Mediaboss Marketing

New York (AFP) - Reverend Al Sharpton, who made an impassioned plea for racial justice at a memorial service for George Floyd on Thursday, is a flamboyant but polarizing long-time black civil rights activist who once dreamed of occupying the White House.

Admirers laud the sharply dressed, 65-year-old Baptist minister and talk show host for the half-century he has spent campaigning to right wrongs against the US' African-American community.

But critics have accused Sharpton, who placed himself at the center of some of the most racially explosive issues of the 1980s in his native New York, of being a divisive racial provocateur.

Never shy of the spotlight, he has mellowed over the years and adopted a more considered persona, swapping the trademark tracksuit of his early activist days with pin-striped suits.

The big hair has also gone, and Sharpton doesn't quite cut the same imposing figure physically as he used to, but his fire still burns brightly.

"America, this is the time for dealing with accountability in the criminal justice system," he told the memorial for Floyd, who died on May 27 after a white police officer knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes.

"We won't stop," added Sharpton, referring to the mass protests convulsing the United States.

"We're going to keep going until we change the whole system of justice."

Born in Brooklyn, in October 1954, Sharpton gave notice of his oratorical skills by preaching in a church service when he was just four years old.

Aged nine, he was ordained a Pentecostal minister. Martin Luther King was assassinated when he was 13 years old.

Sharpton, while still in his teens, was chosen by the Reverend Jesse Jackson as the New York youth director of a national initiative aimed at tackling poverty in black neighborhoods.

His life underwent a radical shift in 1973 when he met the soul singer James Brown backstage at a concert, and he ended up spending the next several years on the road as part of Brown's entourage.

Story continues

There, he met his future wife, Kathy Jordan, who was one of Brown's backup singers.

Sharpton's political activism came to the fore in the early 1980s, when racial tensions climbed sharply in New York City.

In 1985, he made the national news leading protests against Bernard Goetz, a white man who shot four black teenagers trying to mug him on a subway and was acquitted for acting in self-defense.

The success of the demonstrations set a pattern, as Sharpton went on to rally supporters over similar incidents, including protests over the accidental running down of a young black boy by a Hasidic rabbi's motorcade -- an event that triggered violent clashes between black and Jewish communities.

- Controversy -

Critics saw his tactics as divisive, opportunistic and inflammatory, pointing especially to the 1987 case of 15-year-old Tawana Brawley, a black girl who claimed to have been raped by six white men, some of whom were police officers.

Sharpton became Brawley's most vocal supporter and famously accused an assistant district attorney of involvement in the rape.

A grand jury later determined that Brawley made up the incident, and Sharpton was compelled to pay the attorney $65,000 for defamation. However, to the fury of his detractors, he is not known to have apologized.

"For some, that case defines my career and is the sole reason I should not be supported by anyone in this country," he wrote in his 2002 book, "Al On America."

"For me, it defines my career because I refused to bend or bow -- no matter the pressures. I took the word of a young girl, and if I had to do it over, I would do it again."

As his stature grew, he found himself accused of misusing funds and ran into tax trouble.

Sharpton ran for the Senate from New York in 1992 and 1994, as well as for New York City mayor in 1997. He failed in all three attempts but got enough votes to be taken seriously by his rivals.

He says a near-fatal stabbing in 1991 that occurred as he was readying to lead a protest march led him to be "less flippant, and more sober" in style.

"I couldn't shoot from the hip so much," he said.

In 2004, he ran for the Democratic presidential nomination but lost every race.

While Sharpton has tempered his approach, he remains outspoken, riling President Donald Trump last year in a dispute over Baltimore, which is majority black.

Trump, who has known Sharpton for years, branded him a "con man, a troublemaker."

"I make trouble for bigots," Sharpton fired back.

Read the original here:
Al Sharpton: the black rights firebrand still fighting injustice - Yahoo News

by Charlie Barber | .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) | Last Word | May 26th, 2020

#6 of On Tyranny: Be wary of paramilitaries When the men with guns who have always claimed to be against the system start wearing uniforms and marching with torches and pictures of a leader, the end is nigh. When the pro-leader paramilitary and the official police and military intermingle, the end has come. Timothy Snyder

Men who rape, kill, torture, and mutilate because they dont like how another person looks or behaves, what he or she believes, or for whom he or she works deserve no mercy from historians, politicians or any other Americans. Yet we all must remember that these angry chants and threats have long been a part of the larger American chorus that, if it were ever to surrender the urge to hate and kill, might also break into song. - Catherine McNicol Stock, Rural Radicals

#7 of On Tyranny: Be reflective if you must be armed If you carry a weapon in public service, may God bless you and keep you. But know that evils of the past involved policemen and soldiers finding themselves, one day, doing irregular things. Be ready to say no. Timothy Snyder

The need is not really for more brains, the need is now for a gentler, a more tolerant people than those who won for us against the ice, the tiger, and the bear. The hand that hefted the ax, out of some old blind allegiance to the past fondles the machine gun as lovingly. It is a habit man will have to break to survive, but the roots go very deep. Loren Eiseley, The Immense Journey

Stalin...displayed his special form of political genius: interpreting the disastrous consequences of his own policies as a reason to punish his political opponents (real or imagined)...his reasoning now liberated itself from the burden of contact with empirical reality...security organs would find the truth they were ordered to find...In this new world, the past was no guide...No arguments could be advanced against what Stalin chose to call a fact...(He) presided over the death of millions, and greeted human catastrophe as political success. - Timothy Snyder, Stalins Famine, Sketches From a Secret War

No body, no problem. - attr. to J. Stalin No (accurate ) body count, no problem. attr. to D. Trump

You cant tell it like it is, unless, you, first, tell it like it was. - Chicago Dog

Men who did not know that they were slaves do not know that they have been freed. - Milton Mayer

As Planned Parenthood gears up for an all out assault on the Rights of Women with a clinic for women seeking natal and abortion assistance in southern Illinois, the Midwests bluest State, a map marks this location as geographically convenient to women who are despised, in law, by men in States to the South, Southwest and East. That map also marks the jumping off point for General U.S. Grants Army of the Tennessee that waged war from 1861-1865, against a way of thinking that had a concrete form in the Confederacy, but also, a spiritual racism and male chauvinism that affected all regions of America back then, and, unfortunately, now as well.

Violent words from President Trump, his propaganda machine in the White House, FOX news, Congressional Republicans like Jim Jordan (OH).Matt Gaetz (FL), Lindsay Graham (SC) and Mitch McConnell (KY) have defended a nihilistic, lawless leadership. A refusal by Attorney General William Barr on May 18, 2020 to break the law in pursuit of fictitious deep state, conspiracy theories about former President Barack Obama may stymie his Hater-in-Chief, but will not stop hatefulness spawned by Barrs previous pandering to power. Desperate despots of demagogy incite a civil war of words that evokes the violence of slavery advocates of yesteryear, and todays would be dictators. As civilized Americans face issues laying bare very uncivilized emotions and actions, I turned, once again, to the wisdom of my KGB animal companions.

High Plains Reader: Hello dear friends! Why does rhetoric of Trump supporters in the White House, Congress, and on Trump (FOX) TV, resemble Taliban tribalism in Afghanistan? Weve spent much treasure and many lives over there, yet we, like them, have men in power here who hate women, white people in power who fear and loathe people of color, and Christians who do not really love their neighbor, if their neighbor doesnt suit their brand of belief or appearance?

Lena: Hate viruses, or bacteria of bullsh*t are easier to spread than tolerance antidotes of the Sermon on the Mount and words of Shakespeares King Lear (None doth offend). Perhaps you should meet our newest friend: Ms. Recovering Republican Lap Dog. Her parents were bred where Lapland overlaps Norway and Vladimir Putins Russia, for export to suburban women all over the United States. However, her breed became estranged from a country club cocoon way-of-life, when their mistresses became estranged from the ABCs of Suburbia (Adultery, Booze and Crabgrass), the Republican Party, and the dogmatic misogyny of their husbands.

Ms. RRLD: Those who wish to dominate others never get their way when folks translate daily live and let live behavior into political action and vote such democratic convictions. That is hard to do, however, when propagandists turn ordinary, descriptive, yet debatable terms, like liberal and conservative, into masks or weapons.

Schickelgruber: Hitler and Goebbels did win the propaganda war in World War II by the way. German soldiers, supposedly invincible, were jacked up on speed, while their home folks were jacked up on lies, and the German High Command was given monetary bribes.

Mr. Crying Wolf: To counter the Nazi onslaught of illusions, FDRs commander, General George Marshall, tapped a top propagandist, Hollywood Producer/Director, Corporal Frank Capra, to produce counter propaganda in the Why We Fight Series. The problem was that Capra ended up repeating the sauerkraut-is-liberty-cabbage mistake. He taught Americans to hate all things German rather than just Nazism, despite a quarter of American troops and officers in World War II (Eisenhower [DDay], Nimitz [Midway], Eichelberger [New Guinea], Spaatz [Bomber Command-England], and Wedemeyer [General Staff]) being of German descent.

Kim Dog Un: As for the Japanese Empire, no problem. White Americans already were racist towards Asian peoples. Trump and his alleged freedom fighters still are.

Mr. Swamp Fox: Failure to distinguish between Nazism in World War II, as well as the Kaisers Imperialism in World War I, and the German heritage of so many Americans, blinded you to the inherent Nazism of lynching black folks, Christianitys Racism (Anti-Semitism) against Jews, race hatred against all peoples of color, and contempt for women.

Omar Khayyam: Nazi, Taliban, or similar mutations of the intolerance virus have been around much longer than Covid-19. Trump merely exploits them for his own sick power trips, along with a few permanent, willing executioners like Stephen Miller, and other part time schemers and mismanagers. Trump and Miller can dehumanize and kill off the powerless in private (lucrative) prisons and (lucrative) immigrant concentration camps, but they cannot intimidate a former federal prosecutor of Crime Boss John Gotti, about to weigh in on their efforts to free Mike Flynn. With AG Barr blinking over bogus charges against Trumps predecessor, the White House backwards parade to medieval savagery and lawlessness, has been temporarily halted.

Schickelgruber: The Nazi horror wasnt just application of technology to genocide, but its clear rejection of humanism and humanitarianism that separated the savage Europe of 16th Century religious wars and 17th Century slave trading and the 20th Century Europe built upon the 18th Century Enlightenment and the 19th Century Industrial Revolution. Angela Merkels Germans represent the better angels in human nature, the way that many of their 1930s forbearers did not.

HPR: And Donald Trumps amoral, AR-15, paranoid, Americans?

Rasputin: The world pities America today; less for Trumps inept Federal response to Covid- 19, than because you have fallen away from ideals of freedom and equality that the world respected you for, even more than for your military might. The nastier truth is that the same 1% that desperately supports Donald Trump today in their fear that times they are a-changin, also stood in the way of those ideals of freedom back then, but at least you had tried. Now you let Trump and his propagandists pump up numerous idiots to politicize a Covid-19 mask. Pathetic!

Ms. RRLD: Trumps and McConnells cramped vision of America has not yet prevailed, but struggle is on in earnest, as Trumps elderly supporters are dropping like flies to an enemy that has no color or gender, while many others desert him as the enemy of their health and welfare.

Putin: Conservative judges actually conserving rule of law are joined by a host of federal, state, and local law enforcement officials; worried about their families and friends, as well as their duty to preserve and protect. Lawlessness of law enforcement in Georgia might be more rare than it was the rule 100 years ago, but it is a reminder of how quickly this country could slip back if you dont cut off the effectiveness of Trumps dog whistles of hatred from the White House.

HPR: But this is 2020! We are supposed to be more civilized, and yet a woman is killed by local police in Georgia for sleeping while black. A young man down there is also gunned down by some stump jumping, KKK wannabes for jogging while black. And neo-Nazis with Trump banners are camped out with their AR-15s at the Michigan State Capitol!

Schickelgruber: Michigans gutsy Governor, Gretchen Whitmer, has the overwhelming support of her people, unlike Bavarian State Police of 1923 firing into the ranks of Hitler and his Storm Troopers. A single masked nurse, with I stand with Whitmer written on her arm, put the lie to a Reality TV, very fine people, Trump/Confederacy/Nazi menace in Lansing, MI. Besides, it was white privilege that protected these phony freedom fighters from being gunned down, not their armament. Murdered, unarmed black folks still require the steady, heroic, stoic activism of Georgias Stacy Abrams (Fair Fight), New Yorks Reverend Al Sharpton, and their white allies, like Democratic Presidential nominee, former Obama Vice President Joe Biden, who will, if the rest of us show half as much courage, take out these morons with ballots instead of bullets.

Chicago Dog: Things were worse in Chicago on December 4, 1969. Two men were killed in cold blood by Cook County States Attorney Ed Hanrahans police for the crime of sleeping while Black Panthers. A local version of FOX news, WGN news, filmed many bullet holes exiting the doorframe entered by Fast Eddies search and destroy team. This fiction was demolished by NBCTV reporter Len OConnor, who filmed the actual nail holes outside the West Side apartment that had been reported as bullet holes. States Attorney Hanrahan didnt indict himself, of course, but was, instead, turned out of office in 1972 by angry black, white progressive and moderate voters, a coalition leading to victories of Chicagos first black Mayor, Harold Washington, in 1983 and 1987, and the successful candidacy of President Barack Obama.

Ms. RRLD: The spiritual, intellectual, and organizing enema required to exorcize bigotry and oppression in Chicago of yore is being prepared by Recovering Republicans, the Lincoln Project, to hit Trump where it hurts the most, with TV ads that destroy his image with his own base.

Schickelgruber: One of our members doubles as a pet for one of the Lincoln Project members in D.C. While accompanying his master, shortly after Trump gave that whiny interview with the Lincoln Memorial as a stage prop, complaining he had been treated worse than our countrys greatest President, they managed to bury this sonnet there, where one of us could find it:

Lock Up Ignorance; Not People!

Mismanagement is such a special skill; That only fools like Trump can bring to bear Upon our body politic; to wear Us out, and break our countrys sagging will.

Thats only if we let Trump do it though; As he begins to wreck his own, sad base Of haters; Cynics twards the human race. Lets end Trumps mess to let our freedom grow!

The Democrats have plans, a man and more; Recovering Republicans, who know Just how to hurt Trump; make him feel the pain Above the neck; his addled brain made sore By truth exposing lies he sought to sow. Make sanity and science great again! - Chicago Dog

View post:
Combatting the Taliban, the Nazi, in Ourselves - High Plains Reader

For indispensable reporting on the coronavirus crisis and more, subscribe to Mother Jones' newsletters.

Today marks 95 years since Malcolm X first touched the planet and did all he could to reimagine and strengthen it, and a daylong tribute is livestreaming right now with Angela Davisreason alone to scrap any plans youd made and tune inRep. Ayanna Pressley, Ilyasah Shabazz (Malcolms daughter), Al Sharpton, and music from Robert Glasper (here with Mos Def for a boost), Common, Stevie Wonder, and Pete Rock.

Stamina and solidarity-building are on the lineup, but however you view Malcolms impact, dont overlook that of Yuri Kochiyama, also born today, 99 years ago, a Japanese American civil rights pioneer and close friend of Malcolms; she was at his side the moment his life was taken. A life that continues here in A Tribute in Word and Sound, streaming from the Shabazz Center. After the celebration, let me know how you see Malcolms and Yuris legacies at recharge@motherjones.com.

Here is the original post:
Angela Davis and Ayanna Pressley join dozens of iconic leaders for today's Malcolm X livestream - Mother Jones

It was a case that wouldn't seem out of place today. On Dec. 22, 1984, four black teens approached a white man on a New York City subway trainand either asked for or demanded money. The man, who'd been mugged before and would later tellauthorities he felt threatened, almost immediately pulled a handgun out of his jacket and began firing, striking and wounding all four teens.The criminal case that followed, and the national debate it stirred, raised questions about self-defense, vigilantism, and race that have been eerily echoed numerous times in the decades since.

The case ofBernhard BernieGoetz and his shooting ofTroy Canty, Barry Allen, James Ramseur, and Darrell Cabey is explored in thesecond episode ofTrial By Media a six-episode Netflix docuseries that focuses on highly publicized trialsand how the conversations around them are shaped.

Goetz would later recount how, after the teens approached him on a southbound 2 train at around 14th St., he visualized the pattern in which he'd fire off rounds, then methodically proceeded to do so. Two of the teens were shot in the back, and Goetz later told authorities he shot one of them twice because the teen didn't seem hurt enough.

Goetz, a 37-year-old engineer who operated a small electronics company out of his Greenwich Village apartment,told a train conductor in the immediate aftermath that the teensRamseur was 18 and the rest of his friends were 19 were trying to mug him.Canty and Ramseur later testified that they were just panhandling and had asked Goetz for$5.

As the "Trial By Media" episode shows, the teens, who had all been arrested in the past for minor offenses, were almost immediately assumed to be criminals and vilified by some in the public. The fourbecame symbols of rampant crime in New York City, which at the time was in the midst of the crack cocaine epidemic.Many New Yorkers who were tired of being crime victimsexpressed a kinship with Goetz for seemingly fighting back.The press even dubbed him the Subway Vigilante and compared him to Charles Bronsons character in the 1974 movie Death Wish. In the film, Bronson plays a New York City architect who takes matters into his own handsafter a brutal attack on his wife and daughter.

Lawyer Ron Kuby, who represented Cabey in a civil case against Goetz, told the producers of Trial by Media that Goetz was "lionized as some sort of hero.Goetzs face and name were plastered on shirts and bumper stickers with the phrase: Ride with Bernie he Goetz 'em!

The National Rifle Association were among the groups that attempted to brand him as a folk hero. Goetztold investigators that he'd bought a gun in Florida and illegally transported it to New York City after he was violently mugged by three teens four years before the subway shooting, and had applied for a New York gun permit as a result but was rejected. This led the NRA to openly support Goetz, raisingmoney for him and askingthe governor to pardon him, according to a 1987 Los Angeles Times report. They usedGoetz as a poster boy as they advocated for looser gun laws in New York City.

Goetz's vigilante hero persona may have helped him at thetrial for the shooting. Amostly white jury acquitted Goetz of attempted murder and first-degree assault charges. He was convicted only of criminal possession of a weapon in the third degree for carrying an unlicensed weapon in a public place andserved just eight months.

However, public perception began to turn after an interrogation video was released, which revealed Goetz speaking callously about the shooting and his desire to kill the teenagers.

I wanted to kill those guys, he told investigators. I wanted to maim those guys.

He claimed to have shot one of the teens more than once because he thought hedidnt seem hurt enough the first time. He recalled telling the teenager, "You seem all right, here's another," before shooting him again. Whether or not this verbal exchange, as well as the second shot, happened has been long debated however, Goetz's sentiment certainly rubbed a lot of people the wrong way.

Goetz's self-defense claim also came under scrutinyas accusations of bigotry were brought to the fore.

The Rev. Al Sharpton and others blamed racial profiling for the shooting. In the docuseries, Sharpton called Goetzs reaction to the teenagersan overreaction that is soaked with race and bigotry. Sharpton told reporters at the time that Goetz had stereotyped all young black men as threats.

Similar caseas continueto make headlines across the nation.

Another Trial by Media episode tackles the 1999 shooting of Amadou Diallo, a black immigrant from West Africawho was shot41 times by four plainclothesNYPD officers while he was taking a wallet out of his pocket. The officers were heavily criticized and charged with murder, but were were ultimately acquitted on all charges. All the officers contended they were acting in self-defense as they believed Diallo was armed.

Diallo'sdeath once again raised racial tensions in New York. Sharpton, who also became an advocate for Diallo, spoke out against the officers' acquittal and linked the shooting to police brutalityand racism.

Trayvon Martins 2012 killing also drew comparisons to the Goetz case. Like Goetz, shooter George Zimmerman claimed he shot the 17-year-old Martinin self-defense, invoking Florida's "Stand Your Ground" law.Zimmerman also styled himself as a somethingof a vigilante. He ran his neighborhood watch and often monitored people he deemed to be suspicious.Like Goetz, Zimmerman was accused of racially profiling Martinas a criminal, the Orlando Sentinel reported. And like many before him, Zimmerman was ultimately acquitted in the case.

Questions surrounding vigilantism and racial profiling are again atthe forefront of a national conversationfollowing the highly publicized shooting of Ahmaud Arbery. The 25-year-old black Georgia man was shot to death while running through a mostly white neighborhood in Glynn Countyin February after a white father and son Gregory McMichael, 64, and Travis McMichael, 34 said theybelieved he was a burglar. They then allegedly chased him down in a truck and shot him to death, also claiming to have acted in self-defense. They are currently facing murder charges, but weren't arrested for more than two months after a series of local prosecutors declined to pursue the case.

Get all your true crime news from Oxygen. Coverage of the latest true crime stories and famous cases explained, as well as the best TV shows, movies and podcasts in the genre. And don't miss our own podcast, Martinis & Murder!

Read more:
How Echoes Of The Bernie Goetz Subway Shooting Still Resonate Today - Oxygen

NBA legend and entrepreneur Magic Johnson has taken note, he pointed out, that loans to assist small business owners during COVID-19 arent trickling down to nonwhites and women who own those businesses. Johnson wants to do something about that, so hes partnered with a New Jersey-based financial company to provide $100 million in funding as part of the Small Business Administrations Paycheck Protection Program.

Johnson told TheWall Street Journal in a Monday, May 18 article that his company EquiTrust Life Insurance Co. with MBE Capital Partners will give $100 million in PPP loans to help small businesses owned by nonwhites and women.

The retired NBA star explained how crucial loans are to these businesses, especially now as many are in danger of not reopening when cities and states return to normal.

We knew why the money was gone and couldnt trickle down to small businesses, especially small minority businesses, because they didnt have those great relationships with the banks, Johnson explained. So this was easy for us to understand This is, when you think about it, life and death for so many business owners. They have nowhere else to turn.

Johnson said that small businesses were finding it incredibly difficult to secure Paycheck Protection Program loans. Rafael Martinez, MBEs chief executive, expressed he received complaints from his clients about not being able to get PPP loans at all during the first round of funding. He and Johnson reportedly were connected through civil rights activist Al Sharpton. Martinez has said that the $100 million commitment first will go toward the 5,000 PPP loans his company has approved so far.

The PPP loan, part of Congress stimulus funding, was set up to assist small businesses during the COVID-19 shutdown. But bigger businesses, including Shake Shake and the Los Angeles Lakers, received several millions in loans instead. Ruths Chris Steak House was another company that received a PPP loan, for $20 million, but gave it back after public backlash. Reports have indicated that some lenders prioritized those businesses with whom they had existing relationships.

Johnsons COVID-19 related focus includes the March release of a PSA in which he speaks on practicing social distancing and hand washing.

During an April interview with ESPN, he compared the coronavirus to HIV and AIDS, and said, as with those illnesses, people again are spreading wrong information.

The same issues we had then, we have now Not being educated enough about HIV and AIDS, said Johnson. The same thing [is happening] with the coronavirus.

View post:
Magic Johnson Partners with New Jersey-Based Company to Help Nonwhite and Female Small Business Owners - Atlanta Black Star