By Kevin McCracken

I want to thank Ms. Shirley Sherrod for the notion that social inequality rather than racial injustice is the bigger problem. Ms. Sherrod has been in the news recently as an employee at the USDA, who was fired for a speech she gave at an NAACP convention. Her speech was taken out of context to include only a portion of a story she told about her dealings with a white farmer. She was reluctant to help this individual with the foreclosure of his farm, because of his lack of color. But when she saw him getting abused by a white attorney, it helped her conclude that “class” is the real enemy, not race.

In case you missed it, here are some excerpts from Ms. Sherrod’s address at the NAACP. You can read the entire transcript at AmericanRhetoric.com. I’ll warn you, it rambles.

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.

The point of her story was not her failure to help the white farmer because he was white, but that she recognized the error in her thinking. She took the white farmer to one of “his own kind” to help him fight the foreclosure, but it didn’t work out. The white attorney took advantage of him. This is when he went back to Ms. Sherrod for help.

That's when it was revealed to me that, y'all, 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 and I put him in his hand, and felt okay, I've done my job.

So we met at the lawyer's office on -- 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?"

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, and 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.

And then it was born, “The Sherrod Postulate” – Social inequality is the real problem, not racial discrimination.

This is an easy postulate to rally around, because it makes perfect sense. Why let some people have everything, while others do without? It reminds me of the story of Robin Hood, the hero who fought against an oppressor who lived extravagantly on the backs of the common folk. Who wouldn’t be cheering for Robin? He represents all of us “Have nots.”

But is it possible that Ms. Sherrod’s postulate is based on the emotional aspects of overcoming racial bias and transferring those emotions to social inequity.

Let’s pause for a minute to take a quick trip back in time to when we learned about the bell curve. Here, we plot the percent of our population on the vertical axis over income on the horizontal axis. The funny symbols on the horizontal axis represent “standard deviations.” Bear with me. I’ll get to my point soon.

The rich are in red and the poor are in blue, leaving the middle class in white. (Don’t worry about where the lines are drawn between the classes.) Let’s think in generalities for a minute.

And let’s cut the population of the United States down from 350 million to something a little easier to work with, how about 350 people.

With an average family size of 4, and 60% of families in the workforce, this leaves 52 families earning an income. For the sake of discussion, I’ll make an educated guess at average income per household in each of our 3 social classes. These numbers are based on US Census Bureau statistics. Again, it’s just a hypothetical example.

This allows me to graph gross income by social class. Clearly the rich are getting the lion’s share and poor are getting very little. Remember, there are significantly more people represented by the blue and red slivers of this pie than are in the yellow slice!

And now we’ve got a framework to address Ms. Sherrod’s concerns about social inequities.

So what if we took half of all the income earned by the rich and give it to the poor instead? This would leave the rich half as rich, but still rich. And the poor would no longer be poor. They’d be middle class.

Income would be divided very evenly between classes, something like this.

If we stop here, the Sherrod postulate looks pretty good. But here’s the problem with redistributing wealth as a solution to social injustice: it presumes there is a class “War”, and that the money taken from the rich would have been kept by the rich and not redistributed back to those in need.

Who are the rich, and what do they do with all that money?

In our example, it would be one family (more like a half a family – let’s assume the stereotypical divorced dad). That family would include a CEO, politician, small business owner, celebrity or a professional athlete. And what do these people have in common? With the exception of the politician, they are all very generous. They give back to their communities!

Individuals like Bill & Melinda Gates, Warren Buffet and others are shining examples of CEOs giving back. They’re not just giving a small portion of their wealth, but huge portions. The top 100 foundations listed on http://foundationcenter.org shows more than $200 billion in assets dedicated to the betterment of society.

So commandeering the wealth of Bill and Melinda Gates might be like Robin Hood hijacking them on their way to cure aids in Africa.

And what if the rich family in our example included a small business owner? Small business owners are some of the most generous people I know. They regularly participate in local auctions and fundraisers. Without them, fundraising would be a very difficult task. And what do small business owners, or should I say entrepreneurs, do when they make their millions? Small business owners are like compulsive gamblers. When they find success, they turn around and do it again (and again).

When a small business owner holds onto his or her cash (which could be perceived as hording by the less fortunate) or builds a big home (which could be perceived as flamboyance), they typically do it to shelter collateral, ensuring their businesses can survive down times in the economy. I know several small businesses that remain open today because of the deep pockets of owners. No layoffs and lots of red ink.

Oh yes, we’re evaluating Ms. Sherrod’s postulate that social inequity is the true evil, not racial injustice? It’s plain to see why she might feel this way, and she should be proud to have come so far regarding racial biases. But if the rich are not at war with the poor and in fact “giving back”, then redistributing their wealth might be synonymous with Robbing Jerry Lewis on his way to the telethon. It doesn’t accomplish anything accept to make the one who takes from the rich a hero, like our beloved Robin Hood.

One of the things I’ve learned when managing people is that the most important task a boss has, is handing out paychecks. When you hand an employee a paycheck, you are clearly delineating your relationship. You are reminding them that you’re their boss. It is never good policy to have the secretary hand out checks. Redistribution of wealth is very much like this. Somebody has to hand somebody a paycheck.

And if Ms. Sherrod is a believer in God, which she appears to be, then she should know that the poor will always be among us (meaning no government program is ever going to fix this). And the biblical parable of the talents could be appropriately applied.

For anyone who doesn’t know the parable of the talents, here’s a quick summary. Three men were given money by their master. The one who was given the most invested most wisely and produced a huge return. The second invested wisely, yielding a modest return. But the last did not invest at all, and simply returned the money, without interest. The master’s response was to reward the men who invested wisely by giving them more. But the one who did not invest and returned his loan with no interest was rebuked.

To take from one who produces a huge return and give to another who returns no interest, goes against common sense and faith in God. The parable teaches us to keep rewarding Bill and Melinda and let them redistribute their interest back to society.

You may not believe in God, but the principal of rewarding those who invest wisely is a foundational principal of business. Managers who manage well get more. Business owners, who make lots of money, get to start new businesses.

How many times have we seen small business owners hand down their companies to their children, and then see the businesses decline and be sold? Giving something very valuable to someone of lesser ability or someone who takes the gift for granted rarely works out.

Taking money from those who work hard and invest wisely, who manage and maximize, in order fix the problem of social inequity, might be robbing Jerry Lewis on his way to the telethon. Think about it.

I'm not sure we share the same understanding of Christian love.  I believe Ms. Sherrods messege was to reach out and help out a family in need, not to take 60 or 70 billion dollars from the Gates fortune and redistribute it to everybody.  I find it somewhat disgraceful that there are those that work very hard at serving humanity and get very little in return, financially.  Shall we hope that they get by with no help from their Christian brothers and sisters.

Ron Hoduski

Mr. Hoduski, Thank you for your comment. You make a good point. I agree that we should always help those in need. But my worry is that Ms. Sherrod is qualifying her help. First she qualified by race, then by social class. I'm advocating that true Christian love should operate without qualification. This morning I was reading in the Bible, James chapter 2, which says:

My brethren, do not hold your faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ with an attitude of personal favoritism. For if a man comes into your assembly with a gold ring and dressed in fine closes, and there also comes in a poor man in dirty clothes, and you  pay special attention to the one who is wearing the fine clothes... have you not made distinction among yourselves, and become judges with evil motives.

I believe this scripture implies that to give special attention to the poor man would be equally as inappropriate. If all human beings are created with inalienable rights, granted by God, then we should show no preference in dealing out help. Redistribution of wealth and affirmative action are an outcome of feeling we need to favor one class or race over another in order to be fair. I hope Ms. Sherrod, in her new job, will simply help those who come to her and ask. That is how I believe Jesus would do that job.

Kevin McCracken