Notes of Concern...
...Jack Blair
The President and The Reverend
One of the most surprising friendships these days is the one between Barack Obama, President of The United States of America and the Reverend Al Sharpton. Frankly, it defies the imagination.
On the one hand we have a well educated, very bright and accomplished black man who has not been tainted with scandal, does not do nefarious deeds, and has a lovely family life.
On that famous “other hand” we have a very slimy, ambulance chasing, rabble rousing instigator who is not worthy to carry the shoes of true civil rights leaders like Martin Luther King, Congressman John Lewis, Ambassador Andrew Young and so many other honest, hard working good people throughout the tough years when equality was not freely available and had to be won.
I had not heard of Reverend Al Sharpton until moving to the New York City area for my work. It was at the time of what is now known as the Tawana Brawley affair. I know a lot of my readers may not have heard of this or read about it so I want to offer this brief explanation from Wikipedia:
“Tawana Brawley Attorneys Alton H. Maddox and C. Vernon Mason joined Sharpton in support of Brawley. A grand jury was convened; after seven months of examining police and medical records, the jury found "overwhelming evidence" that Brawley had fabricated her story. Sharpton, Maddox, and Mason had accused the Dutchess County prosecutor, Steven Pagones, of racism and of being one of the perpetrators of the alleged abduction and rape. The three were successfully sued for defamation, and were ordered to pay $345,000 in damages, with the jury finding Sharpton liable for making seven defamatory statements about Pagones, Maddox for two, and Mason for one. Sharpton refused to pay his share of the damages; it was later paid by a number of black business leaders including Johnnie Cochran.”
Al Sharpton and his pals ruined the careers of some very good men. They used Tawana Brawley to accuse, to condemn, and to incite. What she claimed- never happened. It was race baiting at its worst. Any American who did not see this affair, using a young teenager to destroy the careers of attorneys and law enforcement officers as anything but slimey and tawdry had to have been working from another agenda.
Now Al Sharpton wears a mantle of dignity. It started with his calling himself Reverend. The news reports still refer to him as Reverend Al Sharpton. He freely uses that title to suggest he is an honest, bible believing, religious leader and friend. My readers might be interested to know that Reverend Al Sharpton was licensed and ordained a Pentecostal minister by Bishop F.D. Washington at the age of nine. We are not talking here about a man who studied through various colleges and universities and learned at the feet of serious teachers of religion, like Dr. Martin Luther King. We are talking about a kid of 9-10 just being named a minister for reasons totally unknown to this writer. The fact that the press never mentions this is an indictment of them.
This “Reverend” has offered some observations over the years that should call into question why any serious person would give him the time of day. They are too numerous to mention but I will share a few of his quotes with you (you can find footnotes on the Wikipedia page) if you wish to read more:
On the subject of Jews: "If the Jews want to get it on, tell them to pin their yarmulkes back and come over to my house."
On the subject of Mormons "As for the one Mormon running for office, those who really believe in God will defeat him anyways, so don't worry about that; that's a temporary situation."
On the subject of homosexuals "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."
Well, you get my drift. There is a treasure trove of these kind of Sharpton remarks out there if you care to search for them. They speak volumes as to his intellect, his morals and his contributions to civil life in America.
The Reverend Sharpton obviously can deliver votes. And as we know, politicians make strange bedfellows. From the outside, one could understand candidate Obama hoping to win a Sharpton endorsement. Many great presidents, and almost all candidates, do pander a bit to people with whom they would not usually associate.
I understand that. But I also understand when the election is over, and there are no future elections to worry about, there is no need to play in that kind of cesspool any longer.
That being said, President Obama invited the Reverend Sharpton to Mrs. Obama’s 50th birthday party at The White House. One would assume that was a very sought after invitation so one could reasonably assume the Obamas actually do like Reverend Sharpton and include him in their small, family events.
This was an eye-opener for me.
But an even greater surprise was to find the Reverend Sharpton invited to The White House Dinner for the President of France. I know how the White House Social Office works. They are diligent in finding guests with some relationship to the visiting dignitary. In this case, the CEOs of American companies doing business with the French, a smattering of high level Senators and Representatives, an Ambassador or two, movie stars that the French government might have identified as people the French President wanted to meet. Believe me, seats at formal White House State dinners are hard to come by.
But the Reverend Al had a seat, along with his current girlfriend and they were at the table next to the table headed by President Obama.
I find it personally disgraceful that a figure like Al Sharpton would be at either of these events.
Surely there are black leaders more deserving.
Surely their are black legislators and Ambassadors that should have had that seat.
So I leave it to my readers: why would the President of The United States want to break bread with a guy like Al Sharpton.
But then I am reminded of the President’s long association with the controversial Reverend Jeremiah Wright, the reverend who almost brought down his campaign for president.
