Fri, July 23, 2010 - 10:51:07

It Never Hurts To Listen

Earlier this week, you probably saw the story of Shirley Sherrod, Georgia director of rural development for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, as it made its way across news headlines. After a two-minute excerpt of a speech she had given at an NAACP meeting was posted online, Sherrod received a barrage of criticism from politicians on both sides of the aisle and was asked to resign from her position. But, as Peggy Noonan explains in today’s Wall Street Journal, it all turned out to be a huge misunderstanding: the clip was taken out of context and it made a speech about racial equality sound like just the opposite.

Although the White House has apologized for the week’s events and Sherrod has since been redeemed by the very person she appeared to malign in the video clip, the story should not be forgotten. Instead it serves as a reminder to all of us of what can happen when you rush to judgment and forget to listen to the whole story.

As Noonan writes, in today’s wired world, “anyone can be the victim of a high-tech lynching, and because of this we have to be careful, slow down, look deeper.” It’s not enough to “shut up and listen” in the real world; you have to do it online, too.

In Sherrod’s case, if everyone had taken the time to sweat the small stuff and listen to the whole story before reacting in anger to one tiny portion of it (an excerpt she intended as an illustration of mistakes she had made in the past), we imagine the events of this week would probably have turned out differently. After the clip appeared online, viewers would have sought out the speech in its entirety and listened carefully before reacting—and then, instead of condemning the wrong person, they would point out that Sherrod’s comments were part of a decidedly different whole.

So the next time a little blurb rubs you the wrong way, give yourself a minute to consider the greater context and start listening with both ears. When you take the time to let others tell their story online or in person, you not only make sure you get the whole truth, you’ll keep planting those positive seeds wherever you go.

Posted by Linda and Robin