Al Sharpton's Gift to America - Democratic Underground

DuctapeFatwa

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Thu Jan-29-04 11:36 PM
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Al Sharpton's Gift to America

During the OJ trial, opinion of whether OJ was guilty or not was split almost completely along racial lines, with almost all whites saying guilty and almost all non-whites saying innocent (at least of that particular crime ).

When you listened to people talk, a lot of the comments from whites sounded very similar to things you would have heard from white people in Alabama in 1963.

The OJ trial taught a lot of non-whites that in the hearts and minds of the white majority in the US, things had not really changed that much since racial apartheid was the law of the land.

There was a similar epiphany for many non-whites after 9-11, when the veneer was stripped away, and many people living in the US learned overnight who their friends are.

Al Sharpton will not win the election, would not, even if the "election" were 100% on the up and up, even if Diebold did not have its machines ready, even if the PNAC strategists did not have their judges ready, even if the votes were counted.

Nor will he be the nominee. He will probably not win even one primary, despite the fact that he is clearly the most intelligent person in quite a while who has deigned to spend their time running for political office. American culture does not value intelligence, and it is more of a liability than an asset for a politician, which Sharpton is not.

He tells the truth. He is neither humble, nor deferential, and that makes some white Americans very nervous. There is no good reason for that. To reiterate, he will not win. He hardly has any money. He does not have celebrity endorsements, black or white.

A black man that makes white people that nervous makes many rich and successful black men nervous too, as if the stigma might rub off. The stigma of being smart, the stigma of being uppity. The stigma of not acting white.

Sharpton is congenitally shuffling-impaired. He is impossible to talk down to, impossible to condescend to, and if you try he will fry you up with some onions and enjoy you with ketchup, in a remarkably courteous way.

He is, to many whites, regardless of party affiliation, the anti-Powell.

He does not have light skin. He does not have a stately background of accolades and credit-to-his-race accomplishments on which stately light-skinned parents smile with quiet dignity and pride.

He used to be James Brown's stage manager, and then he became a civil rights activist, one of the loudest, brashest, in-your-face civil rights activists in the history of the Movement. Al made Hosea look diffident and soft-spoken. He wore bad 70s PimpWear. He is a preacher who can preach with the best of them, but when Al went to church outside the church, he didn't preach, and he didn't ask and he didn't shuffle. He demanded. And most of the time, he got. Maybe sometimes he got just because whoever was on the receiving end would do anything to make him go away, but his very name put fear in the hearts of the same white people who outwardly snickered at him.

The same ones who over the last few weeks have been scratching their heads and expressing surprise to learn that Al is so intelligent.

Now tell me about racism being a thing of the past.

For a lot of white people, Al Sharpton means only one thing. Tawana Brawley.

Al believed Tawana. He does not apologize for it, and indeed, the least believable aspect of her story was that she reported it.

Today, I overheard a white lady say that Sharpton had taught her that she is indeed a racist. She realized this when she caught herself thinking, if this guy were white, he could win.

Her conclusion was, if he does nothing else, he will make it damn hard for white people to continue to talk about how much "progress" has been made regarding race relations in the US.

I will go farther and suggest that maybe Al will get them to thinking about it.

And that is the greatest gift that any intelligent person can give his fellow human beings.