Al Sharpton on responsibility, civil rights

[babylonsister]

Al Sharpton on responsibility, civil rights
Posted July 14, 2008 4:43 PM
The Swamp

by Rick Pearson


Rev. Al Sharpton says anybody who believes Sen. Barack Obama is speaking down to African Americans by calling for more parental responsibility isn't reflecting the modernization of the civil rights movement in America.

Sharpton, who visited Chicago today as part of a recently formed movement to push for equality in educational opportunity, said that just as Obama's rise as the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee shows "a new paradigm, politically, there's a new paradigm civil-rights-wise" in which Rev. Jesse Jackson may have felt generationally left behind.

It was Jackson, often a rival of Sharpton's previously as the voice for African Americans in civil rights issues, who recently used a physically indelicate criticism of Obama on the issue of race in saying the Illinois senator was talking down to blacks.

"I'm glad that Rev. Jackson apologized. I'm glad that Obama graciously accepted it. I happen to think that Obama was dead right. I think that I and others have been saying a long time and Bill Cosby, who I support, that...the civil rights movement of the 21st Century must be government accountability and personal responsibility," Sharpton said.

"I think it's talking down not to deal with these issues because it's almost like we're expected not to take care of our children, or expected not to be responsible," said Sharpton, noting his criticism of certain forms of rap music that he said he thinks promote a negative connotation of black culture.

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http://www.swamppolitics.com/news/politics/blog/2008/07/al_sharpton_civil_rights.html#more

[jody]

1. Will Jackson join Sharpton, Obama, Cosby, et al black leaders in campaigning for more African

American parental responsibility in the new so-called civil-rights paradigm that apparently asserts parents are a key factor in the many ills that beset the African American community.

How will that be received in the community?