Reply #9: A local perspective on Sharpton and Brawley [View All]

[HamdenRice]

Here is the view of a black New Yorker. First of all, the Amsterdam News (where believe it or not, I was a reporter for a few months as a post college job way back in the early 80s) is not the Amsterdam of the 1930s or 1960s. In fact, shortly after I left, there was a change of management and it became a really unreliable newspaper that most black people stopped reading. This is very unfortunate.

Brawley probably did pull off a hoax. Sharpton pretty much admits this, although Alton Maddox continues to propogate the hoax.

Sharpton, himself, is a big paradox and disappointment. He has raised important issues of police brutality and racial justice in New York when no other politicians or leaders would touch them. On the other hand, it's pretty clear to me that Sharpton is basically an opportunist who has no core beliefs or commitments.

Did you know that early in his career, he was a paid informant for the FBI, informing on other community leaders? That was reported in major newspapers like Newsday and the New York Times. Did you know that his 2004 "campaign" was financed by Republicans to embarrass the Democrats and alienate swing voters by keeping him in the debates?

One more interesting local perspective: my mother was a school aid at PS 134 in Queens from the early 1960s. There was a little boy there named Al Sharpton who was living with his grandmother. Whenever any other kid got in trouble, Al would run to the principle's office and try to defend him. He used to say, Mrs S---, believe me, one day I'm going to be an important preacher and civil rights leader!