Replies

“In 1995, during a protest aimed at driving Freddy’s Fashion Mart, a Jewish-owned store, out of Harlem, Sharpton loudly and angrily railed against “bloodsucking Jews,” “Jew bastards,” and “white interlopers.””

http://www.cavalierdaily.com/CVArticle.asp?ID=17343&pid=1064

Sharpening racial tensions

Eric Wang, Cavalier Daily Columnist
FOR those who heard Al Sharpton’s entrancing and energetic eloquence on Sunday in the Old Cabell auditorium, the public’s dismal support for his presidential campaign might seem incongruent. After all, he hit every note that resonates with the Democratic faithful — from the red-meat denunciations of the president and the war in Iraq to his passionate positions on important issues like international trade, Middle East peace, and tax cuts. What’s more, unlike Howard Dean, who comes across as just angry, Sharpton moderated his harsh rhetoric with disarming one-liners and witticisms sure to cause envy for any stand-up comedian.

The problem with Sharpton is not with his message, but rather the messenger himself. As someone who built his career fanning racial tensions and violence, Sharpton’s poor judgment and recklessness in his not-so-distant past undermine his authority to articulate on serious issues today. Given the recent racial tensions on campus, his campaign stop was especially inappropriate and threatens to trivialize important questions that remain to be resolved at the University.

Sharpton’s transgressions have been widely reported in the national and New York media, but for those who have not watched him operate up close as this writer has, they need repeating. And just as conservative icon William Bennett has been chagrined for his gambling, Arnold for his groping, and Rush Limbaugh for his overdosing, Sharpton’s deadly and destructive race-baiting throughout the late ‘80s and early 90’s remain relevant to his public life.

Sharpton first broke into the limelight in 1987, when he goaded Tawana Brawley, a young African-American girl, to falsely allege that she had been raped, smeared with feces, and left in a bag by a gang of white policemen and prosecutors. From the get-go, there were glaring inconsistencies in the story, and Sharpton later admitted that he never even asked the alleged victim if she had actually been raped. He was found guilty of defamation in the case and ordered to pay $65,000 in damages. The closest Sharpton ever came to an apology was in a 1998 Economist interview, when he admitted he might “have done some things differently.” Still, at a press availability this Sunday, Sharpton was as unapologetic for that incident as he was for his hour-long delay in arriving for his speech. “I stood up for a young lady that I believed in, and I still believe in her,” Sharpton told this writer, while ignoring the findings of an exhaustive public investigation that thoroughly discredited the story.

As much as Sharpton should have learned from that incident, he didn’t. In 1995, during a protest aimed at driving Freddy’s Fashion Mart, a Jewish-owned store, out of Harlem, Sharpton loudly and angrily railed against “bloodsucking Jews,” “Jew bastards,” and “white interlopers.” Sharpton explained to this writer, “I had a disagreement with the owners of the store.” It was a disagreement that led a follower to shoot four people and set the store ablaze, resulting in a total of eight deaths.

Sharpton’s rash behavior in these cases, like the parable of the boy who cried wolf, tends to trivialize genuine hate crimes and civil rights violations that still occur today. When New York City policemen sodomized Abner Louima, a Haitian immigrant, with a toilet plunger, the facts were so clear-cut and forthcoming that the public was rightfully outraged. Similarly, when NYPD officers unleashed a hail of 41 gunshots at unarmed Guinean immigrant Amadou Diallo in his apartment vestibule, the sheer excess of their shooting strongly suggested police brutality. Sharpton, to his credit, came out on the right side in both incidents. Still, his continuing refusal to distinguish between real wrongs and concocted racially-charged canards reveals fatal character and cognitive flaws.

Here at the University, we must remember that many students continue to question the veracity of the alleged racially-motivated attack on Daisy Lundy last year. Should the pending federal investigation corroborate Lundy’s story, it would be a very serious matter indeed.

Al Sharpton, no matter how inclusive his rhetoric today, still represents a divisive demagogue who engaged in reckless race-baiting by making wild, unfounded accusations. His very name and presence invite scrutiny and suspicion of all allegations of racial bias, even when they turn out to be true. Given the unsolved status of such a serious potential bias crime here at the University, inviting figures like Sharpton who prejudice and polarize allegations of bias crimes is a disservice to the entire community.

(Eric Wang’s column appears Wednesdays in The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached ewang@cavalierdaily.com)