Preach That Hate

> 1987: Sharpton spreads the incendiary Tawana Brawley hoax, insisting heatedly that a 15-year-old black girl was abducted, raped, and smeared with feces by a group of white men. He singles out Steve Pagones, a young prosecutor. Pagones is wholly innocent — the crime never occurred — but Sharpton taunts him: “If we’re lying, sue us, so we can . . . prove you did it.” Pagones does sue, and eventually wins a $345,000 verdict for defamation. To this day, Sharpton refuses to recant his unspeakable slander or to apologize for his role in the odious affair.
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> 1991: A Hasidic Jewish driver in Brooklyn’s Crown Heights section accidentally 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 “diamond merchants” — code for Jews — with “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.
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> 1995: When the United House of Prayer, a large black landlord in Harlem, raises the rent on Freddy’s Fashion Mart, Freddy’s white Jewish owner is forced to raise the rent on his subtenant, a black-owned music store. A landlord-tenant dispute ensues; Sharpton uses it to incite racial hatred. “We will not stand by,” he warns malignantly, “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.
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> If Sharpton were a white skinhead, he would be a political leper, spurned everywhere but the fringe. But far from being spurned, he is shown much deference. Democrats embrace him. Politicians court him. And journalists report on his comings and goings while politely sidestepping his career as a hatemongering racial hustler.
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> When Sharpton came to Boston to promote his campaign last week, for example, the news coverage was uniformly upbeat. The Boston Herald noted the “joyous singing and thunderous applause” that greeted the “civil rights leader,” whose “energetic visit left many enthusiastic about his presidential bid.” The Globe announced the arrival of “the colorful and controversial 48-year-old community activist” with a story listing the places and times of his public appearances. The only allusion to his ugly record was a vague quote from a local minister: “He obviously has a lot of history and controversy to overcome.” That was quickly countered by Sharpton’s own self-description as a man known “for my fights against racial profiling and discrimination.”
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> Well, that isn’t what Steve Pagones or the family of Yankel Rosenbaum or the loved ones of those who were burned alive at Freddy’s Fashion Mart know him for. As they can testify, Sharpton is a vicious liar and a dangerous bigot. As a matter of moral hygiene, his party and the press should be able to say so, too.

This vile man is continually rewarded for his malevolent behavior. Here Barack Obama embraces Sharpton

and MSNBC even gives him his own show.

Howard Kurtz has noted the peculiarity of Sharpton covering himself on his show

Then Kurtz turned specifically to how Sharpton has been covering the case, describing him as a “major African-American activist in this country.” Kurtz played a series of clips showing Sharpton speaking at the Trayvon Martin rally in Florida, then filming his show near the site of the rally, then speaking again at the rally, effortlessly switching between activist and TV host. Kurtz said that Sharpton was asking people to donate money to the cause, and even went down to the Justice Department with the Martins.

Lauren Ashburn struggled to figure out why Sharpton was allowed to, essentially, cover himself on his own show. She did add that Sharpton has never pretended to be a journalist, and MSNBC knew what they were getting when they hired him as a personality, but Kurtz still thought something smelled rotten at MSNBC.

“It seems to me MSNBC can say, ‘Okay, this is such an important case you can go and be an activist and you won’t do your show on the subject. Or you can do your show on the subject but don’t be standing with the parents at the rally and accompanying them to the Justice Department.’”

Eric Deggans, a media critic for the Tampa Bay Times, said he’s always been concerned with Sharpton’s role at the network, and this particular situation makes things difficult because MSNBC has an obligation to cover the story because it’s news. So having one of their hosts injecting themselves into the story is a problem. Deggans also brought up Zimmerman, and whether he could feel like he could get a fair shake from NBC News or MSNBC if he went on for interviews.

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