So it is that nearly everybody’s favorite faux ‘reverend’, and that professional race huckster, Al ‘Bull horn’ Sharpton has long been praised by any number of prominent figures in politics, as well as in the state-controlled media, as being some sort of a civil rights icon. And as bizarre as it may sound, it has even been reported that Al has now become Barry "Almighty’s" official "go-to black leader." Which, if anything, makes very clear what Barry’s true position is when it comes to the matter of race relations in this country. And it ain’t pretty.
Not one to ever be found very far from the nearest television camera or microphone, Old ‘Bull Horn’, has recently been seen in many of the media reports, leading any number of ‘protests’ against grand jury decisions exonerating white policemen in the deaths of unarmed black in Ferguson, Missouri, and Staten Island, New York. Never shy about exploiting the tragedy experienced by others, Sharpton seized upon the death of these two men for his own benefit. Their deaths were seen by Sharpton as being nothing more than an opportunity to plaster his ugly mug on televisions all across the nation.
But still there are many in the so-called ‘mainstream media’ who have continued to work very hard in their efforts to downplay, as best they can, the many negatives surrounding this fraudulent man of God. They have left no stone unturned as they have gone about the portraying of this man as being quite different from the rabble-rouser and inciter of racial hatred that we all know him to be. As a preacher, he preaches nothing but hate. So since we can no longer rely on our media to do its job, here are but a few of the highlights of his stellar career as a rait-baiter:
1. When Sharpton sought involvement in the funeral of Akai Gurley, an African-American shot dead in November by a rookie police officer in the darkened stairwell of a housing project in Brooklyn, New York, Gurley's family told him to stay away. Sharpton held a news conference condemning the cop and promised to deliver a eulogy at the wake. But Gurley's aunt, who was speaking for his mother, told TMZ: "Al Sharpton came in, put his name on the situation, but has not even made one single call to the parents of Akai," adding that all Sharpton sees "is money and political gain and he is turning the tragedy into a circus."
2. Sharpton has more than $4.5 million in current state and federal tax liens against him and his businesses. His National Action Network has repeatedly failed to pay travel agencies, hotels and landlords, records show.
3. Sharpton has allegedly sought to keep his nonprofit afloat with money that was supposed to go to payroll taxes, although he contends that the payroll tax shortfall was not intentional.
4. The ‘reverend’ accused an upstate New York prosecutor, Steven Pagones, of being part of a group of white men who raped teenager Tawana Brawley in 1987. A grand jury found "overwhelming evidence" that the rape allegation had been fabricated. Pagones sued Sharpton for defamation and won a judgment of $65,000. Sharpton reportedly paid the judgment with money raised by his supporters.
5. Sharpton has frequently sparked controversy with his strident language. During a rally in Brooklyn, he called white people "crackers."
6. After a car in a Hasidic rabbi's motorcade killed a 7-year-old black boy in Brooklyn in 1991, Sharpton referred to the Hasidic Jews as "diamond merchants" and said "if the Jews want to get it on, tell them to pin their yarmulkes back and come over to my house." Shortly afterward, an innocent Hasidic Jewish student visiting the area from Australia was set upon by a mob and stabbed to death.
7. In 1995, an African-American Pentecostal church in Harlem, New York, asked a Jewish tenant of one of its properties, Freddie's Fashion Mart, to evict a black-run record store that was subletting part of the property. Sharpton showed up outside Freddie's vowing to a crowd: "We will not stand by and allow them to move this brother so that some white interloper can expand his business." Two weeks before Christmas that year, Freddie's was attacked by a man in the crowd who shot several customers and then set fire to the building with a flammable liquid, killing seven employees. Sharpton subsequently apologized for his "white interloper" remark, but vehemently denied responsibility for the violence.
8. Speaking at a college in 1994, Sharpton referred to gay men as "homos."
9. When Mitt Romney, a Mormon, was running for president in 2007, Sharpton said: "As for the Mormon running for office, those who really believe in God will defeat him anyway."
10. In 1990, Sharpton was acquitted of felony charges that he stole $250,000 from his youth group.
11. In 1993, he pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor for failing to file a state income tax return.
12. State law bars nonprofits from making loans to officers, but Sharpton admitted that his National Action Network had once loaned him money to cover his daughters' tuition.
13. Sharpton was jailed for 90 days in 2001 on trespassing charges stemming from his protest against U.S. military target practice exercises in Puerto Rico.
14. Sharpton worked as a government informant. In 2002, HBO aired a 19-year-old FBI videotape of an undercover sting operation showing Sharpton with an FBI agent posing as a Latin American businessman and a reputed Columbo crime family captain. Sharpton said in 1988 that he informed for the government in order to stem the flow of crack cocaine into black neighborhoods, although The Smoking Gun alleged that he was paid to be an informant.
15. In December 2005, Sharpton agreed to repay $100,000 in public funds he received for his 2004 presidential campaign, because he had exceeded federal limits on personal expenditures for his campaign.
16. In 2005, Sharpton appeared in three TV commercials for LoanMax, an automobile title loan firm that reportedly charged fees that were the equivalent of 300 percent APR loans.
What I find as being more than a little curious, I guess, is the fact that most blacks, while being very well aware of Sharpton’s rather shady past, seem to be bothered very little by his past ‘indiscretions.’ They don’t seem to be the least bit concerned that Sharpton’s only desire is to use them in his continuing effort to promote himself. Which leads me to wonder if this little arrangement here isn’t seen as being somehow mutually beneficial to all parties concerned. That in their own rather perverted way, blacks seem to be using Sharpton in much the same manner that he is using them.
I mean why else would this continuing exploitation, by Sharpton, Jackson and any number of others, of the black community be tolerated as it so obviously has been, and continues to be, by those who are so clearly being exploited? Obviously blacks see themselves as having something to gain from this arrangement that they have with Sharpton. Sharpton as been a major player in creating, and then cultivating, the sense of entitlement that is now rampant in the black community, the net result of which as been that the black family has been decimated. Sharpton is not a leader, he is just the opposite.