WHO ELECTED AL SHARPTON?

“Beg pardon but who died and made Al Sharpton president of the Negroes?” In commenting on the national press’s fawning over Al Sharpton, to whom Dog the Bounty Hunter, in a lengthening line of racist ranters, recently appealed for help, Black syndicated columnist Leonard Pitts wrote: “…beyond the strengths and weaknesses of the men who seek to be charismatic leaders, there is a sense that the job itself has grown obsolete. Who, after all, are the nation’s white leaders? To what one man or woman do you apologize when you insult white folks? Doesn’t the very idea that there could be one person deny the complexity and diversity of the population? Similarly, black America is served by dozens of magazines, websites, television networks and media figures that did not exist when (Martin Luther) King was killed. So it’s about time news media—and those who will insult us in the future—get past this notion that one or two people are anointed to speak for 36 million. That is a simplistic, antiquated and faintly condescending idea.”

ANDREW YOUNG, SHUT UP AND GO AWAY!

Recent comments by Andrew Young, the once exalted lieutenant to Martin Luther King, Jr., are the dumbest yet. He said that Bill Clinton is blacker than Barack Obama and has probably gone with more Black women than Barack Obama. Andrew Young is a relic from the past and a sycophant to boot who does himself and the Clinton presidential campaign no favor comparing a nice White man and his sexual inclinations to a modern Black man, who is on the cusp of taking the Civil Rights movement to a new, exciting and expansive level. Andrew, we understand political convenience and many are faced with the political dilemma of choosing between what once seemed to be the certain winner and a qualified Black candidate. But you, of all people, should understand that it serves no useful purpose and causes much damage for a prominent Black man to tear Barack Obama down just to build Hillary up. You need to just shut up and go away and let the future happen.

IF YOU’RE WRONG, YOU’RE WRONG! WHY THE WAIT!

First the U. S. Supreme Court says judges should have discretion in allowing reduced sentences to crack users and distributors, who have been predominantly Black because their sentences have been vastly greater than cocaine law violators, who are primarily White. Than the U. S. Sentencing Commission reduced the sentencing guidelines for crack so that it is only two to five times that of cocaine guidelines instead of the previous 100 times. And now pundits are saying that eventually the sentencing will be equal for crimes that everybody now knows are equal. Why eventually? Now that you all admit what this scribe and countless others have always known, why wait? Why delay eliminating for a second longer an injustice that has been allowed to linger since 1986.

DON’T YOU JUST LOVE IT!

Roger Clemmons! Roger Clemmons! Roger Clemmons! There is not a genuine Black person in America who didn’t know that Barry Bonds was a convenient media scapegoat for baseball’s steroid scandals.

MICHAEL VICK IS A MAN

He lost his reputation, a National Football League career, $150 million dollars and his freedom and some dumb judge gives him an extended jail sentence because Michael Vick hasn’t shown enough remorse! Michael Vick has been punished beyond his wildest imagination for cruelty to dogs and you can bet he knows it and feels it like nobody else can. We Black folks give him credit for standing up and taking his punishment like a man. But, the White judge, probably reflecting the judgment of many White folks, wants more than punishment. He wants the big Black man’s future livelihood and, most of all, his manhood!

MORE EVIDENCE!

And what about the evidence presented in the recent indictment of Black United States Representative William Jefferson? You remember the Louisiana representative who got caught on tape by the FBI taking $90,000 in marked bribe money, which investigators, with a search warrant, later found stuffed in his freezer. Documents filed in court by the prosecution allege that Jefferson also pressured an oil contractor to pay a relative $10,000 in return for helping him obtain oil contracts in Africa and that he promised to pressure NASA to direct a contract to a U. S. technology company. The prosecutors are not adding new charges against Jefferson but only trying to establish a “pattern of intentional wrongdoing” in their bribery claims against him. Do they really think they need more evidence?

DEVAL PATRICK’S DOING IT!

Nineteen percent (19%) of the managers hired by Governor Patrick in the past 10 months are racial minorities compared to former Governor Mitt Romney’s record of 8%. Patrick’s results can be partially attributable to the fact that he reinstated the affirmative action guidelines that Romney had abandoned.

GREAT APOLOGY!

“I am mortified about what has happened….More importantly, I cannot understand how I could have said what I am quoted as having said. I can certainly understand why people, reading those words, have reacted in the ways they have. To all those who have drawn the inference from my words that Africa, as a continent, is somehow genetically inferior, I can only apologize unreservedly. That is not what I meant. More importantly from my point of view, there is no scientific basis for such belief.” (James Watson, Nobel Prize winning DNA expert and chancellor of the renowned Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory defending comments he made suggesting that Africans were genetically inferior.)

LET’S DISCUSS THE REAL AFFIRMATIVE ACTION IN COLLEGE ADMISSIONS!

About 15 percent of freshmen enrolled at America’s elite colleges are White teens who failed to meet their institutions’ minimum admission standards. White students who failed to make the grade on all counts were nearly twice as prevalent on such campuses as Black and Hispanic students who received an admission’s break based on their ethnicity or race. These are rich kids who colleges routinely favor because of their connections. As Peter Schmidt put it, “While some applicants gain admission by legitimately beating out their peers, many others get into exclusive colleges the same way people get into trendy night clubs, by knowing the management or flashing cash at the person manning the velvet rope.”

RONALD REAGAN WAS A RACIST

As I read an article by Los Angeles Times writer Maura Reynolds titled “Poll Finds Views of Blacks, Whites Moving Closer,” I thought about The New York Times writer Bob Herbert’s article titled “Reagan didn’t get everything right.” Most White folks I’ve heard speak of former President Ronald Reagan argue about how great he was. Beside the fact that his accomplishments were generally over-rated, Reagan was a racist who made his first stop in his general election campaign in Mississippi’s Neshoba County where three civil rights workers were slain by White racists in 1964. And during his visit, he hailed “states’ rights,” which, at the time, was a euphemism for white supremacy. Hebert outlined Black folks’ view of Reagan nicely. “He was opposed to the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964, which was the same year that (the three Civil Rights workers) were killed. As president, he actually tried to weaken the Voting Rights Act of 1965. He opposed a national holiday for the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. He tried to get rid of the federal ban on tax exemptions for private schools that practiced racial discrimination. And in 1988, he vetoed a bill to expand the reach of federal civil rights legislation….Throughout his career, Reagan was wrong, insensitive and mean spirited on civil rights and other issues important to black people. There is no way for the scribes of today to clean up the dismal record.” So, when it comes to Ronald Reagan, the views of White and Black folks couldn’t be further apart.

THE MARCH ON WASHINGTON THAT NEVER HAPPENED

Reverends Al Sharpton and Jessie Jackson and others recently led a march on Washington to protest the Jenna Six situation, the continued incarceration of a Black youngster for having oral sex with his White girl friend, and the recent proliferation of racial incidents, including discovery of hanging nooses in places designed to intimidate Black folks and many other incidents that suggest the race haters are on the move in America. And, do you know that in spite of a mainstream media blackout, more than 50,000 people showed up! n