Al Sharpton

Let me start out by saying I am not much of a Don Imus fan. I watched his show many times several years ago because it was better than Today but I never really like him too much. He's hard to listen to. And he probably stepped over the line with his recent comments about the Rutgers players (even though, when I watched the game, I thought they looked pretty rough. I almost wrote about how rough both teams looked.) I think it was a joke that was offensive. But I don't think Don Imus is a racist. But the man who is leading the crusade against him is...

Al Sharpton is, at best, a man who incites hate against white people and, more particularly, Jewish people. This is hardly a man who can claim the high moral ground when it comes to race relations. Let me point out a couple incidents in Sharpton's past:

1987: Tawana Brawley. Sharpton insisted that a 15-year-old black girl was abducted and raped by a group of white men. He singles out Steve Pagones, a young prosecutor. A grand jury, who thoroughly examines the evidence in the case, determines Brawley made the incident up. Brawley refuses to testify but claims the "defense fund." Pagones sues Sharpton for defamation and eventually wins a $345,000 verdict for defamation. To this day, Sharpton refuses to recant his slander or to apologize for his role in the affair.

1991: A Jewish driver in Brooklyn kills Gavin Cato, a 7-year-old black child, and antisemitic riots erupt. Sharpton races to pour gasoline on the fire. At Gavin's funeral he rails against the Jews for having "the blood of innocent babies" on their hands. He mobilizes hundreds of demonstrators to march through the Jewish neighborhood, chanting, "No justice, no peace." A rabbinical student, Yankel Rosenbaum, is surrounded by a mob shouting "Kill the Jews!" and stabbed to death.

1995: When Freddy's Fashion Mart raises the rent on his subtenant, a black-owned music store Sharpton uses it to incite racial hatred. "We will not stand by and allow them to move this brother so that some white interloper can expand his business." Sharpton's National Action Network sets up picket lines; customers going into Freddy's are spat on and cursed as "traitors" and "Uncle Toms." Some protesters shout, "Burn down the Jew store!" and simulate striking a match. "We're going to see that this cracker suffers," says Sharpton's colleague Morris Powell. On Dec. 8, one of the protesters bursts into Freddy's, shoots four employees point-blank, then sets the store on fire. Seven employees die in the inferno.

Here's another good article to read about Sharpton: Al "anti-Semitic" Sharpton

Al Sharpton is in no position to judge anyone. For Sharpton to be considered a "civil rights leader" is a discredit to the entire civil rights movement. Sharpton is a divider of the worst kind...looking to make race an issue in every argument in hopes of continuing a riff between the sects of the American population. Indict Don Imus as you will...but don't let Al Sharpton be the judge and the jury.