Posted on 10/09/2002 9:14:12 AM PDT by Kevin Kelley
Drudge reports on the comments of our most recent Hollywood moron, Harry Belafonte. Additionally, last night Bill O'Reilly of Fox News' O'Reilly Factor blasted Belafonte for his scathing criticism of Secretary of State Colin Powell. From Drudge.....
Singer Harry Belafonte took to the AM radio waves on Tuesday morning to slam Secretary of State Colin Powell as a sellout to the black race!Belafonte's comparisons between slavery and conservatism are reminiscent of the unrelenting attacks suffered by Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas. Essentially, the argument goes something like this: If you don't side with the Democrats, who are the de facto protectors of the little guy and minorities, then you are a racist. This slap-down is used to prevent further debate and intimidate others into avoiding the same error.Belafonte, appearing on San Diego's 760 KFMB, told host Ted Leitner that Powell was like a plantation slave who moves into the slave owner's house and only says what his master wants him to say.
What proof is there that Democrats help blacks more than Republicans? Well, Democratic campaign literature is rife with platitudes to the minority voter for one thing.....and if that's not enough, there is the welfare state, funded with trillions of dollars over 40 years that led to blacks becoming a permanent underclass. Liberal policies that created incentives to have children out of wedlock led to record levels of teen pregnancy and the crushing of so many dreams. When conservatives complained that Rap music was course and misogynistic and glorified the thug lifestyle, liberals exploded, accusing Republicans of wanting to stifle the creative talents of NWA and Tupac Shakur. So Shug Knight and his gang affiliated Death Row Records became a huge success by painting white culture and the work ethic as outmoded paradigms that kept the black man down. Now, urban youth emulate the swagger of the rappers, walking around with their new sneakers and a .40 in their waistband....nothing in front of them but a losing crap shoot between selling rock on the corner and jail (or a hole in the forehead).
But worry not! The Democrats were there to help with food stamps and other lame programs that mainly fostered dependency on government. Of course we can't overlook the stunning success of the Democrat led urban school systems that have graduated so many shining examples of excellence in public education.
What an embarrassment to hear Belafonte harping about Uncle Tom boot kissing house boys in the face of the actual history of liberal failures. There is literally not a single success that liberalism can point to. Good intentions are a joke, and are tossed overboard at the first offer of political power or expediency. To expect government to be the savior of the black community is a ridiculous idea. Belafonte should rightly be held out as the latest Hollywood Moron.
Kevin Kelley
Media and Policy Review
Its intersting just how much there actors were respected (although Mitchum would get into scraps, drink on the set, and early in his career got busted for marijuana).
Good one! Are there two or three?
Here's a response I put on another FR thread on the same subject. Thought you might appreciate it:
"Selling out the black man to the white establishment for personal advancement? Funny, that's exactly what the real calypso singers said about Harry back in the 1950s, when the music they invented was released only on small independent labels, while a watered-down, sanitized version by the light-skinned, well-dressed, non-threatening Harry Belafonte was marketed like Coca-Cola to white Americans to play on their blonde wood Magnavoxes at their martini and cheese parties. Harry Belafonte was to calypso what Pat Boone was to Little Richard. Were I he, I would not be throwin' no rocks from my glass beach hut, mon."
BTW, if I wanted to throw around accusations as wildly as Harry does, I'd blame him for the hateful career of Louie Farrakhan. Calypso Louie (or "The Charmer," as he was then known) might have had a much more benign career if RCA hadn't passed on signing him because they thought that one light-skinned black calypso singer was all the pop market could bear. Next time you hear Louie spewing anti-Jewish rhetoric, remember that if it weren't for Harry Belafonte being in the way, Louie might be shouting, "Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay-o!" instead.
The coda to this whole story is that Charles Barkly has gone on record to say that he was offended by Harry Belafonte's statement about Mr. Powell and that until black people stop attacking each other in such a manner, they will be unable to advance (their lots in life). I think that it was in this same interview that he reiterated his support of the Republican party.
I've only seen him once around Houston (at a small bar where a friend of mine was spinning a Brit-pop/mod night). I have never spoken to him.
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