Has Al Sharpton even set foot in Chicago this summer?
Oh, we all know what the good revvum’s role was in the Trayvon Martin shooting. Sharpton managed to get himself down to Sanford, Fla., for rallies.
He had Martin’s parents, Tracy Martin and Sybrina Fulton, sitting in the Washington offices of his National Action Network when second-degree murder charges were announced against George Zimmerman, the man charged who killed Trayvon.
And, on Sunday, July 1, Sharpton made sure he was at the Black Entertainment Television Awards show to pick up his — hope you’re sitting down for this one — humanitarian award.
Oh, yes indeedy, the man who once talked about a Harlem merchant being a “white interloper” and is generally given credit for inspiring someone to torch the man’s store got a humanitarian award. I guess the qualifications for “humanitarian” have been ratcheted down quite a bit over the years.
During his acceptance speech, Sharpton said he wants bigots to tremble at the thought of his waking up in the morning.
Oh really? Does the good revvum really believe black America’s main problems these days come from white bigots? (Sharpton didn’t specifically mention white bigots, but we can be sure that’s what he meant. But whatever race he was referring to, don’t you just love it when people who toss around phrases like “white interloper” wax indignant about bigots and bigotry?)
This is a man who desperately needs to visit Chicago, where black-on-black violence this summer has gone beyond the pale. Here are some of the lowlights:
Friday, June 22: Fourteen-year-old Antonio Davis died after he was gunned down in a drive-by shooting. Hours later, Tyquan Tyler, only 13, died after he was shot in the chest during a drive-by. The incident happened at 1:30 a.m.
What a 13-year-old was doing out at that hour is a subject the good revvum might want to take up with the boy’s parents, once he’s done collecting all his humanitarian awards and all. But it does drive home the point I made above: White bigots really aren’t black America’s main problem.
About 2 a.m. on June 22, 29-year-old Hansen Jackson was killed after being shot in the chest. During the three-day span from June 22 to 24, some 29 people would be shot. Jackson, Davis and Tyler were among the four fatalities.
June 27: Heaven Sutton, only 7 years old, was killed as she tried to dodge bullets fired from the guns of gangbangers. She was selling snow cones at the time.
July 4 and 5: More than a dozen people, including a 10-year-old girl, were shot in a period of less than 24 hours. The Chicago Tribune reported the time span was actually six hours.
Can anyone say “crisis situation”? The good revvum can’t. He’s too busy looking for the white bigots menacing black America. And isn’t Sharpton one of those so-called black leaders who have, at times, expressed sympathy and empathy for black criminals like the ones terrorizing Chicago’s black citizens?
Well, Sharpton isn’t as guilty of it as others — and yes, think Michael Eric Dyson and Tavis Smiley here — but there have been times when he has lamented the numbers of black men in prisons and jails.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with black men being in either jail or prison if that happens to be where they belong. For all we know, the Chicago miscreants who have been running around gunning down 7- and 10-year-old girls should have been in prison already for some crime or crimes committed before those despicable acts.
Sharpton has weighed in, at length, on the Trayvon Martin matter. It’d be encouraging if the good revvum uttered so much as a mumble about what’s going on in Chicago.
Examiner Columnist Gregory Kane is a Pulitzer-nominated news and opinion journalist who has covered people and politics from Baltimore to the Sudan.
