Great Read!! Barkley On Jesse And Sharpton !!!

[GOLDENGREEK]

Says Barkley, ``People went crazy. Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson are like gods. It drives me nuts.''

But these are the leaders who step into the void in the absence of real leadership, so Barkley laments, ``That's why black people are struggling. All our black leaders are jocks or entertainers. We're not really leaders. We didn't suffer any hardships or indignities like other black leaders. We're rich and famous. That doesn't give you the right to be a black spokesman. Only hardship I went through was having to decide whether to stay at the Four Seasons or the Ritz-Carlton. It is unfortunate and sad that all our great leaders are either passed away or really old. It is a reflection on our community.''

Imus makes for a very bad martyr, of course. What he said was terrible. But it isn't unreasonable to wonder who does more real damage -- him or Sharpton?


''That's why people who have an agenda, white and black, should never voice their opinion,'' Barkley says. ``They just try to stir the pot. All these bad white people and bad black people who have an agenda are like gasoline for the fire. Anybody who is racist, white and black, this is like hitting the Powerball for them. They love this crap. Racism is the greatest cancer of my lifetime.''

http://www.miamiherald.com/418/story/74573.html




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[GOLDENGREEK]

JIM BROWN GETTING IN THE ACT:

''I hate it,'' Brown said when asked how he felt about Sharpton being a voice for black America. ``I really hate it. It is a cheap shot. It is too easy. Look for the headlines. Go where the cameras are. Jump on these basically helpless individuals and don't put in the real work. We've got language by these rappers. We have a gangsta culture. We've got athletes on the page of USA Today not doing the right thing. We have a community of kids killing each other. Our schools are going down the drain. Why not try to elevate real situations? We can't make a living off Imus and chasing ambulances.''

[GOLDENGREEK]

ENTIRE ARTICLE:

A clown in a cowboy hat says something ridiculous. A lazy media trudges en masse toward an easy and tired place. A blowhard cartoon does his predictable, inflammatory dance with lighter fluid. An angry mob gathers, shaking pitchforks and torches. Coward companies fold. Nobody shows any courage. So much shouting. So much following. This is how lynchings started once. Feel like progress to you?

You have to wonder how gentleman leader Martin Luther King would have felt watching Al Sharpton contaminate his cause.

The media mushroom cloud over mummified Don Imus didn't improve race relations or start an important conversation in America. All it did, as is so often the case in matters of race, is make a lot of people more hostile. You aren't entering a reasonable discussion when everyone starts it with their fists up.

Suffice it to say, a race-baiting instigator like Sharpton isn't persuading or illuminating. He's dividing, not uniting, and profiting from it. Sharpton polarizes in a way that pushes scared white people away and embarrasses more than a few black people. And what gets lost in that divide is the ability to discuss these things in a way that improves instead of inflames. It is only the difference between treating a wound with a healing solvent and treating it with acid.

And we're all somehow concentrating on one tiny little Imus pebble making its way down the mountain while ignoring what sent it in motion -- the hiccup of gurgling lava that represents warning from an angry volcano. We're not nearly OK with race relations in this country when Sharpton can be allowed to recklessly spray lighter fluid without perspective again the very same week that all the charges in the Duke lacrosse rape case are dismissed because of the last time he and Jesse Jackson scorched the earth this way.

Al and Jesse, please be more careful with that bullying double standard you've been handed and wield among the fearful like a blade. You can use the sharp knife you've been given to heal, like a surgeon, or you can use it to wound, like a mugger. Without proof, you got a Duke coach fired, three kids stained and a No. 1 team's season canceled because you are bullies who aren't always too discerning about how and whom you punch whenever the cameras have gathered.

Jason Whitlock, the bravest sports columnist in America, has it right when he wonders how Sharpton and Jackson became the president and vice president of Black America without any term limits and without anyone voting them in. He wants them impeached. And he wants the lazy media to go find new people to speak for the cause.

Two of the most reasonable voices you heard this week? Two jocks. Jim Brown and Charles Barkley. They thought national shame and a suspension were enough for Imus, who isn't worth this kind of time. And they saved some of their greatest disgust for the race-baiting Sharpton.

''I hate it,'' Brown said when asked how he felt about Sharpton being a voice for black America. ``I really hate it. It is a cheap shot. It is too easy. Look for the headlines. Go where the cameras are. Jump on these basically helpless individuals and don't put in the real work. We've got language by these rappers. We have a gangsta culture. We've got athletes on the page of USA Today not doing the right thing. We have a community of kids killing each other. Our schools are going down the drain. Why not try to elevate real situations? We can't make a living off Imus and chasing ambulances.''

Says Barkley, ``People went crazy. Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson are like gods. It drives me nuts.''

But these are the leaders who step into the void in the absence of real leadership, so Barkley laments, ``That's why black people are struggling. All our black leaders are jocks or entertainers. We're not really leaders. We didn't suffer any hardships or indignities like other black leaders. We're rich and famous. That doesn't give you the right to be a black spokesman. Only hardship I went through was having to decide whether to stay at the Four Seasons or the Ritz-Carlton. It is unfortunate and sad that all our great leaders are either passed away or really old. It is a reflection on our community.''

Imus makes for a very bad martyr, of course. What he said was terrible. But it isn't unreasonable to wonder who does more real damage -- him or Sharpton?

''That's why people who have an agenda, white and black, should never voice their opinion,'' Barkley says. ``They just try to stir the pot. All these bad white people and bad black people who have an agenda are like gasoline for the fire. Anybody who is racist, white and black, this is like hitting the Powerball for them. They love this crap. Racism is the greatest cancer of my lifetime.''

We didn't work toward a cure this week.

We just watched it spread.

[vinnyvegas]

By JASON WHITLOCK - Columnist

Thank you, Don Imus. You’ve given us (black people) an excuse to avoid our real problem.

You’ve given Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson another opportunity to pretend that the old fight, which is now the safe and lucrative fight, is still the most important fight in our push for true economic and social equality.

You’ve given Vivian Stringer and Rutgers the chance to hold a nationally televised recruiting celebration expertly disguised as a news conference to respond to your poor attempt at humor.

Thank you, Don Imus. You extended Black History Month to April, and we can once again wallow in victimhood, protest like it’s 1965 and delude
ourselves into believing that fixing your hatred is more necessary than
eradicating our self-hatred.

The bigots win again.

While we’re fixated on a bad joke cracked by an irrelevant, bad shock
jock, I’m sure at least one of the marvelous young women on the Rutgers
basketball team is somewhere snapping her fingers to the beat of 50 Cent’s or Snoop Dogg’s or Young Jeezy’s latest ode glorifying nappy-headed pimps and hos.

I ain’t saying Jesse, Al and Vivian are gold-diggas, but they don’t have the heart to mount a legitimate campaign against the real black-folk killas.

It is us. At this time, we are our own worst enemies. We have allowed our youths to buy into a culture (hip hop) that has been perverted, corrupted and overtaken by prison culture. The music, attitude and behavior expressed in this culture is anti-black, anti-education, demeaning, self-destructive, pro-drug dealing and violent.

Rather than confront this heinous enemy from within, we sit back and wait for someone like Imus to have a slip of the tongue and make the mistake of repeating the things we say about ourselves.

It’s embarrassing. Dave Chappelle was offered $50 million to make racially insensitive jokes about black and white people on TV. He was hailed as a genius. Black comedians routinely crack jokes about white and black people, and we all laugh out loud.

I’m no Don Imus apologist. He and his tiny companion Mike Lupica blasted me after I fell out with ESPN. Imus is a hack.

But, in my view, he didn’t do anything outside the norm for shock jocks
and comedians. He also offered an apology. That should’ve been the end of this whole affair. Instead, it’s only the beginning. It’s an opportunity for Stringer, Jackson and Sharpton to step on victim platforms and elevate themselves and their agenda$.

I watched the Rutgers news conference and was ashamed.

Martin Luther King Jr. spoke for eight minutes in 1963 at the March on
Washington. At the time, black people could be lynched and denied
fundamental rights with little thought. With the comments of a talk-show host most of her players had never heard of before last week serving as her excuse, Vivian Stringer rambled on for 30 minutes about the amazing season her team had.

Somehow, we’re supposed to believe that the comments of a man with
virtually no connection to the sports world ruined Rutgers’ wonderful
season. Had a broadcaster with credibility and a platform in the sports
world uttered the words Imus did, I could understand a level of outrage.

But an hour-long press conference over a man who has already apologized,
already been suspended and is already insignificant is just plain
intellectually dishonest. This is opportunism. This is a distraction.

In the grand scheme, Don Imus is no threat to us in general and no threat to black women in particular. If his words are so powerful and so destructive and must be rebuked so forcefully, then what should we do about the idiot rappers on BET, MTV and every black-owned radio station in the country who use words much more powerful and much more destructive?

I don’t listen or watch Imus’ show regularly. Has he at any point
glorified selling crack cocaine to black women? Has he celebrated black
men shooting each other randomly? Has he suggested in any way that it’s
cool to be a baby-daddy rather than a husband and a parent? Does he tell his listeners that they’re suckers for pursuing education and that they’re selling out their race if they do?

When Imus does any of that, call me and I’ll get upset. Until then, he is what he is — a washed-up shock jock who is very easy to ignore when you’re not looking to be made a victim.

No. We all know where the real battleground is. We know that the gangsta rappers and their followers in the athletic world have far bigger platforms to negatively define us than some old white man with a bad radio show. There’s no money and lots of danger in that battle, so Jesse and Al are going to sit it out.

[xstac2169]

finally someone speaks out about these types of people. all i can say is amen and thank god that someone did and it was not a white guy! sharpton and jese are nothing but spotlight stealers on meaningless crap. so someone called someone else a name, big deal! get the fuck over it already! someone once called me fat, did i cry to the heavens because of that? someone once called me ugly and a man-whore, but i just laughed. name calling is a part of society because in order to make us feel good about ourselves it is sometimes necessary to put others down. it is a way of our society and people need to learn to live with it!

[drugstuntman]

Gotta love the old Round Mound of Rebound !!! He is always great for his candor and honesty. I'm still waiting for Sharpton and Jackson to apologize for all their indiscretions.

[husker]

Gotta love the old Round Mound of Rebound !!! He is always great for his candor and honesty. I'm still waiting for Sharpton and Jackson to apologize for all their indiscretions.

i agree completely!