Problem is, Sherrod didn’t do what they said. She is not a racist, and she has the video to prove it. They would have known that if they’d bothered to check the easily obtainable facts. They were too lazy to make the effort. That makes what they said slander.

And it’s time for them to pay.

The basic story, which makes me sick to type: a black woman named Shirley Sherrod, who works for the USDA, made a speech at a banquet awhile back. The first part of the speech said she’d once mistreated a white farmer because he was white. The second part of the speech said she’d realized even as she was talking to the farmer how wrong and racist she was to think that way, and she plunged in saved his farm, which was being threatened with foreclosure.  The white farmer confirms that’s what happened, and supports Sherrod wholeheartedly.

The truth is that Sherrod is not, and was not, a racist. But nobody in power cared about truth. Not Fox News. Not the NAACP. Not the White House. Not Andrew Breitbart. Most of all not Breitbart.

Breitbart is a right-wing propagandist. Someone forwarded him the clip of Sherrod’s speech. He edited out the last part and kept only the first. It made Sherrod looks like a vicious racist, when she most decidedly was not. 

He posted it on his website and made sure Fox News saw it. Fox released it, drooling with glee at the certain firestorm to come. The video went viral.  The NAACP went nuts condemning Sherrod’s racism. The White House fired Sherrod over her racism. None checked to see if the video was actually, you know, true. They just reacted in the knee-jerk fashion that defines media and politics in 2010.

Then, the full video was posted by CNN. It showed Sherrod is not a racist, and indeed did the right thing by the white farmer. The White House rescinded the firing. (Sherrod is still considering whether to go back to work.) The NAACP apologized. Fox News did not, although Bill O’Reilly said he was sorry. Breitbart remains defiant. ”I could care less about Shirley Sherrod,” he told fellow right-winger Sean Hannity. “What’s important is . . .”

What an asshole. But typical of propagandists, right or left. They are so blinded by ideology they will do anything–including slandering an innocent woman–to make their points.

Sherrod isn’t a politician. She’s not a celebrity. She is a private citizen whose good name was stolen from her, as if in armed robbery.

She was slandered. Viciously. By professionals.

But the pros were caught red-handed. And now they should pay. Every damn one of them: Breitbart, Fox, NAACP and the White House.

A hundred million dollars between them sounds about right to me.

Why so high?

Because this behavior is so outrageous as to be obscene, and I want the slanderers to suffer. Everyone in Washington knows Breitbart is a take-no-prisoners propagandist. Everyone. Yet, Fox, the NAACP, and the White House relied solely on his video in making their public pronouncements. They didn’t bother to check facts. They didn’t bother to consider the source. They didn’t bother to view the entire tape. They just sliced and diced the reputation of a “nobody” for the amusement of their respective wings.

For that, they should pay till they bleed.

I’m tired of the tantrums that pass for political discourse these days. I’m sick of the media–a proud profession to which I devoted 25 years of my life before my current career as a novelist–not doing basic fact-checking before they put something out. Truth used to matter in news coverage. These days, not so much. And that the White House fired this woman without even asking her side? Revolting.

Only money punishes. Only money will be heard. Only money rights the wrongs.

So pay till you bleed, people.

Now.

My parents, Lee and Mary Gericke, instilled in me a great love of the written word.

I grew up with enormous expectations of myself. Mostly because my parents’ expectations for me were so sky-high. I was born in the 1950s, in a rural town of 300. I was the first-born, and the only son. My family was 1950s-traditional: My dad was a police officer and Boy Scout leader, mom a homemaker and Girl Scout cookie chairman. Their expectations for my life were never expressed overtly, but rather bubbled to me constantly in a deep, unending undercurrent: you will do well … you will succeed … you will make us proud … make us proud … make us proud …

I heard the message and became an Eagle Scout. Did well in school. Became a sportswriter for the town weekly at 16, won a job straight out of college at a good daily newspaper. Married a wonderful gal. (What we called women in rural America back then: gals.) Bought a modest house in a swell suburb. Mowed the yard and raked the leaves. Joined the Chicago Sun-Times as an editor at age 26, almost unheard-of because I was so young. Headed the reporters’ union, and despite that got promoted a couple of times. I was a star, destined for greatness.

But I quit anyway.

To become a crime novelist.

Because it seemed a helluva lot of fun.

Mom said, “I never thought any of my children would be unemployed.”

Sigh.

I did care enormously about what my family would think of my writing, because at the time I mistook that for what they thought about me. (More on that in a bit.) Newspaper journalism was easy to show them—family newspapers contained no swearing, graphic violence or sex. Why wouldn’t they be proud?

But the novels, ah. Those were a different kettle of fish. I have a dark streak in my writing that surprises even me at times. My violence can be heavy and mean: cutting a baby out of a mother while she’s still alive; melting prisoners in the electric chair, eyeballs popping, skin steaming like poached chicken. Rape. Dismemberment. The whole nine yards. I also like sex and love, because it leavens the darkness with hope and humanity. In other words, stuff that wouldn’t appear in Reader’s Digest. I approached my first launch with not a little trepidation, wondering what they’d think.

Mom and dad were fine with the violence, but disliked the sex. My in-laws were the same way. Something about that generation, I suppose; they like sex just fine but seeing it in print embarrasses them. They didn’t mind the cussing as long as it wasn’t overdone. In other words, they were America: Fine with blood and guts, squeamish about sex and cussin’. Go figure.

My sisters, Marianne and Diana, along with most of our friends and relatives, had a most curious reaction: They couldn’t believe it was me. As Diana said when my debut thriller novel, BLOWN AWAY, came out: “No way my sweet wonderful big bro can write this kind of stuff!!!”

Which didn’t mean they didn’t like it; they did, all of it, the sex and violence and swearing and other tasty treats of modern crime fiction. They just couldn’t square what they were reading with how they pictured me all those years. They were expecting cozies, and I gave them serial killers. Another reason why it’s sometimes tough for readers to know the authors personally, I suppose–it colors their perception of the stories the writers tell.

Now, about those high expectations from my folks, the ones I lived with all these years. I’m glad they instilled in me such a fierce sense of pride in doing well. It’s gotten me far in life. But I also used to confuse what they thought about what I did with what they thought about me. That wasn’t the case, and it wasn’t until I was in my 40s that I realized it. My family gave me a great sense of fair play, justice, and love of the written word. They filled me with curiosity and a fascination with the world around us. And I think cool enough that I could actually be a serial killer and they’d love me anyway. Not that they wouldn’t hate that I killed people; they would. (As would I.) But they wouldn’t confuse it with hating me as their son and brother.

Which is why, ultimately, I’m so glad I abandoned the ” Shane, yer a helluva guy, go and make us proud some more” steeplechase for the not-at-all-certain success of writing crime novels:

It let me learn about myself.