A Mr Minority First !! I AGREE With Al Sharpton

I don't know want kind of conversion Al Sharpton had, but it was a good one. Maybe Al saw Jesus or even Bill Cosby on the road to Damascus, but he has changed his tune from "whoa is us", to "we need to help ourselves." Al addressed the Urban League yesterday and slammed the Donks, Clinton and his own people for keeping Blacks down.

Washington (CNSNews.com) - Former Democratic presidential candidate Al Sharpton blasted blacks Thursday for what he described as their blind support of the Democratic Party without demanding anything in return.

Sharpton, during his remarks at the National Urban League's annual conference in Washington, noted that his fellow Democrats, including former President Bill Clinton, have taken African-American voters for granted and failed to act in the best interests of the black community.

"The whole network of incarceration (of African-American men) happened under this president and the last president. So it wasn't just George Bush. Bill Clinton -- I wish Hillary had hung around -- Bill Clinton built a lot of jails and passed the omnibus crime bill," Sharpton said shortly after Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) had addressed the same panel discussion, entitled "The Black Male: Endangered Species or Hope for the Future?"

Sharpton noted that African-American men make up 6 percent of the U.S. population but 44 percent of the nation's prison population.

"And just because Bill can sing "Amazing Grace" well doesn't mean the omnibus crime bill was not a bill that hurt our people," Sharpton told the several hundred people gathered at the Washington Convention Center.

"We must stop allowing people to gain politically from us if they're not reciprocating when dealing and being held accountable," said Sharpton, referring to the allegiance that African-American voters maintain to the Democratic Party.

Sharpton said many politicians who court the black vote "come by and get our votes 'cause they wave at us on Sunday morning while the choir's singing. And we act like that is reaching out."

The problem is these same politicians "never addressed why they sit here in Washington with an epidemic proportion of HIV AIDS in our (black) community, unemployment in our community and they do nothing to deal with eliminating those problems," Sharpton explained.

"Imagine me going to a convention of whites who half of them were unemployed and I smiled, waved, sing a hymn and leave. They would whip me in the parking lot before [I left]," he said to laughter and applause.

"As long as we allow people to get elected off of us and deliver nothing to us, then part of our problem is that we have such low political self esteem," he said. "Every time we give them support for no support, we add to the marginalization of black men."

Al's eyes have been opened to the reality of the Donks and their using the Blacks for their votes. The Donks used the Blacks for slaves back in the 1700 & 1800's and for the last 3 decades have been using them for votes.

Sharpton also took aim at black popular culture. Noting that in some U.S. cities, black male unemployment exceeds 50 percent, Sharpton said black music and movies only aggravate the situation.

"People emulate what they see ...We cannot succumb to a generation that acts like it's all right to celebrate being down. It's one thing to be down, it's another thing to celebrate being down," he explained.

Referring to gangster rappers, Sharpton said, "We've gone from 'black and proud' to groups now calling themselves "Niggers with an attitude."

Al also sees that the Ghetto mentality has kept his people IN the Ghetto and IN jail.

And finally Al sees the answer to the problem:

Sharpton concluded his discussion with a call for the black community to help itself and return churches to "the center of our community."

"Even if we [are] not responsible for being down, we [are] responsible for getting up," he said. "And if we wait on those who knocked us down to lift us up we'll never get up 'cause if they wanted us up we would have never been down," he said.

Blacks cannot wait around for the Donks to help them up out of their situation, they have to take the bull by the horns and do it themselves. Maintaining the "I've been repressed" mentality does nothing to alleviate the problem, only education and hard work will. Unending Welfare and Affirmative Action are crutches and in fact DO NOT help, but hinder Blacks in being sucessful.

I may not agree with all of what Al said, but I do agree that he finally understands that the problem is internal to the Black community, not external, and so the solution must be internal also.


Mr Minority