WHAT A HEEL!: Al Sharpton: Where’s His Beef?
By The Heel
Having examined Al Sharpton’s terroristic tactics, one must ask whether the means justify the ends. After all, even Barry Goldwater once declared: “extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice.”
Sharpton’s goal is a federal prosecution of the police officers involved in the killing of Sean Bell, an unarmed black man, after their controversial and seemingly counterintuitive acquittal in the allegedly racially motivated incident, because prosecution witnesses did not come off as credible. But Sharpton was once singing a different tune.
In 1991 Sharpton exhorted residents of Crown Heights, Brooklyn, to rise up against the Jewish “diamond merchants,” whom he accused of profiteering from apartheid and having “the blood of innocent babies” on their hands. He went so far as to issue this challenge: “If the Jews want to get it on, tell them to pin their yarmulkes back and come over to my house.”
Shortly after, young scholar Yankel Rosenbaum was fatally stabbed while the crowd urged Lemrick Nelson to “Get the Jew! Kill the Jew!” Nelson was arrested a few blocks away carrying a knife covered in Rosenbaum’s blood.
Despite being identified by the dying Rosenbaum as his assailant and even confessing to the murder, Nelson was acquitted of all charges in 1992 because of alleged inconsistencies in testimony by the police.
Only after Nelson stabbed someone else in 1997, the feds brought charges against him for violating Rosenbaum’s civil rights; he was ultimately convicted. At the time Sharpton strongly criticized the federal prosecution of Nelson.
Why the about-face? Cynics suggest that Sharpton wants to bolster the multimillion-dollar civil cases filed by Bell’s family and the friends who were with him the night he was killed.
For his part, Sharpton insists that he just wants the police to understand that “you do not have the right to shoot down unarmed, innocent civilians.” NWA Ice Cube made the same point about police treatment of minorities 20 years ago (“Got it bad 'cause I'm brown, I'm not the other color and so police think they have the authority to kill a minority.")
Back in the day, here's what Sharpton and Ice Cube thought the proper response was to allegations of police brutality:
Ice Cube: “Beat a police out of shape and when I'm finished ... tape off the scene of the slaughter”
Sharpton: “They got pigs out there. You ain’t offed one of them” (video link)
Ice Cube has since gone on to express his grievances through artistic creativity – first launching a career as a rapper with attitude who was straight outta Compton, and then reinventing himself as a family-friendly actor who is straight outta central casting.
But despite Sharpton’s efforts to recast himself as a political kingmaker, he continues to achieve his goals by wreaking havoc, and remains the same destructive force he has always been.
Editorial Note: The Heel is an Ivy-educated attorney with a prestigious New York firm. He can be contacted at GoToHeel@gmail.com.
Comments