Mediaboss Marketing

Rev. Al Sharpton is the founder and President of the National Action Network (NAN), a not-for-profit civil rights organization based in Harlem, New York, with over 47 Chapters nationwide. As one of the nations most-renowned civil rights leaders, Rev. Sharpton has been praised by President Barack Obama as the voice of the voiceless and a champion for the downtrodden, and by former President George W. Bush who said that Al cares just as much as I care about making sure every child learns to read, write, add and subtract.

Recently featured on the cover of Newsweek Magazine, the opening sentence in the story echoed what many have said about him even since he was a child prodigy: If the Rev. Al Sharpton didnt exist, he would have to be invented. The Wall Street Journal in a cover story said Rev. Al Sharpton has grown from the premier politician of protest to the ultimate political pragmatist (Wall Street Journal, March 17, 2010), and this year, Rev Al Sharpton was selected to be profiled in a cover story in Ebony Magazine along with 7 others, including President Barack Obama, for the Ebony magazine Power 150 Edition.

In the October 19th, 2009 issue of New York Magazine, Rev. Sharpton was featured as the only African-American listed among the Top 12 Most Powerful People in New York City. A USA Today/Gallup Poll conducted in July 2008 called Rev. Sharpton the leader in the country that Blacks turn to speak for them on the issue of race, second only to then Senator Barack Obama. In February 2007, Rev. Sharpton was called the most prominent civil rights activist in the nation by the New York Daily News.

Whether it was his noteworthy Presidential run as a candidate for the Democratic Party in 2004, or his compelling speech at the Democratic National Convention in Boston, Massachusetts, Reverend Sharpton has had an irrefutable impact on national politics and civil rights because of his strong commitment to equality and progressive politics. In April of 2001, Coretta Scott King hailed him as a voice for the oppressed, a leader who has protested injustice with a passionate and unrelenting commitment to nonviolent action in the spirit and tradition of Martin Luther King Jr. 47-years after the historic March on Washington where her late husband Dr. King delivered his I Have a Dream Speech, Rev. Sharpton and National Action Network recently led 30,000 people in the Reclaim the Dream rally and march.

Rev. Sharpton is a leader on issues regarding education and the fight to ensure equity in the U.S. education system that continues to fail its highest-need students, despite the 55 years that have lapsed since Brown v. Board of Education. President Barack Obama echoed this in his address at the NAACP 100thAnniversary Celebration when he exclaimed the state of our schools is not an African American problem; it is an American problem. Because if Black and Brown children cannot compete, then America cannot compete. And let me say this, if Al Sharpton, Mike Bloomberg, and Newt Gingrich can agree that we need to solve the education problem, then thats something all of America can agree we can solve. Those guys came into my office. Just sitting in the Oval Office I kept on doing a double-take. So thats a sign of progress and it is a sign of the urgency of the education problem. All of us can agree that we need to offer every child in this country every child -(President Barack Obama, July 16, 2009)

Throughout his career, Rev. Al Sharpton has challenged the American political establishment to include all people regardless of race, gender, socio-economic status, or beliefs. In fact, few political figures have been more visible than Rev. Sharpton in the last two decades. Rev. Sharptons oratory skills have served as a platform for making changes in the American social and political establishment. He is a nationally-syndicated radio host, T.V. personality, and columnist. He has four popular radio shows broadcast throughout the country, a nationally syndicated television show, and a column that appears in national newspapers across the country. He held billions of people spellbound as he delivered a riveting memorial for the King of Pop Michael Jacksona close friend to Rev. Sharpton and National Action Network and he gave a heartfelt and memorable eulogy at Michael Jacksons private burial. On two occasions in 2002, Michael came to NANs House of Justice to discuss artists rights and fairness in the entertainment industry.

Born on October 3, 1954 in Brooklyn, New York, Al Sharpton began his ministry at the tender age of four, preaching his first sermon at Washington Temple Church of God & Christ in Brooklyn. Just five years later, the Washington Temple churchs legendary Bishop F.D. Washington licensed Al Sharpton, his protg, to be a Pentecostal minister.

Rev. Sharptons civil rights career began almost as early as his ministry. At thirteen, Revs. Jesse Jackson and William Jones appointed Sharpton youth director of New Yorks SCLC Operation Breadbasket, an organization founded by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1971.

At the age of sixteen, Sharpton founded the National Youth Movement, Inc. which organized young people around the country to push for increased voter registration, cultural awareness, and job training programs. It was at that time that he forged a friendship with Teddy Brown, the son of the Godfather of Soul James Brown. Tragically, Teddy was killed in a car accident and, in the months that followed his passing, James Brown took Reverend Sharpton in as though he was his own and they developed an inexplicable bond. Rev. Sharpton was shaped by his surrogate father Mr. Brown who taught him, You cant set your sights on nothing little; you got to go for the whole hog. Later Rev. Sharpton went on the road with James Brown and served as his tour manager. From 1994 to 1998, Rev. Sharpton served as the Director of the Ministers Division for the National Rainbow Push coalition under Rev. Jackson.

Early in his career, Rev. Sharpton set out to stoke the fire of the civil rights movement as the voice of the downtrodden, leading marches and rallies to call the public and the medias attention to racial injustice. Rev. Sharptons direct action movements have been credited with inspiring laws on racial profiling and he has influenced police department reform across the nation while working to end police misconduct. Recent cases that Rev. Sharpton has been at the forefront of include the Jena Six case, the Sean Bell case, the Omar Edwards case, and the Troy Davis case. Past cases include the cases of Amadou Diallo, Abner Louima and Patrick Dorismond, to name a few.

Rev. Sharpton has also been at the vanguard of issues promoting equal standards and decency. He has held people accountable for perpetrating negative and racist stereotypes. He confronted the NY Post when they chose to print a controversial cartoon with racist undertones. He has called upon the recording industry to have standards for artists that dont include the use of the N, B and H words. Reverend Sharptons integral efforts in getting radio host Don Imus off the air after the shock jock referred to players on the Rutgers womens college basketball team as nappy-headed hos has further proven that Rev. Sharpton is an invaluable leader and his successful efforts to mobilize a broad coalition of prominent public figures urging the removal of Don Imus from the airwaves was nearly universally praised, receiving the support from newspaper editorial boards across the country and presidential candidates Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton and Senator Barack Obama.

Rev. Sharpton was recently in the forefront of the successful effort to block radio commentator Rush Limbaugh from inclusion in a group of investors striving to buy the Saint Louis Rams due to his history of divisiveness and his penchant for making derogatory comments about players that are anti-NFL and racially charged. In response to his effort to have Mr. Limbaugh sacked, MSNBC television host and political commentator Chris Matthews said of Rev. Sharpton: Im just saying you are a powerful voice in this country. When you speak out, lets face it, the buildings shake. People do listen to you. You had a lot to do with the noise level here.(October 15, 2009).

In the business world Rev. Sharpton has been successful in getting the private sector to engage in billions of dollars in contracts with minority communities. Sharptons stance on behalf of the disenfranchised has taken him, in his own words, from the streets to the suites. In 1999, in a united voice with African -American advertising agencies and marketing and media outlets, he launched the Madison Avenue Initiative (MAI) to ensure that those who do business with advertising outlets around the country deal even-handedly with agencies, media outlets and publications run by people of color. Sharptons work with the MAI has targeted major corporations, including PepsiCo, Colgate-Palmolive, Microsoft, and others, who have subsequently extended their advertising dollars to reach more of African-American and Hispanic communities.

Rev. Sharpton is a champion for human rights and is passionate about the key issues that involve confronting human rights violations. One of his career highlights has been contributing to the end of the United States Navy exercises in Vieques, Puerto Rico, which proved to be poisoning the environment on the island.

Rev. Sharpton says his religious convictions are the basis for his life and on most Sundays, he preaches to congregations across the nation. Rev. Sharpton has two daughters from his marriage to Kathy Jordan Sharpton, Dominique and Ashley. Dominique works as the Membership Director for National Action Network and produces NANs weekly live radio broadcast. Ashley currently attends college at Hampton University.

Rev. Sharpton was educated in New York public schools and attended Brooklyn College. He has an honorary degree from A.P. Bible College.

Read this article:
Keepin' It Real with Rev. Al Sharpton | WAOK-AM

Al Sharpton is an outspoken and sometimes controversial political activist, working to lead the fight against racial prejudice and injustice. He is also an MSNBC radio/television talk show host for 'PoliticsNation.'

Ordained in the Pentecostal church as a child, Al Sharpton is an outspoken and sometimes controversial political activist in the fight against racial prejudice and injustice. In 1971, he established the National Youth Movement. His many critics and supporters have watched him run for Senate, mayor of New York and as a candidate for president. His dramatic style brings popular and media attention to his causes, and he has hosted his own MSNBC show, PoliticsNation, since 2011.

Al Sharpton

Having known Donald Trump for the past three decades as a native New Yorker, Sharpton has become very critical of the billionaire who became president in 2016. In early November 2017, Sharpton wrote a scathing critique on President Trump for NBCNews.com, saying:

"There were hopes last year that the executive office would temper some of this pettiness, but sadly we now see this is not the case. Rather than attempt to grow and learn, Trump has leaned into his role as divider-in-chief. This is exactly the same racially divisive, unapologetic blowhard I knew in New York."

In January 2018, after Trump's infamous "shole countries" comment, in which he was referring to African countries and the island of Haiti during a discussion on immigration, Sharpton appeared on a New York television news station stating:If youre comfortable in selling racism, then you are in fact that, he said, "You don't have to spray paint the Oval Office in the White House the N-word to be a racist."

Once weighing in at 305 lbs., Sharpton is currently a slim 129 lbs. How did he lose all of that weight?Sharpton went through an over four-year weight loss journey, losing 176 lbs., up until October 2014. Claiming he shed the pounds surgery-free, he attributes his success to a strict discipline of eating less, eating healthy and exercising regularly.

A well-known public figure, Sharpton continues to share his views and to tackle today's issues through his television and radio programs. He has been the host of PoliticsNation since 2011 on MSNBC. He also has his own syndicated radio show, Keepin' It Real.

Sharpton has continued to be involved in direct activist interventions, taking a lead role in organizing protests against the police-related deaths of Michael Brown in Missouri and Eric Garner in New York. Sharpton worked with Garner's family to request his death be investigated as a civil rights violation on a federal level. Sharpton has also been an ally of New York mayor Bill de Blasio, with President Barack Obama also speaking at the National Action Network's annual convention in the spring of 2014.

Nonetheless, Sharpton also continued to deal with controversy, contending with a New York Times story about owing a large sum of taxes (which he declared to be untrue) and distancing himself from NAN litigator Sanford Rubenstein after the attorney was accused of rape.

Social/political activist and religious leader Al Sharpton was born Alfred Charles Sharpton Jr. on October 3, 1954, in Brooklyn, New York. Outspoken and sometimes controversial, Sharpton has become a leading figure in the fight against racial prejudice and injustice. He developed his commanding speaking style as a child. A frequent churchgoer, Sharpton became an ordained minister in the Pentecostal church at the age of 10. He often traveled to deliver sermons and once toured with Mahalia Jackson, the famed gospel singer.

Sharpton attended public schools in Queens and Brooklyn.In the late 1960s, he became active in the civil rights movement, joining the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. The SCLC had a program called Operation Breadbasket, which sought to encourage diversity in the workplace by applying social and economic pressure on businesses. In 1969, Sharpton, then a high school student, became the youth director for the program. He later participated in protests against the A&P supermarket chain in the early 1970s.

In 1972, Sharpton graduated from Samuel J. Tilden High School. He spent two years at Brooklyn College as a contemporary politics major before dropping out. During this time, Sharpton remained politically active and eventually established his own organization, the National Youth Movement (NYM).

During the 1980s, Sharpton got involved in many high-profile cases in the New York City area that affected the African-American community and led several protests against what he believed were injustices and incidents of racial discrimination. He helped keep media scrutiny on the racially-based murder of a black teenager named Michael Griffith in 1986.

The following year, Sharpton became embroiled in the Tawana Brawley case a case that would haunt him for years. Brawley, an African-American teenager, claimed that she was raped by a group of white men some of whom were allegedly police officers. The case was later dismissed by a grand jury, which reportedly concluded that the teenager had made up the story. But this came after months of media frenzy around the case, largely encouraged by Sharpton. He was even sued by the district attorney working the case for making slanderous remarks. Sharpton was found guilty and fined for his comments.

His reputation damaged, Sharpton faced more charges in 1990. He was tried and acquitted of stealing from the NYM. No matter what problems he encountered, he remained dedicated to his activism, arranging protests and giving press conferences. During one such protest in Brooklyn's Bensonhurst neighborhood in 1991, a man stabbed Sharpton in the chest. Rushed to the hospital, he had surgery to repair the damage and made a full recovery.

In April 2014, the Smoking Gun web site reported that Sharpton had been a paid FBI informant during the 1980s and had been a key player in taking down the Genovese crime family.In defending his work with law enforcement, he said, Rats are usually people that were with other rats. I was not and am not a rat, because I wasnt with the rats. Im a cat. I chased rats.

Sharpton tried again to win public office in the 1990s. He had made one unsuccessful run for for the New York State Assembly in 1978. But this time, Sharpton had his sights on the national political arena, trying for a seat in the U.S. Senate in 1992 and 1994. He also ran for mayor of New York in 1997. In 2004, Sharpton attracted national attention by throwing his hat into the ring to become the Democratic Party's presidential candidate, but he failed to garner enough support to become a contender for the nomination.

To this day, Sharpton remains a political and social activist, with many supporters and critics. He is known for his deft handling of the media, leading some to call him the master of the sound bite. Others are concerned that his flare for the dramatic overshadows the causes he represents or he uses the causes he champions to further his own agenda. Sharpton seems to be pay no heed to his critics and continues to throw his talents behind important causes, cases and events in the African-American community, including the rebuilding of New Orleans after the devastation left by Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

In June 2009, the Reverend Al Sharpton led a memorial for Michael Jackson at Harlem's Apollo Theater. A lifelong friend of the Jackson family, Sharpton said Jackson was a "trailblazer" and a "historic figure" who loved the Apollo Theater.

More recently, Sharpton held rallies in Florida to fight for justice in the Trayvon Martin case. Martin, an unarmed African-American teen, was shot to death in Sanford, Florida, by George Zimmerman, a member of a neighborhood watch group, in February 2012. Zimmerman has claimed self-defense, but others feel that Martin was a victim of racial profiling. Initially the local police did not file any charges, but Zimmerman was eventually tried for second degree murder, though he was found not guilty.

Some had worried that Sharpton's presence in Florida would turn already tense race relations into riots. But Sharpton called for a peaceful approach. "We are not in the business of revenge. We are in the business of justice," he told the press.

Sharpton has two daughters, Dominique and Ashley, from his marriage to Kathy Jordan, with the couple having separated. As of reports surfacing in 2013, he has been seeing stylist Aisha McShaw.

Read more:
Al Sharpton - biography.com

Filmography2017Star(TV Series)Rev. Al Sharpton2015Empire(TV Series)Rev. Al Sharpton2004Boston Legal(TV Series)Reverend Al Sharpton- Loose Lips(2004)... Reverend Al Sharpton (as Reverend Al Sharpton)- Head Cases(2004)... Reverend Al Sharpton (as Reverend Al Sharpton)2002Holla(TV Series)Guest2002Mr. DeedsThe Rhyme Master (as Rev. Al Sharpton)2000BamboozledRev. Al Sharpton (as Rev. Al Sharpton)1999Cold FeetThe Reverend (as Reverend Al Sharpton)2014Get on Up(biography consultant - as Rev. Al Sharpton)2007SuperNews!(TV Series) (special thanks - 1 episode)2016-2019Morning Joe(TV Series)Himself - Contributor2019Free Meek(TV Mini-Series documentary)Himself201920/20(TV Series documentary)Himself2018-2019Good Morning Britain(TV Series)Himself - Guest / Himself - Minister and Civil Rights Activist2018AM Joy(TV Series)Himself - Host2015-2018MSNBC Live(TV Series)Himself - Correspondent / Himself - Guest2017Who Killed Tupac?(TV Mini-Series documentary)Himself - Civil Rights Activist- Time for Justice(2017)... Himself - Civil Rights Activist (as Rev. Al Sharpton)2017Maynard(Documentary)Himself2017MTP Daily(TV Series)Himself - Correspondent2017The Nineties(TV Series documentary)Himself - Civil Rights Activist2016Facing(TV Mini-Series documentary)Himself2012-2016Meet the Press(TV Series)Himself - Panelist / Himself / Himself - Host, 'Politics Nation'2014-2015CNN Newsroom(TV Series)Himself - Reverend / Himself2014Today(TV Series)Himself - Guest2014Media Buzz(TV Series)Himself - President, National Action Network2013Retro Report(TV Series)Himself - Community Activist201160 Minutes(TV Series documentary)Himself (segment "Al Sharpton")2010Race(Documentary)Himself201030 for 30(TV Series documentary)Himself2010America: The Story of Us(TV Series documentary)Himself- WWII(2010)... Himself- Bust(2010)... Himself (as Rev. Al Sharpton)- Boom(2010)... Himself (as Rev. Al Sharpton)- Civil War(2010)... Himself (as Rev. Al Sharpton)2009-2010Hannity(TV Series)Himself2005-2008Tucker(TV Series)Himself2007Ali's 65(TV Movie documentary)Himself2003XXI Century(TV Series documentary)Himself - National Action Network2002Smallpox(TV Movie documentary)Himself (US version)1991Everyman(TV Series documentary)Himself Edit Personal Details Other Works: Three TV commercials for LoanMax, an automobile title loan company in the metro New York City, NY, USA area. See more Publicity Listings: 2 Portrayals | 2 Interviews | 10 Articles | 1 Pictorial | See more

Alternate Names: Rev Al Sharpton | Rev. Al Sharpton | Reverend Al Sharpton

Height:5'10"(1.78m)

Nickname: Rev.

Go here to read the rest:
Al Sharpton - imdb.com

On Saturday's PoliticsNation show, MSNBC host Al Sharpton presided over a discussion of the Donald Trump administration delaying the release of the new $20 bill replacing President Andrew Jackson's image with iconic anti-slavery activist Harriet Tubman.

Obviously, the MSNBC group painted the delay as racially motivated, and Sharpton made clear that he does not know the difference between Andrew Jackson and Andrew Johnson as he TWICE claimed Jackson succeeded President Abraham LIncoln.

At 5:39 p.m. Eastern, after anti-Trump Republican panel member Sophia Nelson railed against Republicans for not getting the new $20 issued more quickly and taking credit for it, the historically challenged Sharpton turned to liberal comedian Dean Obeidallah and posed:

SHARPTON: The blatant thing here is you're talking about a black woman abolitionist that is going to replace a slave owner who was one that fought against many of the things that his immediate predecessor, Abe Lincoln, stood for. And you're going to delay it, and then after only some very skillful questioning by a member of Congress.

In fact, Andrew Jackson succeeded John Quincy Adams as President in 1829 and left office in 1837 -- which was 24 years before Abraham Lincoln was sworn in.

Why doesn't anyone correct the man? Obeidallah did not correct Sharpton's mistake as he began his response by cracking: "Absolutely. I think -- I'm not kidding -- I think there's more of a chance he'd put David Duke on the $20 bill before he'd put Harriet Tubman."

A bit later, after Nelson went on another rant in which she claimed Trump has made the Republican party into a party that is no longer the party of Lincoln and abolitionism, Sharpton turned to panel member Michael Hardy and repeated his claim that Jackson was President after Lincoln: "They used to call it the party of Lincoln and Frederick Douglass, both of whom were opposed to what Jackson ended up doing after Lincoln's assassination, and both of whom were allied and stood with Harriet Tubman."

In fact, Jackson did not do anything after President Lincoln's 1865 assassination since the former President passed away 20 years earlier in 1845.

Hardy, who is executive vice-president of Sharpton's National Action Network, began his response by sucking up: "That's exactly right."

At no point did any of the panel members correct Sharpton's very basic error about who the person was that they were discussing and what his role was in American history. So laugh at the idea that liberal news networks are very careful with basic facts.

Read this article:
D'oh! Al Sharpton Confuses Presidents Andrew Jackson & Andrew ...

Although I am a political junkie and, going back to my early teens, always have been, this generation often makes me rue ever having taken an interest in public life. Living in a real world, I understand that I will encounter some lying and hypocrisy, even from really good people. As an honest person, I cannot say that my own life has been completely devoid of such moments. But the thing is, I do try to look into the psychological mirror, to judge myself privately, to accept (constructive!) criticism, and to do better. Once annually, that personal impetus is recharged for me on Yom Kippur, my religions Day of Atonement, which is not only about looking back but really is targeted more towards searching within ones past to chart an improved road going forward. Indeed, that really is what all life is about forallof us: to improve our eternal souls, to work on ourselves and to become better people ourselves.

(This process of personal improvement should not be confused with the specious virtue-signaling that sees certain types pontificate publicly about how they want to take your and my money to help others. That changes nothing. The others do not get helped meaningfully, and the do-gooders remain as venal and self-centered as ever. Such virtue signaling does not make the socialist any better a person. He still glorifies Communist bread lines. She still lies brazenly about a world that supposedly is doomed in twelve years, even as she distorts history by saying to a generation of college ignoramuses that the 22ndAmendment was passed to prevent Franklin Roosevelt from seeking reelection. Actually, FDR died in 1945, and the Amendment was passed in 1947. She still will take steps to deny thousands of her neighbors much better, higher-paying product jobs. And she will be persuaded, somehow, that she is The Boss.)

In the journey of our lives, few of us start the race at exactly the same line, so we cannot possibly expect an identical race with the next person. Women and men each have their respective advantages and disadvantages. Christians, Jews, Muslims. Even within a family, a first-born enjoys different privileges but sustains different responsibilities from the next born. The last born is cuddled more but endures being taken less seriously. The middle child advantages and disadvantages galore. Everyone ends up on the therapists couch or should.

Even racial groups Black and White. For all the talk of White privilege, the innocents born White know that the cup is half full and half empty. Likewise for those born Black. Asians in our country same thing: pros and cons. Everyone.

Life is not about who is the richest, smartest, best employed, most muscular, best looking. Rather, life is about what each one of us does with what we have been given. In my lifetime, I cannot think of anyone who was worse looking than Aristotle Onassis. To play on the old meme, the only reason that his face did not appear in the dictionary under ugly is that it broke the printing press. But he seems to have done OK, for what he valued in life. Jackie Onassis thought so, too.

We know of incredibly rich people who commit suicide or whose nuclear family members do. Of fat people, skinny people, Jews, Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, and those of other faiths who rose to greatness or descended to infamy. That is what life really is all about. Not ultimately about conquering the Iron Throne, being the Lord of Downton Abbey, or even getting a TV slot. It is not about having a million likes or a million twitter followers or a million clicks. Rather, life is about what we do in our limited time on earth to improve our souls, improve ourselves, overcome our character flaws.

And that is why I so hate the hypocrisy, the mendacity, the shameless lying that dominates every moment of every day not only in other countries but also in this greatest country that humans ever conceived. If Social Media and cable television were imagined as steps forward in humanitys evolution, the Digital Age has proven that humans remain humans. You can give humans texting, tweeting, apps, posting, Facebooking, and seven hundred 24-hour television stations plus access via the internet to all the learning and truth imaginable and people still are people. Some are evil, some righteous, most in between the two parameters.

A. Al Sharpton: Hater, Inciter to Violence

The latest example of this repugnant reality is the opposite ways two social icons Kate Smith and Al Sharpton recently have been treated. Kate Smith may have been physically obese, but Al Sharpton always has been a spiritual pig. Kate Smith was not intentionally cruel; she was naive. By contrast, Al Sharpton rose to notoriety by falsely accusing good men of raping Tawana Brawley and smearing her with feces. Sharpton incited race riots and an anti-Jewish pogrom in Crown Heights, Brooklyn that resulted in his incited frenzied mob murdering a Jew, Yankel Rosenbaum. Sharpton incited further race riots in Harlem that saw the burning of a clothing store, more frenzied Jew-hatred, and more death. Years of his speeches were infected by racist attacks on whole classes of people. Ways that he incited mobs to violence against Jews, against police, against White people, against gays.

B. Kate Smith: A Decent Person in a Different Era

Kate Smith sang one song, Thats Why Darkies Were Born, that also was recorded by Black singer Paul Robeson. That song is open to various interpretations. She also sang an embarrassingly stupid song, also in the early 1930s, with lyrics no less embarrassing than some of those in Stephen Fosters iconic My Old Kentucky Home. (Uh-oh, lets hope hes not next. And wait till they find out the original name of Agatha Christies And Then There Were None.) She did not write the lyrics but was given that song to sing as part of a movie role. If she were singing and filming today, she never would have agreed to sing it. We know that because Kate Smith strongly advocated racial fairness. In an era when baseball teams including those that now suddenly will no longer play her iconic recording of G-d Bless America still banned Black athletes from playing on their team,Smith had black musicians and entertainers on her radio variety show more than 40 times, including Bill Robinson (Bojangles), Count Basie, Cozy Cole, the Deep River Boys, the Delta Rhythm Boys, Duke Ellington, Eddie Haywood, Ethel Waters, the Ink Spots, the King Cole Trio, Maurice Rocco, and the Southernaires.

No one ever said Boo! about Kate Smith for more than half a century until a month or so ago.

Has no one else in Hollywood ever played a role and sung lyrics that were out of touch with todays milieu? Obscene roles? Take Robert De Niro please. He can curse out our President all he likes, and maybe he cannot be blamed for it because he never finished high school, so perhaps never learned how to engage in mature polemics. Besides, the word that he uses F - is word that he has used for years and years in his movies, all the ethnically stereotypical depictions of Italian-Americans as mobsters without souls. To my movie recollection, he never played an Italian-American United States Attorney. And that is understandable because, although he is a great mobster actor, his talents do not extend to portraying a legal scholar. That would demand too much of the movie-going audience. Even when he is not saying F - he is playing in movies with names like Meet the Fockers. With his limited vocabulary, he probably thought that was a great pun. Get it? The Fockers?Clever word play for the New Age.

Robert Da Zero.

Its not that Italian-American mob actors cannot play great lawyers. Consider Al Pacino. On the one hand, Michael Corleone, Lefty Ruggiero (Donnie Brasco), and Scarface. On the other hand, one of the great jury summations of all time as Arthur Kirkland in And Justice for All. Also an attorney, John Milton, in the weird movie,The Devils Advocate. Even a bitter blind military-hero-turned-compassionate-quasi-attorney in Scent of a Womanduring that powerful closing-argument soliloquy, as Frank Slade. Pacino can do Shakespearean soliloquies: Shylock in Merchant of Venice, Richard III and King Lear in those eponymous plays.

Can you imagine Da Zero doing Shakespeare?

As Hamlet: To be or not to be, that is the question! Whether tis nobler in the mind to suffer oh, F it!

As Romeo: But, soft! What light through yonder window breaks? It is the east uh, or is it the west? East? West? Oh, F it!

Consider the evil and villainy in Da Zeros roles, one of which even prompted a nut job, who should have been executed, to attempt assassinating one of our greatest Presidents. Then contemplate the awful lyrics that Kate Smith was instructed to sing in an earlier day when she got a unique opportunity to star in an early talkie during a brief era when Hollywood hired stars based on their skills and gifts, not on their complexion, hair, and the coveted BMI factor. How can all her lifes work be obliterated so instantly by the kind of Truth Squad that tears down statues of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, while elevating the race-baiting Al Sharpton to democracys kingmaker?

It is the kind of bald-faced hypocrisy and double standard that sometimes makes me rue the day I took an interest in the public sphere. The race-baiting Al Sharpton signed the White House visitors book more than did any other visitor during the Wasted Obama Decade. He ended up with his own television show. He portrays himself as a civil rights leader, and others complicit with the fraud, even though they have to know better in their inner selves, pay dutiful obeisance. Obama turned to Sharpton as he began his second Presidential campaign. Yet Sharpton has blood on his hands. He has been convicted in court of defamation. Thisis the Mad Kingmaker, the wormy Littlefinger, to whom every single Democrat seeking the Presidency first must turn for approbation and blessing, beseech, beg, and bend the knee?

All while Kate Smiths recorded voice now is banned from belting out G-d Bless America from public arenas and stadia that played her rendition every day until a month ago.

This is the Metaphor of Hypocrisy for the New Age. May we in this land that we love see this long night end with the light from Above.

See the original post here:
On Kate Smith and Al Sharpton: The Metaphor of Hypocrisy ...