QUIZ: Who once called an African-American mayor a "cheap n***er whore?" (Answer below) (A) Don Imus (B) Al Sharpton
In addition, Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY) donated $15,000 to the same organization that marched around a Jewish-owned clothing store while shouting racial and anti-Semitic epithets, and making violent threats to burn the store down. This underscores what we have been saying about Rangel's personal character, ethics, and integrity for a long time; he is unfit to hold any position of public trust or responsibility anywhere in this country.
Here is the press release in question.
[National Action Network press release] Senator Hillary Clinton (NY): “I have enjoyed a long and positive relationship with Reverend Al Sharpton and National Action Network, and I don’t ever remember saying “no” to them and I intend to remain their partner in civil rights as I clean the dirt from under the carpet in the oval office when I am elected President”
(1) When the National Action Network asks Hillary Clinton for matches and gasoline with which to burn down a store that is owned by "Jew bastards"--a phrase used not only by Al Sharpton's followers but allegedly by Ms. Clinton herself--will she say "no" to them? (2) Hillary's glowing (like the burning embers of Freddy's Fashion Mart) endorsement of an arguably violent hate organization should disqualify her from being elected to any position of public trust or responsibility.
[National Action Network press release] Senator Barack Obama (Ill): “Reverend Sharpton is a voice for the voiceless, and a voice for the dispossessed. What National Action Network has done is so important to change America, and it must be changed from the bottom up.”
Perhaps burning down stores that are owned by white people, especially Jews, is important to changing America. Given Obama's close association with individuals (Allan Houston) who effectively call Jews "Christ Killers" and a pastor (Jeremiah Wright) who accompanied Louis Farrakhan to Libya to meet with Moammar Khadafy, this is hardly surprising.
[National Action Network press release] Senator John Edwards: “I will work with National Action Network to fight poverty and seek justice for those marginalized in our society.”
Let us take a close look at the individual and organization that Clinton, Obama, and Edwards endorsed so warmly (like the fire that burned Freddy's Fashion Mart to the ground while killing seven people in the process) and to which Charles Rangel gave $15,000.
Fred Siegel's outstanding Democrats Embrace 'Impresario of Hatred'It would have taken no great effort for the reporters covering the Apollo debate to have walked across 125th Street from the theater to visit Freddy's Fashion Mart, where in 1995 eight people died in a murderous rampage inspired by Mr. Sharpton. Mr. Sharpton is best-known for the Tawana Brawley hoax, in which he insisted that a 15-year-old black girl had been abducted and raped by a band of white men practicing Irish Republican Army rituals. In fact she had made up the story to protect herself from her violent stepfather. But at Freddy's, Mr. Sharpton was even more malevolent. He turned a landlord-tenant dispute between the Jewish owner of Freddy's and a black subtenant into a theater of hatred. Picketers from Mr. Sharpton's National Action Network, sometimes joined by "the Rev." himself, marched daily outside the store, screaming about "bloodsucking Jews" and "Jew bastards" and threatening to burn the building down. After weeks of increasingly violent rhetoric, one of the protesters, Roland Smith, took Mr. Sharpton's words about ousting the "white interloper" to heart. He ran into the store shouting, "It's on!" He shot and wounded three whites and a Pakistani, whom he apparently mistook for a Jew. Then he set the fire, which killed five Hispanics, one Guyanese and one African-American--a security guard whom protesters had taunted as a "cracker lover." Smith then fatally shot himself.
[National Action Network press release] Senator Hillary Clinton (NY): “I have enjoyed a long and positive relationship with Reverend Al Sharpton and National Action Network, and I don’t ever remember saying “no” to them and I intend to remain their partner in civil rights as I clean the dirt from under the carpet in the oval office when I am elected President.”
http://www.nationalreview.com/20Mar00/nordlinger032000.html adds, There was more, of course-always more. In the spring of 1989, the Central Park “wilding” occurred. That was the monstrous rape and beating of a young white woman, known to most of the world as “the jogger.” The hatred heaped on her by Sharpton and his claque is almost impossible to fathom, and wrenching to review. ...Outside the courthouse, they [Sharpton and his entourage] chanted, “The boyfriend did it! The boyfriend did it!” They denounced the victim as “Whore!” They screamed her name, over and over (because most publications refused to print it, though several black-owned ones did). Sharpton brought Tawana Brawley to the trial one day, to show her, he said, the difference between white justice and black justice. He arranged for her to meet the jogger’s attackers, whom she greeted with comradely warmth. In another of his publicity stunts, he appealed for a psychiatrist to examine the victim. “It doesn’t even have to be a black psychiatrist,” he said, generously. He added: “We’re not endorsing the damage to the girl — if there was this damage.” ...But the torching, so to speak, continued. In 1995-four years into the putative New Sharpton-there was another, fatal case in which Sharpton had a guilty hand: Freddy’s Fashion Mart. In Harlem, a white store owner — no, worse: a Jewish one — was accused of driving a black store owner out of business. At one of the many rallies meant to scare the Jewish owner away [can anyone say, "burning crosses meant to scare the Negro owner away?"], Sharpton charged that “there is a systemic and methodical strategy to eliminate our people from doing business off 125th Street. I want to make it clear . . . that we will not stand by and allow them to move this brother so that some white interloper can expand his business.” Sharpton’s colleague, Morris Powell, said of the Jewish owner — Sharpton’s “white interloper” — “We’re going to see that this cracker suffers. Reverend Sharpton is on it.”
We just called the Obama campaign at (866) 675-2008 in response to yet another e-mail in which Barack Obama asked for our support, and talked about the success of his Walk for Change event last Saturday. We hope that any Walk for Change volunteers who collected money or financial pledges from the people they contacted were sufficiently ethical to retrace their steps and return the money when they learned about Obama's blatant connections with hate organizations and hate mongers who promote anti-Semitism, racism, and other forms of hatred that have no place in our society.
The Obama volunteer's response to our concerns was that Obama is not a racist or anti-Semite, that she had other calls to take, and if we didn't want to receive Obama's e-mails, we should unsubscribe. (We never subscribed to them in the first place, although we did e-mail the Obama campaign with our concerns about his association with Al Sharpton and his National Action Network, and MoveOn.org.) We received, in addition to unsolicited bulk e-mail, a flippant response to the effect that "people can disagree without being disagreeable." Bottom line: Obama and his campaign manager David Ploufe are telling us that they will associate with whatever Jew-haters, racists, and Catholic-baiters they please as long as the money keeps flowing in.
We told the person at Obama headquarters politely but firmly that we will be unable to vote for Obama next year no matter whom the Republicans put up, because of his open association with racists, anti-Semites, and other prominent bigots. These include explicitly and most prominently Al Sharpton, whose followers were responsible for two incidents of anti-Semitic violence (Crown Heights and Freddy's Fashion Mart) in which people were killed. We made it clear that Sharpton and his people had used racist and/or anti-Semitic terms in both incidents, and that Sharpton's followers had yelled "Kill the Jews" in the Crown Heights incident. Yankel Rosenbaum was the Jew whom they killed.
Plenty of other things can be said about Sharpton's prolific use of derogatory terms for white people, Jews, gay people ("Greek homos"), and even Black people whom he dislikes (specifically the N word), although we did not have time to discuss them with the Obama campaign's representative this afternoon.
We added that Obama's pastor Jeremiah Wright consorted with Louis Farrakhan, who called Judaism a "gutter religion" and the Pope "the Antichrist." (The two went to Libya to visit Moammar Khadafy, although we did not mention that. Also note that Al Sharpton said that Farrakhan is not an anti-Semite.) Furthermore, Obama accepted money from a fund raiser hosted by a former Knicks player (Allan Houston) who, with a teammate, effectively called Jews "Christ Killers." They said, to be precise, that Jews were responsible for Jesus' death.
[National Action Network press release] Senator Barack Obama (Ill): “Reverend Sharpton is a voice for the voiceless, and a voice for the dispossessed. What National Action Network has done is so important to change America, and it must be changed from the bottom up.”
It is alleged that the Roman Emperor Nero wanted to change Rome from the bottom up but, to do so, he had to burn the city to the ground (an act he later blamed on Christians). Perhaps the National Action Network had the same idea for changing Harlem from the bottom up:
How the National Action Network changed America in 1995
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Sharpton#Accusations_of_racism_and_homophobia "Sharpton was quoted as saying to an audience at Kean College in 1994 that, “White folks was in caves while we was building empires ... We taught philosophy and astrology and mathematics before Socrates and them Greek homos ever got around to it.” Sharpton defended his comments by noting that the term “homo” was not homophobic but added that he no longer uses the term."
[National Action Network press release] Senator Barack Obama (Ill): “Reverend Sharpton is a voice for the voiceless, and a voice for the dispossessed. What National Action Network has done is so important to change America, and it must be changed from the bottom up.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Sharpton#Crown_Heights_Riot A visiting rabbinical student from Australia by the name of Yankel Rosenbaum, 29, was killed during the rioting by a mob shouting "Kill the Jew." Sharpton has been seen by some commentators as inflaming tensions with remarks such as "If the Jews want to get it on, tell them to pin their yarmulkes back and come over to my house" and referring to Jews as "diamond merchants."
[National Action Network press release] Senator Hillary Clinton (NY): “I have enjoyed a long and positive relationship with Reverend Al Sharpton and National Action Network, and I don’t ever remember saying “no” to them and I intend to remain their partner in civil rights as I clean the dirt from under the carpet in the oval office when I am elected President.”
http://www.nationalreview.com/20Mar00/nordlinger032000.html "Once he [Sharpton] had referred to [David] Dinkins as “that nigger whore turning tricks in City Hall.”
Res Ipsa Loquitur, the thing speaks for itself.
If you want to tell Barack Obama's campaign workers what you think of his endorsement of an arguably violent hate group that made violent arson threats that were actually put into practice in what can only be called a hate crime, call (866) 675-2008. Remember that you are trying to persuade the person at the other end, so be polite and civil. Everyone has a moral right to complain about an organization's conduct and actions, but not to berate or abuse people who just happen to work there. The Obama campaign obviously withheld this information from its campaign workers, and (if they are volunteers) is exploiting them by soliciting their aid while concealing material facts from them. As an example, if a candidate asked for us to pass out leaflets or answer phone calls while concealing the fact that he was active in the Ku Klux Klan, we would turn on him very quickly and do our best to expose him for the lying fraud he is. This will quite likely be the reaction of Obama's people when they learn what he really is. Even if we were a paid employee and not a volunteer, our enthusiasm would disappear rapidly when we learned we were working for a two-bit phony who schmoozes with prominent racists and anti-Semites. We do have the right to demand, as a condition of even being considered for our votes next year, that Obama repudiate his connections with hatemongers like Sharpton.
Here is where you can tell Hillary Clinton's people what you think of her "long and positive relationship" with the architect of the Crown Heights riots, the Freddy's Fashion Mart incident, and the Tawana Brawley scam. 703-469-2008 appears to be the main number.
Again, remember that the person to whom you are talking is NOT a racist or anti-Semite, and will doubtlessly be just as appalled as you to learn the truth. If they are in their early 20s (e.g. college students or recent graduates), they would have been only in grade school when Sharpton's followers burned Freddy's Fashion Mart and rampaged through Crown Heights. They might not have even been in kindergarten during the Tawana Brawley scandal. The redress we want is for Clinton and Obama to repudiate their connection with Al Sharpton but, if they refuse to do so, we must make it clear that we will vote for whatever the Republicans put up in November 2008.
On a final note, Obama, Clinton, and Edwards may as well have called all African-American voters the N word. They appeared with Sharpton because they think he can "turn out the Black vote." Sharpton represents the absolute dregs of African-American society, including the violent criminals who rampaged through Crown Heights, made violent arson threats at Freddy's Fashion Mart, and the individual who committed the arson. Many of Sharpton's followers are why storekeepers in Black neighborhoods (most of whom are African-Americans themselves) have bars over their windows and steel doors with heavy locks. The class of Black to whom Sharpton appeals is the counterpart of the class of Caucasian to whom David Duke appeals: the absolute dregs of his society, the kind who must find solace in bigoted denunciations and even violence against people of other races to hide his own shortcomings.
There are plenty of prominent African-Americans with whom Clinton, Obama, and Edwards could have appeared, and all have done things to build Black communities and teach young Blacks to take responsibility for their own lives. These three Democrats apparently do not feel, however, that these community-builders and leaders represent most African-Americans. They think a bigoted hatemonger and proven liar whose following includes violent criminals represents most African-Americans. Res ipsa loquitur, the thing speaks for itself, and the Democratic Party had better find someone else between now and the primaries if it is to avoid being buried in a Republican landslide.
