IN MY SHOES: What It’s Like To Be Accused Of Racism
Dallas Morning News editorial columnist Rod Dreher has a particular interest in the brouhaha over the chimp cartoon Sean Delonas drew for the New York Post - he once worked at the paper himself, and was at the center of a similar firestorm (complete with death threats) when he wrote a column in August 2001 about funeral arrangements for Aaliyah:
I'd found the lavish plans for the public ceremony - the horse-drawn carriage up Fifth Avenue, the white doves - a bit much and used the occasion to comment critically on funerary rituals and the cult of celebrity worship in contemporary America. …
[T]wo deejays for a black New York radio station … whipped listeners into a frenzy. …
Then, to no one's surprise, Al Sharpton got involved. I sat in my Brooklyn apartment listening on the radio to Sharpton promise his followers, "We will bring down anybody who tells us how to mourn our own." This, from the bully whose racist fat mouthing led to the deadly Freddy's Fashion Mart fire in Harlem [contextual link added by The Stiletto].
A concerned friend from L.A. called and offered me a plane ticket. "Get out of town," she said. I got.
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