My stars, such testiness! How else can I describe the tiff that took place between Tavis Smiley and Al Sharpton last week?
Ah, there’s nothing quite like the morning smell of black liberal Democrats bashing each other. It warms the cuckolds of this black conservative Republican’s heart.
The cause of the tiff was one President Obama, whom Smiley feels should have, or at least should address, a “black agenda.”
Smiley, a commentator, author, and radio and television talk show host, chided Sharpton and other black “leaders” for meeting with Obama and then publicly announcing that Obama is perhaps prudent not to say he has or supports a “black agenda.”
Sharpton — a commentator, radio talk show host, author and head of the National Action Network — took to the airwaves and all but called Smiley out for his comments. The debate lasted at least 21 minutes.
When all was said and done, Sharpton told Smiley he would not be at last weekend’s meeting of black “leaders” to promote and discuss a “black agenda.” Smiley called for those “leaders” to meet at Chicago State University. That may be the wisest thing Sharpton’s ever done.
The question I’ve been asking since this brouhaha became public is just who gets to determine what the black agenda is anyway?
I’d bet good money that Smiley and Sharpton think they each are. But if you ask 10 different black Americans what a so-called “black agenda” should consist of, you might get 10 different answers.
And I can guarantee you at least one of those answers would be “A what?”
As a black conservative and a Republican, I have a “black agenda” of my own, one that wouldn’t have been welcomed at the Chicago confab.
Once I announced the items on my black agenda, Smiley and the others would have audibly gasped and asked, “Who’s that very strange Negro with that very large forehead uttering such heresy?”
The first item on the Greg Kane black agenda is support for charter schools, vouchers and refunds. Everyone knows what charter schools and vouchers are.
I add the category of “refunds” to the list because of my belief that, when public schools fail to educate, then the parents of children in those schools have the right to ask the state or local government to cut them a check in the amount of whatever is that state’s per pupil expenditure.
Parents could then use that money to send their children to a better school of their choice, or to home-school their children.
Neither Smiley nor Sharpton is renowned for supporting either charter schools or vouchers. Don’t expect them to weigh in on the subject of refunds either.
In fact, few black liberal Democrats support either charter schools or vouchers. Any poor black parent looking for school choice to provide better educational opportunity for their children will find a liberal black Democrat in their paths.
The second item on the Kane agenda is gun rights, or, as I like to call it, the Otis McDonald factor. It’s a cruel irony that all this “black agenda” talk was going on in Chicago last weekend.
McDonald lives in Chicago. He’s an elderly black man who’s challenged the city’s ban on handguns. Here’s why, according to a story from the Weekly Standard.
“Three times, [McDonald] says, his house has been broken into. … A few years ago, he called police to report gunfire, only to be confronted by a man who told him he’d heard about that call and threatened to kill him.”
McDonald — and other black Americans similarly situated — are not on Smiley’s, Sharpton’s or Obama’s “black agenda.” But you can rest assured the thug who threatened McDonald is.
Examiner Columnist Gregory Kane is a Pulitzer-nominated news and opinion journalist who has covered people and politics from Baltimore to the Sudan.
