Democrats, Diversity, And (Who Else?) Al Sharpton

The problem Al Sharpton (or “Al Charlatan,” as Ed Koch calls him) poses for the Democrats is not him but them. Because he speaks (and often speaks well) for a not insignificant number of black voters (and, it turns out, not just black voters other Democrats as well), the Democrats must take him seriously, and in taking him seriously they make him respectable.

Describing his appeal at the recent Democratic National Committee confab, Howard Kurtz of the Washington Post wrote today:

Sharpton gets only polite applause when he is introduced to the DNC gathering, following such top-tier candidates as Joe Lieberman and Dick Gephardt and preceding John Edwards. But before long he has the crowd on its feet.

“We cannot be tricked into using diversity to cover up the nomination of reactionary judges,” he says. “During the abolitionist movement, we didn’t fight to have more diversified slave masters.”

In dismissing (or in today’s vernacular, “dissing”) defenders of blacks, Hispanics, etc., who do not toe the Democratic line as trickily “using diversity,” Democrats echo those who attack defenders of ideas they dislike as “hiding behind the First Amendment.”

Still, this is progress, for they are now exposed once again as acknowledging that racial/ethnic “diversity” is not so compelling after all. But wait a minute…. Now that I think about it, maybe the real reason Sharpton and his fellow Dems are so gung-ho for Michigan’s racial preferences is that, as a Honduran-American, Miguel Estrada would in fact have received no preferences there. The University of Michigan appears to define “Hispanic” for its purposes as Mexican-Americans and Puerto Rican-Americans born on the mainland.

Say What? (2)

  1. Rachel Klein March 6, 2003 at 12:29 pm | | Reply

    And to restate what I posted in the story above this:

    Tawana Brawley.

  2. Willie Cornwell April 30, 2003 at 9:57 am | | Reply

    I wanted to e-mail you to let you know what has happened to my 15-year old son. My son attends High School in the town of Bedford. He has never been in trouble at this school. On Friday, April 4, there was a fight among five girls. A teacher said he saw my son’s friend, who is a guy, in this fight hitting a girl. WROOOOOONG. He was falsely accused. On Monday, April 7, after lunch, everyone was going to their last period class. My son saw his friend walking towards the planning center. My son stopped by his locker because he needed to get his book for his next class. Then he stopped by the planning center because it was on his way to his next class. He stepped on the first step towards the door and his friend was coming out and said, “Let me get out of here before this nigger snitches on me again.” As they were leaving my son said to his friend, “Ya’ll need to get this settled before kids come up missing”. The teacher that wrongly accused his friend earlier hear this conversation and went to the principle and told the principle that my son threaten him. The teacher said our son said, “We should kidnap his son”. WROOOOOOONG. That was never said but was falsely reported to the principle. The principle called my husband and told him he had to come and pick up our son, that he threaten a teacher. My husband couldn’t believe this, because our son is verrrry quite. And he’s never done anything to get him in trouble at school. My husband asked the principle,” Did our son say this to the teacher’s face when he said this or did he mention the teachers name”? The principle said, “No.” My husband said, to the principle to me that’s not a threat. Our son was having a conversation with his friend, and the teacher overheard the conversation and ran away with it.

    To make a long story short our son got expelled for one day, then three, then two weeks, and we have been threaten with explosion for the rest of the school year. To this day he’s not back in school. The principle called the town police and the town police called the Security Forces on the Air Force Base. So now the Base security forces got involved and the story goes on. You think the story is bad now it gets worse.But I have to be careful because my husband is in the military. And they have been known to retailate against you. I would like to get my son’s story out to let people know that what was done to him was wrong and he shouldn’t have had to go through that. We feel that he is being railroaded and that his first Amendment rights were violated. Please get back to me so I can tell you the rest of the story and possible go on the local news with this. We need help!! Any suggestion would be greatly appreciated.

    We are strong believers in our faith and we know that with God all things are possible and that we are blessed.

    Thank you

    Willie Cornwell

    And May God Bless and Keep you!

    A Family in need of your help.

    Home Phone: (781) 274-9027

    Work Phone: (781)377-3739

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