Maybe Stephen Lynch Should Be Arrested for Inciting a Riot

Enough. E-nough. Ever since I was five years old, I could remember the vitriolic hate speech coming from the gullet of the Reverend Al Sharpton. Under the guise of political activism and civil rights, Sharpton's racist tirades and pointless hatemongering have unfortunately become the face of Black America. Courting the so-called "Black vote" means having to kowtow to the unruly whims and ridiculous needs of this potentate of preposterousness. Just how big of an imbecile is this "civil rights leader"? Jeff Jacoby of the Capitalist Magazine points out the following:

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.

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.

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.

This is, of course, in addition to the now-infamous Don Imus scandal and Sharpton's latest smoke-and-mirrors tactic: boycotting the Golf Channel due to the use of the word "lynch" by White correspondent Kelly Tilghman. Tilghman suggested that golfers "lynch Tiger Woods in a back alley" to stave off his resplendent gameplay and top notch skills. A poor choice of words on the part of this former college golfer, but ones that were following with a formal and personal apology to Woods and all those she offended with her ludicrous statement. Woods, ever the consummate gentleman, and noting the mistake his friend, Tilghman, made, accepted the apology, and the two remain "on the best of terms," according to a publicist for the Golf Channel.

The matter should have ended there, but no. As the fire died down, our beloved anti-hero was there to engulf the matter with hate rhetoric and racist gasoline. Like an over-involved parent charging his progeny to cease play relations with a disruptive classmate, Al was there, taking a break from the job he seems not to have to call for the immediate dismissal of Ms. Tilghman. Calling the incident "an affront to the entire Black community," Sharpton claimed he would "pickett [sic] the station" if the Golf Channel did not force Ms. Tilghman to resign her post. Historically, the number of Blacks who watch or even flip past the golf channel is infinitesimal, and a Sharpton boycott would do more to bring in viewers than drive them away - after all, even bad publicity, some would suggest, is good publicity. This matter would be a non-issue if Tilghman happened to be Black. Indeed, there have been plenty of anti-White harangues from prominent celebrities both Black and White that received nary a mention from the Reverend. Among them:

Sonny Carson (black activist in New York, when asked if he was anti-Semitic): "I am anti-white. I don't limit my 'anti' to just one group of people." [Mark Mooney, "Ex-Dinkins Organizer Boasts He's 'AntiWhite'" New York Post, October 21, 1989, p. 3.]

"What we need is the destruction of whiteness, which is the source of human misery in the world." [REV. JAMES CONE- Quoted in David Horowitz, Hating Whitey, Spence Publishing, 1999, p. 44.]

Eldrege Cleaver (former Black Panther leader on why he raped white women): "Rape was an insurrectionary act. It delighted me that I was defying and trampling upon the white man's law, upon his system of values, and that I was defiling his women." [Eldridge Cleaver, Soul on Ice, McGraw-Hill, 1968, p.14.]

"If black people kill black people every day, why not have a week and kill white people."(SISTER SOULJAH (rap artist and black activist [R.W. Apple "Jackson Sees 'Character Flaw' in Clinton's Remarks on Racism, New York Times, June 19, 1992.]

Conspicuous by his absence is the ever-dogmatic Sharpton. Indeed, instead of holding rallies or political meetings to figure out how to end the seemingly perpetual poverty much of urban America seems to find themselves in, or using his apparently infinite cash flow to curtail street gangs or even the aggrandizement of the gangster lifestyle in hip-hop music, a style favored by many inner-city denizens, Sharpton misappropriates his funds to deal with a slip of the tongue.

Al, my suggestion to you is to grow up. Stop playing race games that are no longer cute. Stop inciting riots and protests because someone is expressing an opinion. Use your intellect and intelligence and get a real job; be the beacon of light and hope for a Black community that, for whatever reason, seems to depend on you. Lead by example. Denounce racist and misogynist speech no matter what a person's race is. For all you spew about Martin Luther King, Jr., you sure don't seem to believe in the whole "content of character" portion touted by the famed and beloved Civil Rights notable. Apologize to the world for your political misguidance and become a reformed and respected leader. I think your reform, Al, is long overdue. The world waits on your decision.