Al Sharpton Speaks For, Not Just To, Democrats

Those who regard Al Sharpton as an embarrassment to the Democrats, an albatross they hung around their necks in order to appease an important part of their “base,” fail to recognize how thoroughly he speaks for the party, not just to it.

Kimberle Crenshaw, a highly regarded law professor at Columbia and UCLA, was not wrong when she wrote that Sharpton’s speech “electrified the Democratic convention.” According to ABC News, Sharpton’s speech drew “standing ovations” and “won the hearts of the delegates.” Sharpton himself was not one to disagree, as quoted by ABC:

“I think the response was tremendous,” he said after the speech. “I felt like I was in a church service after a while.”

Of course he was in a church, the church of true believers in racial preferences.

Despite the interest in Sharpton’s appearance, however, precious little has been said about what he actually said. Both what he said, and the lack of attention paid to it, is quite revealing. Let’s look at a couple of items from his text, starting with this provocative assertion:

I suggest to you tonight that if George Bush had selected the court in ’54, Clarence Thomas would have never got to law school.

Really? Leave aside the fact that none of President Bush’s nominees opposes the principle that Brown, at its best, represents, namely that the state should treat people without regard to their race. But, as I say, leave that aside. Neither Holy Cross College nor Yale Law School, where Thomas was educated, were, or had been, segregated.

But maybe mere facts are trivial. Certainly the esteemed Prof. Crenshaw thinks so, and she proceeds to argue that Sharpton was right. Claiming that “a frightening number of federal judges remain hostile” to Brown (she doesn’t name them), she begins nevertheless with affirmative action, not Brown.

If it had been today’s Republican appointees who held the keys to Thomas’ future say, thirty years ago, he certainly would not have enjoyed the access to higher education that affirmative action and other policies provided him at the time.

That, of course, may well be true. Of course, it also may not be true; Thomas may well have been accepted at both schools even without affirmative action. Thomas himself seems to resent the implication, or accusation, that his success is due to special treatment, but what has always struck me as humorously odd about affirmative action always being thrown up in Thomas’s face is that those doing the throwing, like Prof. Crenshaw, invariably believe he doesn’t deserve his current position and that the country would be better off if he’d never received the preferences they claim he received.

Sharpton, Crenshaw continued,

made no blunder and brooked no exaggeration in reminding us that the world we inherit is not a world that contemporary conservative justices would have bequeathed us in 1974, much less earlier.

Nor is it a stretch to assert that this is not a world that they would have created had they been in the majority in 1954 deciding Brown v. Board. The smoking gun is of course Chief Justice Rehnquist’s memo urging Justice Jackson to uphold Plessy v. Ferguson and the massive system of segregation that this 19th century case engendered. As Univ. of Chicago Law Professor Cass Sunstein writes,

Rehnquist’s memo unambiguously stated that ‘Plessy vs. Ferguson was right and should be reaffirmed.

Now, once again, leave aside the fact that, as a young law clerk in 1954 (or was it 1953?), Rehnquist wrote a memo opposing overturning Plessy does not mean that he feels that way today, much less that any of Pres. Bush’s nominees feel that way. Crenshaw complains about “the gradual erosion of the Brown precedent,” but as I have argued here many times (here, here, here, here, and here) preferentialists like Crenshaw have actually revived Plessy, not the conservatives. Preferentialists explicitly and vehemently reject Justice Harlan’s eloquent call for a colorblind Constitution in his stirring dissent and instead actually agree with the holding of the majority opinion — that the equal protection clause does not bar race-based state action.

In the same misguided vein, Prof. Crenshaw rails against “the pitched conservative opposition to the Civil Rights Acts of 1964 and 1965,” which, she claims, leaves “little doubt that Sharpton’s assertion about the consequences of courts filled with Bush appointees is in full accord with both history and contemporary judicial politics.”

On the contrary, it leaves much doubt. First, many of those Southerners who regrettably opposed the civil rights acts were not conservatives at all (Alabama’s two senators at the time, Hill and Sparkman, were paragons of liberalism, except on race), while many of the northern Republicans without whose support the acts would never have passed were in fact quite conservative. More to the current point, it is clear beyond cavil that the intent of the 1964 Civil Rights Act was to enact into law the colorblind principle that the state should not use race in distributing benefits or burdens. I really do not believe an honest person can read the legislative history and reject that conclusion.

But today Al Sharpton does not believe in colorblindness. Kimberle Crenshaw does not believe in colorblindness. It would seem that no one in a position of influence in the Democratic party believes in colorblindness. Now they all believe in racial preferences, that both the state and private parties should be “racially sensitive” (Crenshaw’s term), by which they mean anything but treating members of different races equally. Today it is conservatives, many of them late to the table, to be sure (but better late than never), including I would say all of Pres. Bush’s judicial nominees, who believe in the principle embodied in the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

But the principle of racial neutrality dies hard, even on the left. Thus in his speech to the convention Sharpton affirmed that “this is not just about winning an election. It’s about preserving the principles on which this very nation was founded.” And what might those principles be? He was not altogether clear, but this statement would seem to get at one of them:

The promise of America is one immigration policy for all who seek to enter our shores, whether they come from Mexico, Haiti or Canada, there must be one set of rules for everybody.

“One immigration policy for all … one set of rules for everybody.” We must not, I assume Sharpton is saying, discriminate among potential immigrants on the basis of race or ethnicity. That does indeed sound like a principled argument.

Alas, it rests on a principle that Sharpton and his preferentialist allies violate every time they endorse and support the racial profiling of college and job applicants and the race-based rewards that follow.

Say What? (39)

  1. actus August 1, 2004 at 6:07 pm | | Reply

    “Those who regard Al Sharpton as an embarrassment to the Democrats, an albatross they hung around their necks in order to appease an important part of their “base,” fail to recognize how thoroughly he speaks for the party, not just to it.”

    Some people think this is embarrasing:

    “Mr. President, the reason we are fighting so hard, the reason we took Florida so seriously, is our right to vote wasn’t gained because of our age. Our vote was soaked in the blood of martyrs, soaked in the blood of Goodman, Chaney and Schwerner, soaked in the blood of four little girls in Birmingham. This vote is sacred to us.”

    I say its fantastic.

  2. Fleming August 1, 2004 at 6:48 pm | | Reply

    I think of Tawana Brawley when I think of Sharpton. Race baiting hoaxter. Democrats love that crap.

  3. John S Bolton August 2, 2004 at 4:48 am | | Reply

    Race-baiting of the majority is central to the politics of today. Having no rationally defensible ideas or theories which could justify a move to the left, the possibility remains of setting up an ad hominem approach against the right, by means of racializing any issue. The professoriate leads them on to this method, which consists of nothing but saying that only racism opposes their suggested policy. Even the mentally retarded can use the approach; and no one says that the resort to ad hominem indicates a failure to think of a rational argument.

  4. Cobra August 2, 2004 at 10:16 am | | Reply

    God bless Al Sharpton for speaking truth to power. Sharpton’s mistake was believing a 15 year old girl who told him she was abducted and raped, and received absolutely none of the privileges and protections placed upon WHITE ALLEGED VICTIMS. If a white girl today claimed she was abducted and raped, she would receive the “darling of the media” status…or doesn’t the name Elizabeth Smart ring a bell? Oh, let’s gloss over the inconsistancies of the Smart story, because she’s white, and incapable of any chicanery.

    But I expect this from anti-affirmative action types. Preach on, Reverend Al. You speak for me, and all other conscious minorities who recognize their enemies in the white conservative, “bring back the good ol’ days when blacks kept their mouths shut” movement.

    Cobra

  5. La Shawn August 2, 2004 at 10:19 am | | Reply

    As usual, great post, John. I blogged about Sharpton myself this weekend. I have to say that as a black person, I’m embarrassed that this man made it to a national stage.

  6. Cobra August 2, 2004 at 10:48 am | | Reply

    La Shawn,

    As a black person, especially one with a non-traditional (read: ethnically anglicized) name, I hope you don’t live in the state of FLORIDA, because if you did, I’d run down to the polling place and make sure you’re still elligible to VOTE.

    http://www.gregpalast.com/detail.cfm?artid=217&row=2

    Please feel free my “color-blind conservatives”, to go to the link above.

    –Cobra

  7. RB August 2, 2004 at 11:46 am | | Reply

    I am amazed that there are people who still fall for flim-flam Al. I realize that it takes people of all levels of intelligence to make a society, but some suckers never learn.

    At least they have their heroes, which must make their self imposed victimhood feel somewhat less hopeless. Even though their heroes only help perpetuate their sense of victimhood.

  8. Sandy P August 2, 2004 at 3:58 pm | | Reply

    Oh, good grief, Cobra.

    Even the election commission run by a black found no disinfranchisement. Now if they took a look at the 23K black republican Floridians who voted in a polling place overseen by a black democrat, 30% of their ballots were spoiled.

    But I guess that could be considered black-on-black and since they don’t care, why should the white man?

  9. Cobra August 2, 2004 at 4:54 pm | | Reply

    Sandy,

    I find delicious irony that on an anti-affirmative action site, you would

    find distinctive merit in an election civil rights violations probe specifically because it was “run by a black.”

    I know plenty of African-Americans I wouldn’t trust if you held a gun to my head, including those of current executive cabinet. You can pay somebody of any race or ethnicity to tell you what you want to hear.

    The FACTS however, dictate that the policy of FALSE FELON PURGING of the voter rolls is main culprit of black voter disenfranchisment in Florida. Again, please look at http://www.gregpalast.com for the details of the nefarious deeds by Jeb “Crow” Bush & Katherine Harris in 2000 with Choice Point, and what Bush and Hood tried to do AGAIN this year with Accenture, when they were SUED by the media, and forced to produce the scrub list. There are thousands of black voters who still haven’t been placed back on the rolls since 2000.

    Greg Palast is white, by the way, not that it would be neccessarily indicative of the man’s qualifications as an investigative talent.

    –Cobra

  10. Ann August 2, 2004 at 7:07 pm | | Reply

    Over ten thousand felons voted in the Florida 2000 election, who were ineligible to vote, it was later discovered by the Miami Herald. Oh well, them’s the breaks.

    Sharpton gives credibility to cobra’s victimhood, which gives her the warm fuzzies for Sharpton. But she’d better clean the AS stain off her blue dress before whe wears it again. That’s a dead giveaway.

  11. Cobra August 2, 2004 at 8:10 pm | | Reply

    Ann,

    Please cite me that exact article. I’d love to see the felon breakdown in demographics–location, race, party affiliation. I’m certain they couldn’t be Hispanic, because Hood’s Accenture count this spring only included 61 out of 47,000.

    I’m a MALE, so the Monica references wouldn’t apply to me…no offense to my friends of alternative lifestyles.

    Ann, you can call me a “victim” all you like. I’ve been called worse names throughout my life. That comes with being a minority in America. One thing you’ll never be able to call me is a sell-out.

    Cobra

  12. L.C. Burgundy August 2, 2004 at 8:52 pm | | Reply

    “I’ve been called worse names throughout my life. That comes with being a minority in America.”

    No, it comes with being human, cobra. Neither racism nor name-calling is a one-way street.

    “One thing you’ll never be able to call me is a sell-out.”

    And I don’t get the whole Elizabeth Smart reference there. Is _everything_ racially motivated to you? That’s one case that I’ve found to be particularly bereft of racial implications. It’s a weird story about how two kooky old people kidnapped a girl, and amazingly, she survived it in one piece. If you’re looking for something more mired in racial overtones, try Susan Smith’s murder of her children or something.

    In any case, Al Sharpton will never be anything more than a hack, an exploiter, and a demagogue.

  13. Richard Nieporent August 2, 2004 at 8:58 pm | | Reply

    Congratulations, John. You have managed to reach the big time. You have got you own pair of trolls. Aren’t they cute? I love it when they express their righteous indignation and outrage at all of us evil conservatives.

  14. Andrew Lazarus August 3, 2004 at 3:32 am | | Reply

    Eric Alterman has a good take on Sharpton.

    I did not see Al Sharpton’s speech when he gave it but I caught it on Saturday thanks to my friends at C-Span. I don’t know what to do about Sharpton. He is a truly awful man, who has never come clean about the reputations he’s ruined, the dissension he’s created and the lies he’s perpetrated in New York City, where his egomaniacal plotting have done much to set back the cause of race relations and of black equality. On the other hand, he seems to be saying that if we agree to forget all that, he’ll use all of his considerable rhetorical and inspirational powers for good, for healing and for defeating the forces of evil of which he was so recently and intimately a part.
     
    It’s clear what the pragmatic thing to do is; ignore the evil of the past and let the man do the good he wants to do. But does that make it right? I really don’t know. The United States justified the embrace of high-level Nazis on the basis of this kind of logic and I’m not so crazy about that decision. Now Sharpton’s not a Nazi, of course, but where’s the line? The entire Tawana Brawley episode makes me sick, not least of which for the idealistic people he deliberately misled as well as the reputations of honest cops he sought to destroy. I guess it’s fortunate that a) this isn’t up to me but to black people, and b) hello, the amazing and perhaps too-good-to-be-true Barack Obama just made Sharpton a lot less important. In any case, watch the speech if you missed it.

    So, let’s be honest, we’re not ignorant of what a terrible person Sharpton is. It’s just that an alliance with him is better than a repeat of Bush.

    Ann: How about a LINK to this claim that 10,000 felons voted in Florida. Not to Free Republic, but to the original article in the Miami Herald or any other standard newspaper. All I found with Google was that 10,000 felons who had received clemency that restored their voting rights who had voted were restored to the rolls, as they should have been. I would think that at this stage it is obvious that Florida has absolutely no idea how many felons vote, because they have to date failed in at least two attempts to correlate the databases. The fact that there is a felon named John Smith and a voter named John Smith does not make for illegal voting. The facts in this case are an embarrassment to the State of Florida, and it’s one damn interesting coincidence how much this supposed incompetence benefits the Republican Party.

  15. Richard Nieporent August 3, 2004 at 9:01 am | | Reply

    So, let’s be honest, we’re not ignorant of what a terrible person Sharpton is. It’s just that an alliance with him is better than a repeat of Bush.

    This is simply an amazing admission on your part. So it is your belief that Bush is so evil that you would be willing to do anything to defeat him, right? You already state that you are willing to forge an alliance with a despicable individual just to defeat Bush. Therefore, you can clearly justify distorting the facts and just plain lying because that is the lesser evil, right? What I would like to know is just what else you would be willing to do to get rid of Bush?

  16. Andrew Lazarus August 3, 2004 at 10:22 am | | Reply

    Mr Nieporent,

    An alliance with Sharpton is not “anything”.

    If it weren’t such an important election, I’d laugh very hard at the idea that only Democrats would distort facts to win an election.

    Is there some state where we’ve improperly stricken thousands of corporate CEOs from the voter rolls?

  17. Richard Nieporent August 3, 2004 at 10:51 am | | Reply

    An alliance with Sharpton is not “anything”.

    Yes, there are worse things that you could do. Which of them are you planning to do?

    Is there some state where we’ve improperly stricken thousands of corporate CEOs from the voter rolls?

    Andrew, give it a rest. You are losing it. You are letting your paranoia get the better of you.

  18. Fleming August 3, 2004 at 11:45 am | | Reply

    Sharpton was an evil man, but that’s all in the past folks. Believe me, he’s all better now. Just trust him, and everything will be allright. Sleep now, children.

  19. Cobra August 3, 2004 at 12:13 pm | | Reply

    How is Al Sharpton “evil?” Because he believed a 15 year old girl when she told him she was raped? The result of that story was that a person may have been falsely defamed.

    George W. Bush apparently believed Chalabi and the neo-cons who told him our troops would be greeted with candy and flowers if he went to war with Iraq. What were the results of THAT story?

    Why do white conservatives think they can pick who we segregated minorities should listen to?

    –Cobra

  20. Richard Nieporent August 3, 2004 at 2:15 pm | | Reply

    How is Al Sharpton “evil?”

    Since you so kindly asked, I will explain to you why your wonderful Rev. Al is evil. The Tawana Brawley affair was just the icing on the cake. Al Sharpton’s history of anti-Semitism and race bating is legend, but of course that would not bother you at all, now would it? Did you forget about the Crown Heights riots and Rev. Al’s involvement in it?

    “A Hasidic Jewish driver in Brooklyn’s Crown Heights section accidentally kills Gavin Cato, a 7-year-old black child, and anti-Semitic 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.”

    Well, that was only a Jew that was killed so I am sure that would not bother you in the least. If you need more evidence, how about the fire at Freddy’ Fashion Mart that was instigated by good old Rev. Al.

    “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. ‘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.”

    In this case it was Blacks and not Jews who died, so maybe this should bother you. It is amazing what a short memory you have when it comes to vile individuals like Al Sharpton. It says so much about the Democrat party that he would be invited to speak at the Democrat convention. Have the Democrats no shame? That was a rhetorical question. We all know the answer to that.

    By the way, for your reading pleasure, here are some of the many links of the exploits of Rev. Al:

    http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=6113

    http://www.jewishpost.com/jewishpost/jpn201g.html

    http://www.papillonsartpalace.com/party.htm

  21. Conrad August 3, 2004 at 2:16 pm | | Reply

    I remember reading the same article Ann alluded to. I tried to get it but it’s been archived and is unavailable. Maybe someone out there has microfilm access to the Miami Herald circa December 2000?

    Frankly I’m astounded that anyone listens to Al Sharpton anymore. But to each his own fantasy world.

  22. Cobra August 3, 2004 at 2:44 pm | | Reply

    Richard,

    I did not forget the Crown Heights affair. I live in the NYC Metro area. I seem to recall that Gavin Cato and his sister were on the sidewalk, when a car, speeding to catch up with

    an Hasidic motorcade ran up onto the sidewalk into both of them. They were both injured, Gavin, mortally. Subsequent events surrounding the EMS service, the Jewish EMS service, the flight of the Jewish driver and general confusion at the scene led to anger and hostility among the gathering crowd. There is a long and well documented tension between the Jewish community and the African Carribean population in that area, and this incident was the tipping point.

    I do not support the killing of innocents, whether it be Yankel Rosenbaum, Amadou Diallo, or a housewife in Fallujah, but blaming Al Sharpton for a street riot is ludicrous.

    –Cobra

  23. Conrad August 3, 2004 at 3:14 pm | | Reply

    Thanks for the links, Richard. It’s so easy to forget Rev Sharpton’s shenanigans, there are so many of them. But of course you are going to have Sharpton deniers just like you have holocaust deniers.

  24. Gus M August 3, 2004 at 6:04 pm | | Reply

    Re: Elizabeth Smart

    Dave Chappelle (the comedian) recently made the following observation about Smart (paraphrased): When a 15-year old white girl was kidnapped from her home, it became national news. When Erica Pratt, a 7-year old black girl, was kidnapped in Philadelphia and somehow managed to escape, it never became national news.

    He also contrasted the treatment of Elizabeth Smart with Lionel Tate. Smart, a 15 year old white girl, was referred to as a child during her turmoil. Lionel Tate, a 14 year old black male convicted of murder, was sentenced as an adult. Why is a 15 year old white girl a child, but a 14 year old black male an adult?

  25. Laura August 3, 2004 at 6:47 pm | | Reply

    “When Erica Pratt, a 7-year old black girl, was kidnapped in Philadelphia and somehow managed to escape, it never became national news.”

    It sure made the news here in Tennessee. We read about her in the paper and talked about how brave and resourceful she was. I remember it distinctly.

  26. Laura August 3, 2004 at 6:51 pm | | Reply

    Not to mention she was Time Magazine’s Person of the Week.

    http://www.time.com/time/pow/article/0,8599,331695,00.html

  27. Nels Nelson August 3, 2004 at 7:01 pm | | Reply

    Great, let’s use the horrific ordeals of two girls as political fodder.

    I live in San Diego and Erica Pratt was all over the local and national news for about a week. If we really must compare these two situations, Pratt was held captive for a single day, not sexually or physically assaulted, and fortunately did not appear too mentally scarred from the ordeal. Smart was missing for almost a year and had been presumed dead by most reasonable people. Her saga is strange in many ways and, unfortunately, involves sex, which always helps to fuel public interest.

  28. Andrew J. Lazarus August 3, 2004 at 8:33 pm | | Reply

    Some real numbers on felon voting.

    The Miami Herald found 789 felons voting in a review of about 40% of the ballots. I can’t tell from the article if they targeted the 40% most likely to have such cases or randomly.

    That would extrapolate to 2,000 votes, max. However, unless the Miami Herald was more careful than the State of Florida, there would be many false positives included here: e.g., common names that appear, spuriously, to match up.

    Now, I ask again, do you have any original supporting data, or only after it’s been (literally) amplified bouncing around the VRWC echo chamber?

  29. Fleming August 3, 2004 at 8:52 pm | | Reply

    Hey, there’s big money in being a victim these days. Don’t knock it.

  30. Cobra August 3, 2004 at 9:14 pm | | Reply

    Nels,

    Excellent points. I can’t quibble with the coverage of Erica Pratt, which was probably the correct amount of coverage for that type of story. My problem is the coverage of many of these missing person/vanished teen/murdered wife cases play less like journalism and more like “reality programming,”, with the same punditry making the rounds 24-7 on cable outlets.

    My other problem is the fact that because of the shameless grab for ratings from the “right” demographics, the majority of these cases involve young telegenic white women. It’s Laci Peterson, Lori Hacking, ad infiniteum.

    Take for example, the Audrey Seiler case, where a Wisconsin co-ed apparently staged her own disappearance. There was round the clock coverage, and even after the ruse was uncovered, there is no animosity towards her. There’s even been a PLAY written in her honor.

    http://www.madison.com/tct/features/index.php?ntid=7682&ntpid=1

    Do I even have to mention the saturation/exploitation of Jon Benet Ramsey?

    There is an excellent article on the dichotomy of coverage by race here…

    http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5325808/

    Back to the point on Sharpton, however. I will admit that back in college, I was very critical of Al Sharpton. I expressed that criticism in school newspaper collumns. As I’ve grown older, I realized that Sharpton’s inflamatory, confrontational style was absolutely neccessary to illuminate the issues facing those without access to the media. If the media gatekeepers won’t cover minority issues, then BECOME a “minority issue” yourself, and use the system to the people’s (and admittedly, your own advantage.) I never claimed Al wasn’t an opportunist, but the media is a tool for force. How much smaller impact would Martin Luther King’s speeches have had if they were never broadcast? How sympathetic would the majority of decent, albeit, isolated white Americans have been to the civil rights movement if there weren’t televised images of attack dogs, fire hoses, separate fountains, and beatings by racist hooligans?

    In modern America, people have shorter attention spans. They don’t read in depth for the most part. We’re a quick-cut, soundbite Mc-nation, and Al Sharpton is the “sound-bite” civil rights Mc-activist.

    –Cobra

  31. Cobra August 3, 2004 at 9:37 pm | | Reply

    John writes–

    >>Rehnquist’s memo unambiguously stated that ‘Plessy vs. Ferguson was right and should be reaffirmed.

    Now, once again, leave aside the fact that, as a young law clerk in 1954 (or was it 1953?), Rehnquist wrote a memo opposing overturning Plessy does not mean that he feels that way today, much less that any of Pres. Bush’s nominees feel that way. http://www.geocities.com/justice_watch/rehnquist_information.html

    John, you must not have read enough about the depths of Rehnquist’s racism to make such a statement about “not knowing if he feels the same way now.”

    This man sits as the highest judge, on the highest court in the land. Leopards don’t change their spots, and any conscious person who believes in civil rights must vote Bush out to prevent him from appointing more like-minded jurists to the Supreme Court.

    –Cobra

  32. Gus M August 4, 2004 at 2:21 pm | | Reply

    Cobra,

    On that site you linked to, only one of the anecdotes have anything to do with a decision Rehnquist made while on the bench. And even that decision was 21 years ago (plus, his dissenting opinion was merely that the Internal Revenue Code didn’t explicitly say that charities must be non-discriminatory). If he was as racist as you say, wouldn’t he have shown it more in his 30+ years on the bench.

  33. Cobra August 4, 2004 at 2:57 pm | | Reply

    Gus,

    Racist, like terrorists, don’t always work on obvious time-tables. They don’t always announce their intentions. The man’s actions are self-evident. If you’re saying Rehnquist had an epiphany about civil rights between the ages of 56 and his current age 77, I’d love for you to show me PROOF…give me a LINK.

    –Cobra

  34. Gus M August 5, 2004 at 1:47 pm | | Reply

    You can’t “prove” someone is not a racist. I’m just saying that, if he was a racist, an anti-Rehnquist site would find more than a single opinion to affirm that belief. (An opinion that this site’s webmaster agrees with, BTW). Maybe he is a racist. But his 30 years on the bench haven’t shown it. So maybe he doesn’t let it affect his decisions.

  35. Cobra August 5, 2004 at 4:43 pm | | Reply

    Gus,

    My point is that this entire thread was presented as an attack on Al Sharpton based upon his past activities. William Rehnquist has a sordid, infamous track record on race, yet bloggers here, who call themselves “color-blind”, trip over themselves defending him. Ronald Reagan, who ALSO WAS AGAINST the Civil Rights Act of 1964 appointed Rehnquist, and my fear is that Bush will appoint more confederate judges given another four years.

    As a conscious African American, I cannot afford that type of folly.

    –Cobra

  36. Helen August 5, 2004 at 5:13 pm | | Reply

    Not willing to buy a used car from Sharpton, but willing to let him lead my people? Not on your life. I cannot afford that, and my people cannot afford that.

  37. Cobra August 5, 2004 at 7:52 pm | | Reply

    Helen writes:

    >>>Not willing to buy a used car from Sharpton, but willing to let him lead my people? Not on your life. I cannot afford that, and my people cannot afford that.

    First of all, the only thing Reverend Al leads is the National Action Network. Might I ask if you’d buy a car from William Rehnquist, who is on the RECORD as being anti-civil rights if not flat out HOSTILE towards African-Americans, and sits as the top judge on the highest court in the land?

    You might think Sharpton’s a bad guy, but he doesn’t have a deciding vote on the Constitutionality of laws that affect ALL AMERICANS OF ALL RACES. An unrepentant bigot named Rehnquist DOES.

  38. Bachus August 6, 2004 at 3:06 pm | | Reply

    Helen, I agree with you completely. The man is a sleaze, just like he always has been. A chump might buy what he’s selling, but an intelligent person never would.

  39. Fleming August 8, 2004 at 12:50 pm | | Reply

    It is heartening to see intelligent people speaking out against the con man mentality that has hijacked the civil rights movement.

    After seeing so many people hoodwinked by hucksters like Sharpton, so many somnambulists, one forgets that there are cultured and discriminating people who see through the flim-flam. Thanks for the reminder.

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