shirley Sherrod said Thursday she wants to speak directly with
President Obama about her firing. 

Sherrod said that she does
not think Obama has a grasp about her past experiences dealing with racial
discrimination and wants assurances from him that things will change at the
U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), which Secretary Tom Vilsack acknowledged
Wednesday has a long history of racial problems. 

{mosads}”I can’t say that the
president is fully behind me,” she said on ABC’s “Good Morning America”
program. “I would hope that he is. I have not had a chance to talk to him … I
would love to talk to him, but I respect him as the president of this great
nation. He is my president.”

White House press secretary
Robert Gibbs apologized on behalf of the Obama administration Wednesday for
Sherrod’s firing. Vilsack asked for her resignation this week after video
emerged of her making racially charged comments at a Georgia NAACP meeting. The
footage was later found to be taken out of context. 

Vilsack held a press
conference Wednesday afternoon to take full responsibility for the incident and
offered her a new position at the department dealing with civil rights issues.
But Sherrod, who is black, said she was not sure she would accept the
offer. 

“I really — I know he talked
about discrimination in the agency and after all these years, that’s still
happening,” she said. “I would not want to be the one person in the agency who
everyone is looking at to clear up discrimination in the Department of
Agriculture.” 

She also said that she wants
to speak with the nation’s first black president about racial discrimination.

“He’s not someone who has experienced some of the things I have
experienced through life, being a person of color,” she said. “He might need to
hear some of the things I need to say to him.”

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