Sunday, July 31, 2005

Mixed Up Sharpton

Okay...I'm gonna break from Frist for a moment. I saw this in Newsmax and had to pass it along. Al Sharpton makes some good points (I know, I know), but comes to exactly the wrong conclusions. See for yourself:

Former Democratic presidential candidate Al Sharpton blasted blacks Thursday for what he described as their blind support of the Democratic Party without demanding anything in return.

Okay so far.

Sharpton, during his remarks at the National Urban League's annual conference in Washington, noted that his fellow Democrats, including former President Bill Clinton, have taken African-American voters for granted and failed to act in the best interests of the black community.

Duh. We've been saying that for years.

"The whole network of incarceration (of African-American men) happened under this president and the last president. So it wasn't just George Bush. Bill Clinton - I wish Hillary had hung around - Bill Clinton built a lot of jails and assed the omnibus crime bill," Sharpton said shortly after Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-NY, had addressed the same panel discussion, entitled "The Black Male: Endangered Species or Hope for the Future?"

Sharpton noted that African-American men make up 6 percent of the U.S. population but 44 percent of the nation's prison population.

Uh oh. Now he starts to falter (especially the "I wish Hillary had hung around"). No mention here of the nature of the crimes and why, if African-American men are committing crimes, they should not be incarcerated. Perhaps there's a problem other than having too many jails?

"We must stop allowing people to gain politically from us if they're not reciprocating when dealing and being held accountable," said Sharpton, referring to the allegiance that African-American voters maintain to the Democratic Party.

Sharpton said many politicians who court the black vote "come by and get our votes 'cause they wave at us on Sunday morning while the choir's singing. And we act like that is reaching out."

Very true. As noted earlier in the article, Bill Clinton was affectionately know by the Left as "the first Black president." Other than making you want to barf, what exactly is it that he did that was so beneficial to the black community? I can't think of anything, either. John Kerry spent about every Sunday in the weeks before Election Day 2004 in a pulpit somewhere. Funny, I didn't hear any cries from the Left about "separation" and such. But I digress.

The problem is these same politicians "never addressed why they sit here in Washington with an epidemic proportion of HIV AIDS in our (black) community, unemployment in our community and they do nothing to deal with eliminating those
problems," Sharpton explained.

Right, Al. Perhaps it's not the government's responsibility. Perhaps you, and your cohort Jesse Jackson, should use your capacity as a "Reverend" to start preaching personal responsibility in your communities rather than government dependence. Perhaps you could do something to encourage your young black males to reach for more in life other than treating their women like brood mares while expecting the government to take care of their children once they're born. Perhaps you should spend more time actually encouraging your communities and pointing to blacks who have achieved greater things, like Clarence Thomas, Condolleeza Rice, and Colin Powell, rather than calling them "Uncle Toms" for daring to break away from what you perceive as the blacks' lot in life. Looks to me like YOU are doing nothing to deal with eliminating those problems.

The rest of the article deals with his perception of black culture, rap music, etc. What he says is largely true in that regard, then he ends with this:

"Even if we [are] not responsible for being down, we [are] responsible for getting up," he said. "And if we wait on those who knocked us down to lift us up we'll never get up 'cause if they wanted us up we would have never been down," he said.

The problem here is that he completely ignores personal responsibility (seems to be a habit with black leadership these days), and blames "the system" for the situation he claims blacks are in. He completely ignores those who HAVE made good lives for themselves, and there are millions of blacks who have done just that. The only thing he has right here is ..."we [are] responsible for getting up." Trouble is, in the whole article preceeding, he is calling on the government to do it for them.