How do you feel about Reverend Al Sharpton. I am of an age where I was exposed to Sharpton at his very worst. Growing up in the New York metropolitan area in the 1980’s, it was pretty much impossible to ignore Sharpton’s excesses. He was in the paper and on the news constantly, and often for being a complete jackass. Of course, it all culminated with the absolutely disgraceful Tawana Brawley incident which began when I was a senior in high school.
I think Sharpton has redeemed himself, but I am sympathetic to those who are unwilling to forgive him. What do you think?
Of course, it all culminated with the absolutely disgraceful Tawana Brawley incident which began when I was a senior in high school.
I think Sharpton has redeemed himself, but I am sympathetic to those who are unwilling to forgive him. What do you think?
How has Sharpton ever redeemed himself? Last I heard, he never apologized. And he ruined some people’s lives with that.
Not to defend Sharpton because I tend to recoil from anyone that uses any form of bully pulpit and emotional appeals to incite the public and thwart a calm and rational exposure of the truth or simply to make money for the speaker. That includes all the demagogues, grifters, etc. such as Pat Robertson, Palin, Hannity and Nancy Grace and the coterie of “feminists” that wanted members of the Duke LaCrosse team imprisoned. In a just world, one such instance should tarnish them and make them unacceptable to be seen and heard on public airwaves forever. “Sorry” doesn’t cut it for me. And in the grand scheme, were Sharpton’s false claims in the Brawley situation more egregious than this:
Weren’t both actors looking to advance their careers at the expense of innocent people? Which set of lies destroyed more lives?
Sharpton is one of the most gifted hustlers alive. He has a nose for the easy dollar. And he had the sense to be an Obama cheerleader to keep the money flowing. I would put him ahead of Don King.
Oh. Way ahead of Don King!!! In another dimension entirely. The only things that they both share are skin color and absolute shamelessness. They were allied at one time in a nexus that included the NYC gangsters that ran almost all entertainments that included minority members and audiences…music, boxing, etc. I was there, in the ’60s/’70s/’80s NYC music trenches and I saw it all. Up close and way too personal. Over the ensuing years Sharpton went cosmic in comparison to Don King. You are certainly familiar with that old publicity meme, “Say anything you want but spell my name right.” aren’t you? The Brawley thing elevated Sharpton to national newsworthiness and he never looked back. Never. Bet on it.
AG
I never trusted him.
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/documents/Al-Sharpton-918273
I remember crying my eyes out over Tawana Brawley, and I carried a lot of disgust for Sharpton for a long time when I found out what a scam it was. That was a low-down, dirty tactic that did more harm to his cause than good. Having said that, I guess you fight with the weapons you have, and I’ve never seen the cops show any restraint when it came to stomping on the rights of black people, so I take all the high-minded kvetching about the guy with a grain of salt.
Is he my favorite person? No. Would he put the Cause ahead of personal self-promotion? I would not bet money on that one…
I remember him from the 80s as a camera hogging blowhard involved in some fairly sleazy grandstanding.
I have seen him occasionally on MSNBC in recent years, and he seems to be much more level-headed and less full of himself. He can summarize the gist of an issue very concisely and logically, and doesn’t make it out to be all about him.
A quick look at Wikipedia indicates that he has been involved in a number of controversies right up into the 2000s, but he certainly seems to have made some drastic changes in how he conducts himself in regard to social justice issues.
I was never hurt or affected by Sharpton’s earlier activities, so it is easy for me to say that he seems to be a much more mature and reasonable person than he was 25 years ago. I can understand those who feel differently, especially if he never acknowledged or apologized for harm he caused.
I don’t think I can ever forgive him for his role in the Brawley incident.
Yet, I can’t deny that he is one the most insightful commentators on tv.
So, I guess I will continue to watch him, and so long as he limits his commentary to detached analysis (as opposed to vouching for anyone personally or otherwise testifying in a personal manner), I will take him seriously.
I consider Sharpton to be a media personality like Don Lemon. Whatever local constituency he had for his actions seems to have dissipated. When he fails to use his media status, people ignore him. When he uses his media status to point out situations like Ferguson, people ask “What do you think about Al Sharpton?”
What do you think about Jake Tapper?
What do you think about Chris Hayes?
What do you think about Ed Schultz?
They all push agendas, some good, some stupid.
He has become just another symptom of how bad the US media is at dealing with the significant realities that are trickling down to affect the lives of ordinary people. And not the best or the worst symbol.
Frankly, I’m not high on any of the three. The more time Hayes spends on TV, the worse he gets. The bubble is getting to him it seems.
Not so sure it’s the more time on TV that’s doing it as being forced to fill every day of the week for an hour.
Of any tv personality, he’s the only one I could tolerate (haven’t watched since he went to the weekday line-up so I don’t know if I still could tolerate him).
Geez, Sharpton should stay away from Ferguson. I can live with him – he is a smart guy- but he is simply not the advocate the wider public will follow anymore. He gave that role up in 1987 as you noted. How in the world are those other pundits you mentioned in the same box as Sharpton? That said I agree they all have agendas. But I watched Lemon, Tapper and Hayes and all seemed to be just doing their jobs.
Lemon, Tapper, and Hayes are media personalities whose job is to make every story they cover safe for the establishment even when they are critiquing establishment moves. They are like Sharpton in that they all are on corporate leashes and have limits to how far they can tell truths that the executives of their companies find threatening.
Lemon was rightly chewed out for being too much of a shill for police propaganda.
Tapper, who was remarkably courageous in his reporting in the midst of the worst night of police excess, had to restrain himself thereafter. Fairness trumps truth.
Hayes, the most inclined to investigative reporting, wallowed in human interest stories and never asked serious questions of just how did this become a counter-insurgency military operation to begin with. Regardless of who was giving the orders, what was the training and cues that the folks giving the orders were operating from, what philosophy was driving it, and who provided training to these sometimes out-of-control officers. And to what extent were they operating out of a playbook provided by DOJ and DHS and common to every police department in the US? It’s not just the equipment that is mismatched. It is the presumptions that allow the easy sweeping aside of Constitutional rights and the rolling out of a preplanned security narrative.
As an inveterate MSNBC weeknight watcher I actually think that Chris Hayes was quite good over the last week or so in Ferguson. I thought he addressed many of the issues, including the militarization of the Ferguson police force, just not in the way you or many might have preferred. He did interview Jay Nixon and pushed him hard on the Special Prosecutor issue. Many of his other interviews were more than human interest. I thought he did stellar work in Ferguson. Guess I accept the limitations of what one can get away with on TV news with for profit owners.
I also happen to just like Rev. Sharpton and agree with him on most things, although his delivery at times can be a little rough. I just like how upfront he is and what you see is what you get.
And Lawrence O’Donnell has been very good this week with his focus on the legal aspects and fallout from the Brown shooting. His take down of the NY Times article and the conflicting witness reports was a thing of beauty.
I agree that Jake Tapper has done some courageous reporting this week and was glad to see CNN actually get back to doing some real news reporting, albeit that Don Lemon was forced by circumstances to confront the fact of racism against those of his color. It was as if he finally waked up to that for the first time.
Even though it’s quite late and this thread is probably dead, just wanted to let you know, Tarheel Dem, that I had time to volunteer at Michelle Nunn’s first face-to-face with her GOP Senate opponent on Thursday here in my city. A forum sponsored by the Ga. Chamber of Commerce. Thanks to her ability to continue to thread a fine needle, she seems to have improved her chances, as tonight her campaign reports a new poll by WSB-TV in Atlanta showing her leading Perdue 47 to 40 (she was 9 points behind according to another a few days ago).
A group of us volunteers were out in force outside the venue with signs and great energy thanks to 20 somethings from her campaign offices all over the state. So, thus far, we are turning it into a race, even though we are not given good odds of winning. She does have a ground game, and we are working hard to GOTV.
A master grifter. Nothing more.
AG
I might be wrong, but I think those of us who lived in New York in the 1980’s are the hardest to convince to forgive. It took me a very long time to get over it, but I’m okay with Al today.
Yeah. Right. He’s a good Democrat. Of course you’re “OK” with him. You’re a good Democrat too.
Lemme tell you something, Booman. In another comment here I said that Sharpton’s achievements dwarfed those of his fellow hustler Don King, that all they have in common now is skin color and absolute shamelessness. I hate to have to say this, but as Al Sharpton stands to Don King, so does Barack Obama stand to Al Sharpton. Obama’s hustle makes Sharpton look like a country snake oil salesman.
We have all been had. He’s even better than the Clintons.
Bet on it.
AG
I don’t know what’s up with Don King, but Sharpton has moved on from that game. I think he matured. Maybe I’m wrong, but I’m willing to let bygones be bygones.
Those kinds of “bygones” are never gone. He was a frontman for the most vicious exploiters of his race in the ’70s + ’80s….the people who sponsored the heroin and crack epidemics in the minority neighborhoods of NYC, the same people who used the truly wonderful cultural achievements of those neighborhoods to become rich while simultaneously paying the artists as little as possible and watering down the art in order to wring the last buck out of it. Look up <Jerry Masucci> <Matty “”The Horse” Ianniello> and <Mafia Jazz 52nd St.> for a beginner’s primer on what went down. I will never trust him. Ever. He is a lying sociopath.
AG
You should do a piece about it. Otherwise, it’s lost history.
I came at it as a disengaged teenager who was somewhat sympathetic to Sharpton’s causes but disgusted by his dishonesty and outraged by the way he stoked the racial tensions in the city.
But I had no window into the entertainment end of things at the time.
initial stories about the incident gave lots of info about her life; she was a good kid, good student who began staying out late and getting in trouble [shoplifting] about a year -iirc- before this incident. iirc this coincided w. her mother’s marriage to Ralph King who had a history of violence [killing his first wife] and “spoke about Tawana in a sexual manner” [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tawana_Brawley_rape_allegations]. the onset of behavior problems in teen years is one indicator of sexual abuse – not conclusive, of course, but one marker.
Anyway, everyone piled on – her mother, her stepfather, Sharpton, et al. and took what they could from the situation.
well, that’s what he did to little Tawana as well. Pls write a diary about this
I stopped watching MSNBC when he arrived. I’ve never been much of a TV watcher, and the creep up over the years of ads made it near unpalatable. Sharpton was the straw that broke the camel’s back.
Despite the good people on MSNBC, they are not missed. There are plenty of alternatives now.
I don’t like the fact that there is a general “guilt by association” simply because he publicly carries the label of liberal. While he and I might agree on a host of issues, I am not amused that he has such a high public profile in my camp. He simply brings a tremendous amount of baggage when it comes to credibility. Not a big fan.
the problem w how the Tawana B events played out is they never went into detail about why she did it: evidence suggests that she was being sexually abused by someone, ran away for that reason
For me there’s nothing to forgive – he didn’t do anything to me, he doesn’t owe me anything, and I’m sure he doesn’t give a plugged nickel about my opinion of him. He, like most of my other 300 million countrymen, simply isn’t that relevant to my life.
In terms of delivery and insightful content, I don’t know how he qualifies to be a professional talking head.
I’ve seen him do some shows, when there was a meaty subject, do a good job of walking through it and discussing.
But his behavior around the Brawley case turned me off to his cause and I would have otherwise been sympathetic. And I think that behavior is unforgivable and disqualifying to being a credible serious person on public events. Especially since he never claimed any sort of transformation himself (other than losing about 100 pounds, which I am happy for him)
The overall reaction here is harsher and less forgiving than I expected.
I don’t blame anyone for feeling this way, but I have forgiven him.
When I compare him to the jokers, liars, thieves, and willfully and proudly stupid carnival acts on the right, I can forgive Sharpton.
I just don’t want to nor do I feel the need to.
Love Rev. Al.
didn’t think he had anything to redeem himself about in the first place.
Time wounds all heals I suppose. And he’s probably about on a par with Rev Jackson in terms of limelight-seeking equalling the do-gooding.
Now, could he work on polishing that unfortunate “dis-dat” voice? I probably seriously discount everything he says once he opens his mouth. Rev Al: seek out whoever passes for Msnbc’s Henry Higgens.
Couple other needed changes at the network:
Ronan Farrow: start working out in the gym and crack open a serious non-picture book once in a while.
Rachel Maddow: step up to the plate and start using your clout to push for changes with your rather conservative corporate bosses.
I might forgive him if he ever asked for forgiveness.
I don’t think he ever did.
He pals around with the worst hatemongers in America, today, from Louis Farrakhan to Jeremiah Wright.
When he denounces white people for hating blacks it’s like some Nazi denouncing Jews for hating Germans.
I have never felt comfortable with Sharpton. I don’t trust him. I think many others see him that way as well, and because of that, he carries a stigma that is a liability to the good things that he does. for the same reason, he is a polarizing figure, even though most of the positions he has taken over the past I don’t know how many years have been justified.
The reason for this is that he is supposed to be a religious man and a moral leader. But he has never apologized or shown any remorse or even doubt over the Tawana Brawley affair, at least as far as I know. That leaves the impression that he doesn’t think he needs to. And that just leaves a permanent question mark over the man, as far as I am concerned.
I can understand a child acting that way, but not an adult that aspires to moral leadership.
There is also the matter of his work with the FBI. I confess I do not know much about it, but it doesn’t inspire confidence.
I think he helps bring together progressives and African Americans. I’m not too interested in his past.
Forgiveness is an important part of life. If you can’t forgive, you cannot move on with your life. You will be stuck in this little bit of hate you can’t get rid of; and, it will suck out all your energy.
I too was disgusted with him. But I was surprised in the 2000(? 2004?) debates that he was the candidate that I most agreed with. But I didn’t trust him at all.
2004. I had the same thing, then forgot about him. Now I don’t watch TV news very often, but when I do turn on MSNBC I find myself always really pleased to see Rev. Al, who’s funny and thoughtful and (like Robert Reich, say) represents a view I can identify with. On Brawley, he is completely distinct in my mind from the vile attorneys Maddox and Mason. He was a minister and a community organizer and a friend of James Brown! I almost see him as a kind of victim of the case, caught up unawares, though clearly a very resilient one and not overly scrupulous. Kind of Scarlett O’Hara.
Can you forgive Scarlett O’Hara? Easy. Of course, she’s fictional, but then so in a way is Rev. Al.
His non-apology is a little bit nuanced, from NPR, August 2013:
Al Sharpton did believe her, and why not at first glance? my argument with how it all played out is that the person, who it seemed at the time, and I have no reason to change my mind about it, most at fault, Tawana’s stepfather, Ralph King, was never faulted at all. What was a domestic violence situation spun off as a race situation with a lot of ppl on their own grift and no attention to the child. How it played out didn’t protect Tawana and in the public sphere failed to advance any discussion of domestic violence and destroyed the careers of two promising young men, Vernon Mason and Alton Maddux. I’m glad Al Sharpton stayed around and ran for prez and remains a voice in public life.
Simple: White folk “hate” Sharpton, but Rev Al Sharpton is STILL a big deal in the African American community.
Before we had a Black President, Al Sharpton’s NAN (other groups) were bringing AA issues into the open.
You may have hated to see him, but by his mere presence he was able to get a situation involving Black folk on the front page.
Ya’ll may disregard him as a race hustler, but I’d bet you read the article his name was featured in and even as you were saying “look at that hustler Sharpton”, you also read about the situation Rev Al “latched” on to.
After this Black President is gone, Al Sharpton and the rest of the Black voices we now see on TV will probably leave the network. Not en masse, but slowly so as NOT to seem like they are anti-diversity now that Obama’s terms are over.
And who will Al Sharpton’s NAN will still be doing their thing and still be able to get national coverage of a story that would have stayed local.
It’s better to have the story in the news, so that more people can possibly be aware of them.
Along the same lines of what I said about on-screen diversty no “longer being needed”.
I freely admit that I only found the liberal blogosphere after Obama candidacy and election.
What I was wondering was before President Obama historic candidacy and presidency, how much did the the blogs I frequently read now (and some that I began to read after Obama’s victory) actually focus on minority issues and/or tried to “diversify” their blog posters and such.
I ask, cause I wonder once Obama leaves office, would som of the blogs I love to read no longer “intersted” in these subjects or can I expect a tapering off of posts about it?
Here’s a brother that put it down before it got popular: http://stevegilliard.blogspot.com
He got Driftglass to start his own blog.
Yeah, just like Al Capone was good for criminals. Got everyone talking, didn’t he?
trying to start flame wars on a different topic? your out of your element
Isn’t all of America now based on somebody’s hustle? The difference is that Mr. Sharpton isn’t at the Koch Bros, et al trough.
Those guys make the big bucks from the filthy rich.
Sharpton was pretty raw when he started but he’s improved significantly since. Hope he not done growing.
His early reputation was well-earned, but it’s still unseemly, IMHO, for white folks to be making judgments about persons of color since we really don’t travel in such circles and know what the heck it’s all about.
I think it’s time to pull back From the days of Puritan judgement and get a life.
I think he’s redeemed himself as far as now doing good works goes. But he hasn’t regained the public trust and I don’t know that he should — which is not say he’s particularly trying to do that beyond those he works with directly.
I don’t think Sharpton has “redeemed” himself at all. His actions in Missouri contributed to the rioting there. I might add that, while Sharpton is hustling his way to publicity and money, Tawana Brawley is working in a nursing home, and has her wages garnished to pay the settlement.
If Sharpton had any class, he’d have paid off Tawana Brawley’s judgment years ago.
Another thing we forget, but somebody on the radio mentioned it this morning, is the grace and generosity he achieved after he survived a racist murder attempt in 1991 in the context of the turmoil over the killing of Yusuf Hawkins (and there was nothing bogus about that case).
I can’t forgiven him. He’s the one person on MSNBC I will not watch.