Dunno - to me what she did at the time and what she conveyed to the NAACP was racist. She told a racist story. Now that it comes out she became friends with the farmer - that doesn't lessen or excuse anything. It was 1968 - one can say well --- it was the "times". Perhaps. And knee jerk by this White House? Absolutely - they wouldn't know a measured or thoughtful response if it bit them in the ass.
There is a moral to the story though: Don't tell racist stories to groups of people where you have even a chance of being put on video. You can and will be held accountable for your past misdeeds.
Remember:
Macaca? No one ever heard of the word before ... but it was enough to cause outrage. And let's put this into perspective and turn it around. Let's say she was not black but was white - and these were poor black farmers. The same thing would have occurred - she would have been fired and the big outrage would have played out in the media just as it is now. In fact, this might be the most even handed and un-racist act, now that I think about it, the White House has divvied out. This would have happened if she was white, and it happened the same way that she was black. Hm... I may have to think about this some more and I might take back what I said about the White House.
