Reverend Al Sharpton arrives at a party to celebrate the 24 American Idol semi-finalists at Cinespace in Hollywood February 18, 2006. REUTERS/Max Morse
Posted on 03/12/2006 5:34:11 AM PST by Libloather
Sharpton: Don’t let whites redefine us
March 12, 2006
By Andy Grimm / Post-Tribune staff writer
Reverend Al Sharpton arrives at a party to celebrate the 24 American Idol semi-finalists at Cinespace in Hollywood February 18, 2006. REUTERS/Max Morse
GARY — A New York teenager named Al Sharpton left the 1972 Black Political Convention here believing that blacks could win any elected office.
Nearly 30 years later — and two years after a failed run for a presidential nomination —
Sharpton returned to Gary’s West Side High School as Saturday’s keynote speaker for the 2006 National Black Peoples Unity Convention.
Though the four-day conference was intended to map out economic strategies for black Americans, Sharpton’s half-hour address chastised his audience for giving up cultural and political power to whites in recent decades.
“We’re going to have to reclaim our community and get organized,” he said, “because what they have done is ... redefine what blackness is, redefined what leadership is, and if they can redefine what blackness and leadership is, they they don’t have to worry about us going anywhere because by definition, we’re not going anywhere.”
Sharpton was the last of several high-profile speakers at the conference, dubbed “Gary II” by organizer Richard G. Hatcher, who was in his first term as mayor during the 1972 gathering.
Illinois Senate President Emil Jones addressed the gathering before lunch, and the scheduled afternoon speaker, U.S. Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., canceled his appearance because of a personal emergency, organizers said.
On the last full day of the conference, which ends early today after a forum on Hurricane Katrina, the outspoken minister spoke to an audience of about 200 in the West Side gymnasium.
Contrasting the energy of black leadership today with the group that left Gary in 1972, Sharpton decried the black community’s backing of Democratic candidates despite a party agenda that has often ignored the community’s needs.
Sharpton, who has sparred with Democratic leaders and taken campaign contributions from groups and individuals with ties to the Republican Party, bashed former President Clinton and his wife, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, R-N.Y., who is considered a likely candidate for the 2008 Democratic nomination.
“All of a sudden, in the ’90s, the black political leader of America became Bill Clinton,” Sharpton said to applause from a crowd of around 200. “(Informed black voters) were calling a white male from Arkansas — who advocated the death penalty, the crime bill and the welfare reform bill — black.”
Sharpton added later: “We’re waiting around to see if Hillary is going to run, like if Hillary does run, she’s running for us or will address our agenda.”
In a session with reporters after the speech, Sharpton would not say whether he would run for president in 2008.
The activist criticized the images of black youth perpetuated by white-owned record labels, noting that a hip-hop song titled “It’s Hard Out Here for a Pimp” won an Academy Award last week for Best Original Song.
Sharpton also backed the Rev. Jesse Jackson’s call to protest the April 22 special election in New Orleans, supporting Jackson’s legal challenge on grounds that residents displaced by the flood would not be able to vote because of onerous election rules.
been a couple hundred years since I've watched 60 minutes of lies.
Oh,you've got to check this out.The look on The Former Twelfth Lady's face is priceless! It's gotta be on the web somewhere.
What are these onerous election rules? That people actually have to show up at the proper precinct and vote on election day? Or else they have to make a phone call to request an absentee ballot? What is onerous about that?
What do Jackson and Sharpton want? To just figure out how many blacks voted Democrat in the last election and just automatically apply their vote to the Democrat candidates this year?
Translation:
If you as a black person who has become economically and socially upwardly mobile, you have become uncle Toms."
Stay poor, stay drunk, stay gangbangers, and stay uneducated, AND YOU BE BLACK THE WAY YOU SHOULD!"
"Da's Wah' Ahm Talkin ABOUT!"
Sharpton redefines the American Dream as unworthy of blacks?
STFU Sharpton, you're just an excuse for a real man, a pimp for the failure of Black folk everywhere in the USA!
LET YOUR PEOPLE GO! ( Sarc./)
The best news in this article is that sharpton only drew a crowd of 200 in LA. There are better black leaders.
Hank...I have never cared for Sharpton, or Jackson, but after all of these years, I have become what I think you may be...a bridge builder perhaps? I agree, we need to be people, and stop hating each other; I can't help what the Sharptons of this world do, but I can be responsible for my own actions; and all of us need to let it begin with us; when everyone learns to ignore the Sharptons, and learn to love each other; the sharptons will go away...I hope
If it ain't for free, it ain't for me. Is that what he doesn't want redefined?
The Sharptons will be with us as long as the MSM deems them newsworthy.
Sharpton, like most black liberal leaders, is very much a segregationist. They have never wanted independence and equality for blacks. Rather, they want plantation style dependence and insularity without responsibility or work.
For the most part, their white overseers in the Democratic Party have worked hard to give black liberal leaders what they want in exchange for the "labor" of a reliable voting bloc on election day. It is more than ironic, and a testament to Bill Clinton's political skills, that he was able to undermine this dependence to the degree that he did.
Wise blacks have repudiated this cycle of cynical control and systemic failure and become Republicans.
Sharpton returned to Gary’s West Side High School as Saturday’s keynote speaker for the 2006 National Black Peoples Unity Convention.
When is the 2006 National White Peoples Unity Convention?
LOL! The fact that Clinton, the extremely white dude from Hope,Arkansas, was able to convince the ilk of Al Sharpton, Chuck Rangel, Jesse Jackson,etc., that he was the first black President, either attests to the power of Clinton's persuaveness or the the gullibility of such geniuses as JJ, CR and AS. Wonder if AS' middle name starts with an "S", inquiring minds want to know.
The best news in this article is that sharpton only drew a crowd of 200 in LA.
That would seem to be the most newsworthy item in the story. Only 200 people showed up? That says a lot. New headline "Sharpton Speaks to Smaller-Than-Hoped-For Audience at Conference."
(It was in Indiana, not LA, though)
Sadly, there are people out in the world whom are so dependend on others to blame for their problems that they don't want to critically examine why their lives aren't a success. It's 10 times easier to play a victim rather than say, I screwed up, and I'm going to do something about it.
Sharpton doesn't understand that blacks have been used by white "progressives" to further the white gay agenda and the white communist agenda.
He is correct when he says the black community must not allow white politicians to define "black" culture, but if he really thinks his followers can resist being forced into the "progressive" agenda, he is wrong.
Sharpton should start by teaching his followers that homosexuals are not "born gay", and that homosexuals are not eligible for the same civil rights' protections that minorities may need.
By siding with homosexuals, Sharpton is allowing, and encouraging, the homosexual lobby to dip into the civil rights' money pot. Each year, blacks will have less and less access to funded programs while homosexuals (and now illegal immigrants) take a bigger and bigger share.
His issues are that he wants to end the death penalty, allow crime and increase welfare? Where is the logic?
Tirade against his own fading importance and increasing impotence...
Rage on Al, against the dying of the spotlight, on Al Sharpton....
Ho Hum
So, Al defines "black" as being against the death penalty, the crime bill and the welfare reform bill?
More bad news for Sharpton:
$92.7 billion
Receipts for black-owned businesses in 2002, up 30% from 1997. The rate at which black-owned businesses increased their receipts was higher than the national average (22%).
1.2 million
The number of black-owned businesses in 2002, up by more than 370,000, or 45%, since 1997. An estimated 94,862 such firms had paid employees, with receipts of $69.8 billion or about $735,586 per firm.
Thirty-eight percent of black-owned firms were in health care and other service industries; health care and retail trade accounted for a fourth of their receipts.
A fourth of the businesses in Washington, D.C., were black-owned. Black-owned businesses accounted for between 12% and 15% of firms in Maryland, Georgia, Mississippi, and Louisiana.
Black business owners were more likely to hold graduate degrees when they started or acquired ownership in their business (about 1-in-4) than the national average (19%).
Education
81%
Among blacks age 25 and older, the proportion that had at least a high school diploma in 2004. This proportion rose by 8% from 1994 to 2004.
18%
Among blacks age 25 and older, the proportion that had a bachelor’s degree or higher in 2004—up 5% from 1994.
1.1 million
Among blacks age 25 and older, the number who had an advanced degree in 2004 (e.g., master’s, Ph.D., M.D. or J.D.). Ten years earlier—in 1994—only 624,000 blacks had this level of education.
2.3 million
Number of black college students in fall 2004, roughly double the number 15 years earlier.
http://www.infoplease.com/spot/bhmcensus1.html
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