Al Sharpton is a decent man

[Airman_Doors_USAF]

@Bob Loblaw

And the reasons given? What trivial crap by comparison to the stuff that people excuse or tolerate in white speakers. Do you racists turn off all white speakers who have committed such mistakes? No.

Yes, and it’s because of that that I can say without fear of being called a racist that Sharpton is a scumbag. And Jesse is an ambulance chaser.

If you want to discuss individual white speakers, bring 'em on. There’s not a person here who wouldn’t tell you that I’m a straight shooter. As for your examples, I think Kennedy and Clinton are scumbags, I wouldn’t trust a word that Kissinger had to say to me, and McNamara is a nincompoop that has sorta rehabilitated himself by coming clean, but will never get mercy from me because his dishonesty cost the lives of 58,000 people. To Sharpton’s credit, he never killed anybody. He just cost lots of good people their reputations, and therefore I see no reason why he should have a good one either.

[zagloba]

Gosh, Bob, after reading your posts I’ve learned to dismiss everything you say just because you’ve said it. By your reasoning, I’m a racist, right? Or at least I would be if I knew what race you were?

[FinnAgain]

@Bob Loblaw

1. No you fucking idiot, neutrons are not packed densely.

So you feel the need to flame me… because you’re ignorant of the fact that neutrons and protons are both densely packed in the neucleus?

I can provide more cites that the neucleus of an atom is indeed “densely packed”. And, again you’re acting like a two year old throwing a fit.

@Bob Loblaw

But you are an idiot not because you do not know the nature of sub-atomic particles, but because after I pointed it out, you didn’t go look it up, but blathered as quickly as possible. Fucking. Willful idiot.

I like you, you’re silly.

@Bob Loblaw

You are conflating like and hate.

:rolleyes:

@Bob Loblaw

3. Virtually everything he talked about during the debates during his campaign for presidency in 04. But my point is that you haven’t listended to him because you hate him so much. And that hatred is racism, not because of his mistakes.

Again, your mind reading powers aren’t working.

@Bob Loblaw

4. It certainly includes every single person here who refuses to address an issue because Al Sharpton is the spokesperson.

Cite that anybody’s done that?
Didn’t think so.

You are kinda funny, maybe we should keep you around as our pet ignorant shit flinger.

[Starving_Artist]

@FinnAgain

You are kinda funny, maybe we should keep you around as our pet ignorant shit flinger.

Better him than me…eh, Finn?

[Starving_Artist]

Make that “eh, Finn?”

Sorry about that.

[Bob_Loblaw_1]

@E-Sabbath

Al Sharpton has incited riots in the past. Not once, but multiple times. Not merely disturbances of the peace, but bottle-throwing race riots.

Al Sharpton got eight people dead at Freddy’s Fashion Mart.
…

How, exactly, is this trivial, Bob?

How exactly is it true? You’d think if these things were true Sharpton would be behind bars for murder, etc. I googled these things, and the first several I clicked on were bizarre right wing sites, yet all of them were a lot less accusatory towards Sharpton than you. I suspect he showed up and spoke at those events in an inflamatory fashion. Big f’in deal. No murders, no molotov cocktails thrown by Sharpton. More than ever, this convinces me that you like well behaved negroes, and none other. Racist pig. Fucking racist pig.

[Monty]

@Bob Loblaw

How exactly is it true? You’d think if these things were true Sharpton would be behind bars for murder, etc.

Didn’t you mention something about Ted Kennedy above? He’s not in jail; therefore, by your insane reasoning, what you referred to didn’t happen.

Racist pig.

You keep tossing the “R” word around and, yet, there is only one racist on the radar in this thread. That, by the way, would be you.

[E-Sabbath]

Freddy’s Fashion Mart. An incident that would not have occurred if not for Sharpton, you racist pig. You only care about the color of a person’s skin, not the content of their character.
http://www.nationalcenter.org/P21NVKingSharpton701.html

Crown Heights and Al Sharpton.
http://www.ex-iwp.org/docs/1993/Crown%20Heights%20Riot%20Aftermath.htm
http://www.bostonphoenix.com/boston/news_features/top/features/documents/02179035.htm

Hm. Skeleton Closet. Always good.

http://www.realchange.org/sharpton.htm

Oh, heck. A cocaine deal? I forgot about that.

And that doesn’t even get into his National Action Network scamming.

Or the '04 elections and his financial scandals from that. You remember those, don’t you?

You know, Bob, I hold people who want to be a leader of the free world to a higher authority than just your average ‘technically not responsible’ person. Is Sharpton a leader of men or just some schlub? If he’s a leader, he bears some responsibility here. If he isn’t… then what’s he doing yacking on the TV?

Bob, really. You’re just wrong here. You’re the one throwing the words of hatred around. I feel sorry for you, I do.

[FinnAgain]

SA:

@Bob Loblaw

Big f’in deal. No murders, no molotov cocktails thrown by Sharpton. More than ever, this convinces me that you like well behaved negroes, and none other. Racist pig. Fucking racist pig.

So in other words, only a racist pig would think that someone who instigated a riot held some form of moral responsibility for the ensuing riot. Obviously racist.

" ‘When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone,’ it means just what I choose it to mean, neither more nor less.’ "

[Miller]

@duffer

And you punk out again. Miller, if you truly hated me that much, you’d never punk out on me. Shit, even Bob here doesn’t resort to empty, hollow, message board threats. Must be very comfortable being able to post something like that that I’d likely get banned for.

Comfortable? Well, no, it made me feel like you probably did, when you posted that liberals wouldn’t mind a second holocaust. Made me feel pretty disgusted with myself, really. That’s why I retracted it. I’ve still got some self-respect left, after all.

Can we get back to the thread now, you punk? And keep in mind threats are seemingly allowed here now. Never know whom you’ll meet on a board.

Oh, Jesus Christ, are you paralyzed or something? Do your arms not work? You don’t see a thread condemning the Iranian president on the boards, so what do you do? Do you start your own thread? No, you pit liberals for not complaining about it and accuse us of wanting the Jews to be wiped out. You see me physically threaten someone in a Pit thread, and what do you do? Do you contact a mod and report the post? No, you complain that there’s liberal favoritism because a mod hasn’t stopped by, late at night, on fucking Halloween, to mediate our catfight. What the fuck is wrong with you? Fuck it, here. I’ll do it myself, you useless fucking lump.

Happy now?

[brickbacon]

@E-Sabbath

Freddy’s Fashion Mart. An incident that would not have occurred if not for Sharpton, you racist pig. You only care about the color of a person’s skin, not the content of their character.
http://www.nationalcenter.org/P21NVKingSharpton701.html

The site is full of specious reasoning and extreme bias. Allow me to outline their proof that Sharpton is responsible for the deaths of those people, and provide a brief synopsis for those playing at home.

In 1995, the building’s owners decided to raise the rents on the business tenants. It’s not an uncommon thing to do - many landlords have and continue to do this across Manhattan and across the country. But, because they couldn’t afford the rent increase, several businesses, including some black-owned ones, were forced to move. The man who would be king, the Reverend Al Sharpton, decided to protest this - not by deriding the church elders, the landlords of the building, but by loudly denouncing the Jewish owners of Freddy’s Fashion Mart.

He insisted that Freddy’s owners were bloodsuckers and white interlopers who were forcing the other tenants out of the building to further their own “racist” agenda.

A short time later, a man entered Freddy’s and told all the black people present, patrons and employees alike, to leave. Once they did, the same man firebombed the place, killing all inside - including a black security guard who was trapped by the flames.

Reverend Sharpton insisted he was blameless in the affair, and that the “incident” was nothing more than a tenant/landlord dispute gone awry. But we should know better than that. The firebombing and murder of those people would not have taken place but for the Sharpton’s rhetoric.

Wow, that’s rock solid evidence. They state that because he was protesting a rent hike that he saw a unjust, he’s responsible for the actions of someone else. It’s the equivalent of saying Colin Powell is responsible for every death in Iraq because he went to the UN to argue that Saddam had WMDs. In both cases, the advocate could have used better judgment, but neither are responsible for people dying.

A more unbiased article states how Sharpton, based on employees’ accounts, protested the exploitation of workers, and the rent hike. Harari wasn’t chosen solely because he was Jewish, it was because he was seen, by Sharpton, as a man who was exploiting people. The rent hike was just the straw that broke the camel’s back.

“At the meeting, Morris said he felt that Freddy shouldn’t just come back into the community without atoning for his past sins,” says Sharpton, who added that he explained to Harari why he had used the racial code word interloper to describe him.

**“I told him some of his workers had come to me complaining that he was underpaying them off the books and that they were afraid something terrible would happen with all those fire-code violations in the store,” ** the reverend recalls. “I told him that he had a bad image in the Harlem community.”

According to Sharpton, Harari “dealt forthrightly with the accusations,” insisting that he no longer pays his employees off the books, and that the fire-safety violations have been corrected.

Of course, most reasonable people would have a problem with his choice of words, and the tone of his speech, but let’s not pretend he is responsible for the actions of another person. What he is really guilty of, in this case, is not presenting the entire story, including the fact that the real landlord was a Black Church, that had been responsible for many of the businesses moving. But, you don’t see most people presenting such a nuanced view, they just say Sharpton killed people people (which is laughable bullshit).

@E-Sabbath

Crown Heights and Al Sharpton.
http://www.ex-iwp.org/docs/1993/Crown%20Heights%20Riot%20Aftermath.htm
News/Features | Al Sharpton for president? (continued)

Even your own cite states the following:

He is technically in the right when he makes the point that nobody has been able to find direct links between his “peaceful” actions and the violence that erupted in Crown Heights.

Although I’d remove the technically. It certainly should not be forgotten that Yankel Rosenbaum’s death was a travesty, but blaming Sharpton is just scapegoatism. People act as if everything was fine until Sharpton showed up. Excuse me if I’m not convinced he is that persuasive. This was a neighborhood with long-term racial division. While is could be argued that he exacerbated an existing problem, I would argue that what Sharpton said needed to be said (minus the anti-semetism).

What people forget is that that the whole incident was not as it is often reported. It’s reported that the incident began with a car accident, but what’s not reported (often) is that many don’t see it as an accident. Whether it was a “car accident” is exactly the issue that enraged the black community. The very fact that many assume that’s what happened, rather than negligent driving, vehicular manslaughter or homicide legally, is what was being protested. The guy ran a red light doing (depending on who you believe) at double the speed limit. Yet, no charges were filed. To quote Nathan Newman:

I was not saying that the killing of the child was deliberate, in the sense of that was the aim, but when negligence reaches the level of what is called “malignant heart”, a systematic devaluing of life that leads to death.

The death of Gavin Cato was composed of two parts, first the reckless behavior of the driver who was driving 50 miles per hour in a 25-miler per hour residential area, then drove up on a sidewalk. Whether you want to call such action manslaughter or murder (and see my general disdain for reckless driving in my MADD post for why I don’t take the difference too seriously), both are legally homicide. And the community was outraged that the man was not even charged with a crime. See here .

But this situation went beyond that. A private Jewish ambulance arrived which, leaving the injured children behind, took care of the injured Jewish driver. Gavin Cato died from his injuries, partly in the minds of the community because he was not taken immediately to the hospital but had to wait for a later ambulance. See here .

So you combine reckless driving leading to death with leaving the victim behind in favor of taking care of the life of the perpetrator of the death, and I don’t think murder is uncalled for as a term. Does it rise to the level of “malignant heart” in purely legal terms-- maybe, maybe not-- but it sure has the reasonable sense of such.

The fact is that the driver, Yosef Lisef, committed a crime and was never charged with even a lesser crime. Yet the killers of Rosenblum were charged. Whether they should have had the same sentence is perfectly reasonable to debate, but the double standard is that one (the non-white one) went completely free. That is where the outrage of the black community justly comes from, even where its manifestation in riots may not itself be just.

And it is that systematic conviction of blacks for crimes they did not commit (see the wilding incident among many others), the murder of blacks at the hands of the police (Diallo), and the lack of enforcement against those who commit crimes against blacks (Lisef and many others) that makes many individual acts of “non-malice non-murder” become, in my mind, a social reality of murder by societal malice by the malignant heart that allows this to happen year after year.

Was Lisef guilty of murder? Maybe not. Is the society guilty of murder that devalues the life of a black child to the point where people know they can kill them with little concern? Absolutely

Don’t you think someone needed to stand up for Gavin Cato? It’s unconscionable that an ambulance would abandon all rules of triage to treat a lightly injured man rather than save a boy who’d been crushed by a several thousand pound vehicle while trying to play on the sidewalk. And what is at the crux of this hatred for Sharpton (with regard to this incident)? His comments at Cato’s funeral, which include the following:

@Sharpton

The world will tell us he was killed by accident. Yes, it was a social accident … It’s an accident to allow an apartheid ambulance service in the middle of Crown Heights. It is an accident to think that we will keep crying and never stand up and call for justice … What type of city do we have that would lie on our children and allow politics to rise above the blood of innocent babies? Have we lost all our moral fiber? … Talk about how Oppenheimer in South Africa sends diamonds straight to Tel Aviv and deals with the diamond merchants right here in Crown Heights. The issue is not anti-Semitism; the issue is apartheid … All we want to say is what Jesus said: if you offend one of these little ones, you got to pay for it. No compromise, no meetings, no kaffe klatsch, no skinnin’ and grinnin’. Pay for your deeds … It’s no accident that we know we should not be run over. We are the royal family on the planet. We’re the original man. We gazed into the stars and wrote astrology. We had a conversation and that became philosophy. We are the ones who created mathematics. We’re not anybody to be left to die waiting on an ambulance. We are the alpha and omega of creation itself … We will win because we’re right. We will win because we’re strong. God is on our side.

Full of regrettable anti-semitism? Yes. Completely unforgivable? I don’ think so. It’s also important to note that no violence had ever occurred while he was leading a march in Crown Heights, and that no pro-Hitler signs had ever appeared in the ranks that followed him.

I can respect the fact that people may have a different opinion of the events that occurred, but I think the complete disregard of the viewpoint Sharpton espouses is asinine, and often full of veiled racism. The point is that most will never view the world as many blacks do, and that’s fine. But to completely deny that such a view is rational is nearly as reprehensible as many of the things people fault Sharpton for doing.

@E-Sabbath

Hm. Skeleton Closet. Always good.

http://www.realchange.org/sharpton.htm

Oh, heck. A cocaine deal? I forgot about that.

A “cocaine deal” that never happened because Sharpton backed out. More accurately, Sharpton was to act as an intermediary between a drug dealer (really an FBI agent) and Don King. The plan was to launder drug money though King’s boxing ventures. Pretty damming, but knowing Don King is damming in, and of itself. It’s also not a good example of his character, but not really relevant. For a number of reasons.

First, Sharpton claims other tapes exist that show what really happened. I believe him for 2 reasons: One, the FBI would have loved to lock him up, and would not have only created one tape. Even the smallest FBI stings have hours and hours of evidence. Two, when a portion of a tape from 19 year ago comes out of nowhere, even though no charges were ever filed, I consider it highly suspicious. That’s not to say that Sharpton wasn’t acting shady, just that you can’t try to slander a man based on shit he didn’t do. It’s not like he was actually doing the drugs like a certain president I know of. And I know it’s not particularly effective to justify one person’s behavior by pointing to the bad behavior of others, but I think it speaks to the differences in the way they are viewed by the public.

@E-Sabbath

And that doesn’t even get into his National Action Network scamming.

It’s not scamming. This is more of the right-wing “poverty pimp” rhetoric. I know of very few people doing similar work that live like paupers. Priests and Charity heads aren’t starving. You think Ralph Nader is living in a box? All I read about the matter is accusations supported by very little real evidence. Show me some real evidence, and I’ll believe these claims.

@E-Sabbath

Or the '04 elections and his financial scandals from that. You remember those, don’t you?

Unlike damn near every other major politician I can think of.

All of this boils down to several people trying to bring this guy down. I’m not saying people have to like him, just that it’s really pathetic that his name can’t come up without people trying to destroy him, usually for shit that happened over a decade ago. There’s no need for all the bomb throwing, and it says more about the people doing it than it ever will about Al Sharpton.

[Left_Hand_of_Dorkness]

So, Miller: how’d your baptism go?

Daniel

[E-Sabbath]

Let me rephrase and expand, slightly.

Sharpton created the conditions under which the Freddy’s Fashion Mart murders happened. He got the people killed. He didn’t kill them. It was still a despicable act of pure selfishness, the more so when you consider the true landlord being a black church.

Sharpton led marches through Crown Heights, while shouting racist rhetoric. And I don’t mean he spoke aloud, I mean he walked at the head of the parade, shouting about how the jew was keeping the black man down.

If you want, we can try to go deeper into Crown Heights. Again, most cites will be biased due to the age of the material.

Sharpton is a persuasive speaker. And bigotry and hatred follows him through his career. We can see it in his first appearances, we can see it as late as 1999.

As far as the Nation Action Network goes…Do you consider the Village Voice a right wing, biased source?
http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0405,barrett,50745,1.html
http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0406,barrett,50930,5.html

Hm. Sharpton’s high point.
http://www.villagevoice.com/news/9913,noel,4713,1.html

'04, Sharpton’s marital and financial issues.
http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0449,barrett,59023,5.html

Now, as far as the cocaine goes, I’ll believe you, as I said, I’d forgotten about the cocaine incident. But man, why… exactly… is the fact that the best thing you can say about his Crown Heights work, ‘No pro-Hitler signs appeared in the crowds following him?’

That’s just messed up. Were there pro-extermination of Israel signs? Pro-Arafat signs? What?

[E-Sabbath]

http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0146,goldstein,29902,1.html
Sharpton said he never said the diamond merchant quote. Who knew?

Biased article here, but full of good quotes
http://www.nationalreview.com/20Mar00/nordlinger032000.html

… I will be good gosh-darned. These claim to be transcripts of Sharpton’s words.
http://www.jewishpost.com/jewishpost/jpn201g.html

They don’t seem that bad, all things considered, though. Wonder why the people there claimed them to be all that damning.

So, scandal follows Mr. Sharpton through all his days. He must be found with his hands around another man’s neck before he can be considered an untrustworthy bastard?

Or do you feel the ‘man’ is keeping him down?

[E-Sabbath]

Okay. Okay. Too far. From the top.

I don’t like Sharpton.

I think that if he were to be proven one inch more guilty on a number of things, he might be in jail.

I do not believe he wanted anyone dead, ever. I do not believe he had anything directly to do with the Freddy’s Fashion Mart murder or the Crown Heights murder.

I believe he had something to do indirectly with them. This is it: He is an accomplished rabble-rouser, and he roused the hell out of the rabble. Without Sharpton, I do not believe the murders would have happened. I think, morally, there is blood on his hands from it.

I believe, from the earliest point in his career, he has lied, he has worked for the greater glory of Reverend Al, and he has hurt other people to prop himself up.

I believe several times he has been on the right side of an issue.

I believe that if it were not for him, people would not have thrown bottles at Dinkins. I believe he had a lot to do with the weakness of the Dinkins mayoral career.

I believe he was on the right side with Diallo. I believe that the Man (Rudy the G) kept him down… and thanks to the Man keeping him Down, he came off with a stronger case. (Yes, I think Rudy was watching and hovering, waiting to bust the heck out of Sharpton.)

I think, if he is not an anti-semite, his words are even more inexcusable, as they deliver hatred.

I think sliminess and scandal have followed him all the days of his career. Freddy’s Fashion Mart is important, because it happened after the incident where he claimed he turned his life around, the stabbing.

I think that if Sharpton had been on that bus instead of Ms. Parks, we might have had riots, and we certainly would have been worse off as a nation today.

Mr. Sharpton is no role model. He is not a good man. He may be a great man, but where he leads, I don’t want to follow.

And I swear I remember something about Al skipping out on his bills in the last election, but I can’t find a cite.
He has been cited for financial irregularities in his campaigns, having to give money back.

He is, apparently, stealthily assassinating progressive targets politically. I did not know this, but the evidence seems to be mounting.
http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0451,barrett,59421,5.html
Either that, or the Voice is in a feud with him.

I see no reason to like the man.

[Man_With_a_Cat]

Well I didn’t stay up til 2 am arguing with shit pants Bob, but in reading the posts after I left, I saw something he said that I do have to jump on.

Yes. If someone is repeatedly full of shit, and lies and incites others to further his agenda (or hers), that does give me the absolute right to ignore and disregard anything that person has to say on any other topic. If someone, regardless of their race demonstrates to me their shitbag quotient to be high, then why should I give credence to anything they have to say to me in the future?

Sharpton, Jackson, Farrakhan, Martin Sheen, Jane Fonda…any politician or actor or activist that shows me they’re self serving and full of shit loses pretty much any chance of me taking them seriously in their next crusade.

That’s not racist. I’m not basing my actions on their race but on their track record of being self-serving fucktards (someone had to use that word, it took to page 4??).

[Man_With_a_Cat]

Allow me to elaborate with an example.

Bob Loblaw has here, in this thread and others repeatedly demonstrated that he spouts off to incite things for no good reason. He is possibly severely impaired based on some of the reasoning he’s used here.

yet, if he found his way to my office today and informed me that today is Tuesday November 1st, I would ignore him and double check my calendar.

[What_Exit]

Bob Loblaw I’m glad you could admit Farrakhan is a racist. I think this proves you’re open to debate and a fair exchange of ideas. Not because you agreed with me, but just the fact you were willing to concede a point.
…As far as Rev Sharpton; I think if you build up your opinion of Rev Al based on the sound bites of the evening news and talk radio, it would be easy to dismiss him as a troublemaker and therefore build up a hatred of him.
…I have listened to him in full interviews over the years. I have read detailed articles about him in the NY Times and less detailed in the NY Daily News. He is trying to keep attention on Black Issues. The methods he use to use were somewhat controversial. I do think it is at least understandable why some could hate him without being racist. I respect him for what he tries to accomplish, but I do find his methods, especially when he was younger to be questionable. Of course, I can find a problem with almost every public official. I only hate a few. Al is not one.
…Jesse I actually admire and I think he has done a lot of good. I am at the same time very happy he was never elected to a high office. I also wish the current President wasn’t either.
…I would take Colin Powell as President, but not because he is acceptable to the general white population, but because I am Pro-Military and admire his record in the military. What he has achieved in his career is actually more remarkable for the fact the military was still racist when he started his career. I believe the military is now less racist than the USA on average. (But probably more sexist, one battle at a time I guess)
…Farrakhan I do believe is a hateful man and easy to hate. I lump him in the Pat Robertsons of the world. In my book he may be evil. I find nothing about him redeeming. I do not like hating him, but I think he is a cancer. The same is true of Pat Robertson.

E-Sabbath I don’t believe Dinkins needed help to be a bad Mayor. He just was a bad Mayor. Of course I am one of the biggest Giuliani supporters on this Board, so that might affect my viewpoint.

[Bricker]

I’m afraid this may ruin my image here…

… but Sharpton serves a valuable purpose.

Even today, when I firmly believe racism is on the wane, it is not a thing of the past. And certainly classism is not dead. If a police officer kills a young white man from a wealthy family during a confrontation, the unfortunately tendency is that more attention will be devoted to the event than if a police officer kills a young black man from a poor family. We may legitimately argue how much of that difference is due to the wealth, and how much the skin color; I think it’s fair to say that the difference exists.

Except for Sharpton’s influence.

Sharpton’s willingness to jump on the bandwagon for specious cases has a lot of bad effects, no doubt. But it does some good as well: it ensures that police departments, for example, are not nearly so willing to close the books on officer-involved shootings of poor blacks, simply because of the fear that Sharpton - or someone in his mold - will tunr the event into a cause celebré. And that means that more often than not, the i’s are dotted, the t’s are crossed, and the shooting is legitimately investigated instead of being shelved as routine.

Not always, of course. But more often, I opine, than if Sharpton were not in the picture.

So while I don’t think he’s a role model in his personal intergrity, I DO think he serves a valuable role - in spite of himself, perhaps.

[Revenant_Threshold]

Bob Loblaw, let me list some people for you:

Al Sharpton
George Bush
Tony Blair
Jeffrey Archer
Nick Griffin
Frank Weltner

I apologise if you don’t know who these people all are; I’m from the UK, so a couple of those may be unknown to you.

These are some (there are more) people I do not trust. They have done things in the past, which, to me, make themselves look “dodgy” or untrustworthy. Thus, if one of these people were to walk into my house and tell me it was raining, I would go check. If one of these people were to run for office, in whatever capacity, where I live, I would not vote for them.

Oh, look, shock horror!, they’re not all black. That’s because I judge people based on their actions, and not their skin colour.

You claim that Al Sharpton has done nothing wrong because he, personally, has never pulled a trigger? He, personally, has never thrown a stone? He, personally, has never attacked someone?

Well, then I must only imagine you hope Osama Bin Laden escapes justice too, for indeed, he has never personally attacked someone. He merely supports causes he believes in, and sets out speeches full of hatred; In your world, which I grow ever fearful of, he would be set free. After all, what’s he done wrong? Dipshit.

I believe, however, i’ve discovered how your mind works! Yes, indeed, in Bob Loblaw’s world, people only have two characteristics! So, for example, Al Sharpton is:

1. Black.
2. A Civil Rights Activist.

Thus, anyone who hates him, hates him because he’s black or because he wants equal rights and equal status for black people.
But I too can visit Bob Loblaw’s world! For indeed, it is a sorry place. For example, Doctors:

1. Cost a lot of money to train.
2. Kill people sometimes on accident.

Thus clearly, we should scrap all doctors; we pay so much money, and they’re just killing people left right and centre! Goodbye, Doctors!
How about another example of Bob’s world? What about…the Sun!:

1. Gives people sunburn.
2. Gives people skin cancer.

Good lord, clearly, we need to destroy the sun right away! Get working on those past-decade themed destroying lasers immediatly!

Ok, Bob, now you try visiting our world. It is called Reality; I hope you like it. In Reality, Al Sharpton is many things. He is a civil rights activist. He is, possibly, a liar. He is a “rabble-rouser”. He has made great leaps towards his goal. He has helped people. He is a racist. He is an eloquent and witty speaker. And yes, he is a black man.

Do you not see the foolishness of deciding that, when someone dislikes some things he does, it is definetly because of one reason only? I imagine there are people who don’t like him because he’s black. I imagine there are people who don’t like him because he’s male. I imagine there are people who don’t like him because he’s a racist. I imagine there are people who don’t like him because he incites hatred.

I, personally, do not like him because I believe he is a liar. I also do not like him inciting hatred. I also do not like him because he’s racist. His gender, his skin colour, his name, his eye colour, his penis size, his preference in suits? These play no part in whether I like him or not.

And while I do not like him, I will listen to him. Granted, it is likely that in my mind, I will be taking his talking with a pinch of salt; After all, I don’t trust him. Just as I do not trust George Bush. But I will still listen to him, and I will take the advice or information he offers by judging it on it’s own merits, and not just because it comes from his mouth. I may not agree with it; there is a good chance that I will not.

Sometimes he will be right. Sometimes he will be wrong.

But his skin colour will play no part in my deliberations as to whether I like him or whether what he talks about is right or not.