The recent flap over United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) employee Shirley Sherrod points to the lingering influence of racism in America. As immigrants or potential immigrants, many of you may be from countries where racism and ethnic discrimination are virtually pandemic, and you may well wonder why Americans seem to be overly sensitive to this issue.

After all, minorities in many other countries seem to live with prejudice, oppression, and even violence as an everyday occurrence.

Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary defines racism as:

" ... a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority or inferiority of a particular racial group."

The United Nations further defines racial discrimination as:

"... any distinction, exclusion, restriction or preference based on race, color, descent, or national or ethnic origin which has the purpose or effect of nullifying or impairing the recognition, enjoyment or exercise, on an equal footing, of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the political, economic, social, cultural or any other field of public life."

Although economic opportunity and family reunification may be primary drivers of immigration, undoubtedly many people immigrate to the United States to escape racism. For this reason, it is ironic to find it here too, though in much subtler forms. That brings us to differences in behavior between the left and the right in America and the choices new Americans can make in their political affiliations.

But first let’s review the facts of the Sherrod case: A known right wing hate merchant, Andrew Breitbart, supported by Fox News, posted an edited version of a 24-year old video purporting to show evidence of reverse discrimination at the USDA. (Breitbart’s team was also the group who provided video evidence against the community activist organization ACORN, resulting in their loss of Congressional funding.)

Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity of Fox immediately demanded Sherrod’s resignation, and timed their attack as a kind of “tit-for-tat” response to the widely publicized demands by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) to remove or at least marginalize known racists within the conservative Tea Party.

Believing the Breitbart/Fox video, both the NAACP and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack echoed Fox’s demands for Sherrod’s resignation without reviewing the full video, which would have completely exonerated her.

After the truth was revealed, the Obama administration called a press conference and issued a formal apology to Shirley Sherrod on behalf of the USDA, and Secretary Vilsack offered her job back.

But the real story here is not about jumping to wrong conclusions based on incomplete or inaccurate evidence on the Internet. Nor is it about knee-jerk management practices at the USDA still smarting from anti-discrimination lawsuits filed by black farmers. Nor is it about how the NAACP may be so sensitive to reverse discrimination that they were equally willing to throw an innocent African American woman under the bus to avoid any perception of defending racism.

It is more about how easily the public is duped by right wing pundits, conservative writers, and cable news “talking heads” who skillfully play the race card to help get Republican votes in the upcoming election.