Hillary Clinton and other Democrat presidential hopefuls have been sucking up to the Reverend Al Sharpton. So have a number of media personalities. And, of course, so has Hollywood. The suck-ups brush aside Sharpton's role in the Tawana Brawley hoax, in the Crown Heights riot, and in the Freddie's Fashion Mart massacre, three dark chapters in American race relations.
On a Thanksgiving weekend in 1987, Tawana Brawley, a 15 year old black girl, was found curled up inside a garbage bag in a small Hudson Valley town. She was smeared with feces and the words "nigger," "KKK" and "bitch" were scrawled on her body. She claimed to have been abducted, beaten, and sexuallly assaulted for four days by six white law enforcement racists.
Needless to say, this case drew immediate world-wide media attention. Understandably, the black community throughout the United States was outraged. Sharpton and two black attorneys, Alton Maddox and Vernon Mason, assumed the mantle as Bawley's advisors. Sharpton orchrestated the whole sordid affair, thereby fanning the flames of black anger. Sharpton's role in this case made him an instant leader among black activists.
One cop and a prosecutor were identified as having participated in the abduction and sexual assault. So much abuse was heaped on the accused that it ruined the prosecutor's career and led the police officer to commit suicide. However, a lengthy grand jury investigation found all of the allegations to be a hoax. Subsequently, an in-depth investigation by six New York Times reporters also determined that the allegations were a hoax committed by Brawley to hide the fact from her mother that she had run off with a boyfriend.
The falsely accused prosecutor sued Sharpton, Maddox and Mason, winning a monetary judgement against all three. Maddox and Mason were eventually disbarred for unethical conduct. Sharpton has never apologized for his responsibility in the officer's suicide and in the porsecutor's ruined career. In fact, to this day Sharpton continues to insist that the Brawley scandal was not a hoax.
In 1991, Sharpton also helped fan the flames of black anger against Jews in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn. A Jewish driver in a police escorted procession, which was returning from a cemetary, collided with another vehicle at an intersection. His car veered onto the sidewalk where it struck two seven year old black children, one of whom died. Some bystanders charged that the driver was speeding and ran a red light. A private Jewish ambulance, which had arrived at the scene, was ordered by the police to take the Jewish driver away. The ambulance attendants were also ordered not to attend to the two injured black children because a city ambulance had already been summoned.
Blacks were outraged, feeling that a Jew had been afforded favorable treatment at the expense of the injured children. There had long been tensions between Jews and blacks in the Crown Heights neighborhood. Sharpton's rantings and ravings over the incident were instrumental in causing a riot which lasted for four days. The rallying cry of blacks was "Get the Jews" and a Jewish seminary student was stabbed to death. Because the rioting was mishandled by the police, Lee Brown, New York's black police commissioner, lost his job and David Dinkins, the city's first black mayor, was defeated by Rudy Giuliani in his bid for another term in office.
In 1995, a landlord in Harlem tried to evict one of his tenants, a black music store owner, in order to expand his adjoining business. Sharpton organized a demonstration against the landlord, denouncing him as a "white interloper." Sharpton's inflammatory race-baiting rhetoric provoked one of his followers to take a gun into Freddie's Fashion Mart and slaughter seven customers before committing suicide.
Sharpton and Jesse Jackson both feed off the culture of victimology which pervades the black community. It is sad that blacks look to these two charlatans for leadership when there are so many other prominent blacks without a checkered past. Democrats used to court Jackson, but his star has been fading. Now they slobber all over Sharpton. Media personalities, like Chris Matthews and Tucker Carlson, suck up to Sharpton almost daily. Hollywood, not to be outdone, invites him to attend the Academy Awards. Sharpton is a frequent guest on the Leno and Letterman shows and has hosted Saturday Night Live.
I've always liked Tucker Carlson and it sickens me that he seems to worship Sharpton. Hillary Clinton already has a lock on the black vote, yet she, nevertheless, sucks up to Sharpton. We are a nation of forgiving people, but should we brush aside Sharpton's sordid history and forgive him for his part in the Tawana Brawley hoax, in the Crown Hights riot, and in the Freddie's Fashion Mart massacre? Shame on Clinton and her fellow presidential hopefuls. Shame on Matthews, Carlson, and the other media personalities who suck up to Sharpton. Shame on Hollywood for giving Sharpton star power. Above all, shame on us for letting those candidates, those media personalities, and Hollywood get away with it.
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