White people used to own black people in the United States. And it was profitable to own black people because they performed labor that white people couldn’t or didn’t want to perform. And it was legal to own black people in the same way that it is now legal to own a cow, or a horse, or a dog.

Shirley Sherrod, the former employee of the USDA was asked to resign on Monday when a video showed her recounting a story about how she didn't want to help a white farmer. However, the unedited video reveals that the rest of the story is one of reconciliation, with Sherrod ultimately helping the man to save his farm. Listeners are writing and calling in with their comments.

In some ways, I am a broken record. I keep asking why we can't talk about race in a healthy, constructive way. And the question comes up again in relation to the resignation of Shirley Sherrod from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

In short, here's what happened: she spoke at a NAACP banquet in March about how she overcame her own racial prejudice to help a white farmer in Georgia [hear and read her interview on The Takeaway]. She says her experience with vicious racism against blacks in the South, and the murder of her father by a white farmer, made her hesitant to help the whites who applied to her at the USDA. Conservative commentator Andrew Breitbart posted a highly edited portion of the video on the website, biggovernment.com.

By now you’ve probably heard the name Shirley Sherrod. She is the U.S. Department of Agriculture employee who was asked to resign Monday after a video was released by news aggregator Andrew Breitbart. The video shows Sherrod saying she was hesitant to help a white farmer as much as she could. This morning Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said that he will reconsider the abrupt firing, but Sherrod tells The Takeaway that she's "unsure" if she'd return to the job.