The plantation rhetoric is distasteful for the same reason that facile Nazi tropes should be verboten: Some instances of evil are unique, and using them as a handy cudgel in every disagreement dilutes their emotional potency. Hitler was Hitler, and nobody else is. The Reverend Sharpton is slavish, but he is not a slave. When black critics use plantation rhetoric, it is repugnant; when white critics use plantation rhetoric, it is repugnant and condescending.
Take the idea that Hitler was unique? Yes, as was Robespierre, Marx, Lenin & Obama. But all five used the technique of viciously scapegoating a small percentage of the population, for the same purpose, with very similar & very bloody results--except for Obama thus far. Just what about Hitler makes analogies to others who employ the same tactics in any way inappropriate. Actually, Hitler's worst offenses can be largely traced back to Marxist ideas, whjich hardly makes him unique.
The fact that Obama has not yet sent his scapegoats to the guillotine, or suggested as did Marx that the world would be better without Jews, or like Lenin or Hitler, sought to systematically exterminate targeted populations, does not change the clear instances of legitimate comparison. (Remember, Hitler, like Obama, won an election, and did not start the wholesale killing of the most targeted group until 9 years later.)
Does this mean that we should expect Obama to launch an extermination of his pilloried "1%," smeared in the 2012 campaign? No, but no one in France in 1789 really expected the "Reign of Terror" in the early 1790s. There are people who have advised Obama in the past, who have definitely identified with a Nazi like slaughter of targeted Americans. And didn't FDR's supporter Stuart Chase call for same even in the 1930s? The comparisons are completely legitimate.
For more on Hitler/Obama comparisons, see Leftwing Chickens Coming Home.
As for Al Sharpton, the writer is right that he is not a slave; but completely ridiculous in calling him "slavish." He is a scoundrel, who employs the same demagoguish tactics as a Marx or Hitler, to exploit people susceptible to being misled. Some of those tactics, like those of the Revolutionary movements in France, Germany & Russia, referred to, have already resulted in civilain deaths at the hands of thuggish supporters of the demagogue.
William Flax
Yeah, what you said.
I agree.
But not only that, this intellectual snob (Kevin Williams) appears to be anointing himself "Keeper of All TRUTH" as he guns down the right of others (especially "FOX NEWS" and its "blond/tanned" analysts) to define the wherewithal of "Plantation."