Rare News Desk
For the last several decades, Reverend Al Sharpton has proven himself to be one of the more polarizing figures in America. From his time as a rotund, questionably coiffed Brooklyn reverend to his days as an MSNBC analyst and leader within the Democratic Party, Sharpton has spent most of his life chasing headlines, and inciting outrage.
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Next week, Sharpton will lead a rally of citizens through the streets of Washington D.C., to protest street violence. Hopefully this will be a peaceful way to demonstrate against the deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner. While in D.C., Sharpton may visit President Barack Obama at the White House. He claims to be be seeking peaceful change, but this wasn’t always the case.
Sharpton’s less respectable past has been covered extensively, so this isn’t something new. Yet it should always be remembered.
Chinamen, Koreans and Crackers
At a speech towards an audience of African Americans during the mayoral tenure of former New York City Mayor David Dinkins, Sharpton chided the mayor as a “n*gger,” who sought fame. Later in the speech, Sharpton would crack jokes about “Chinamen, Koreans, and Crackers.”
“David Dinkins, you wanna be the only ngger on television, only ngger in the newspaper, only n-gger that can talk. Don’t cover them, don’t talk to them, ’cause you got the only n*gger problem. ‘Cause you know if a black man stood up next to you, they would see you for the whore that you really are,” Sharpton said.
“We’re the black chicken friers of the universe. We gonna go buy some Colonel Sanders chicken. Then the Chinamen comin… Koreans sell us watermelons. We eat watermelons all our lives. But they gonna come cut it up, put it in a bucket with a rubber band around it, and we gonna buy it like it’s somethin’ and we didn’t know what it was.”
Punk. Homo. Fa**ot
At a taping of the Morton Downey Show with Morton Downey Jr, in the 1980s, cameras caught Sharpton quarreling with an audience member in between takes.
His reaction speaks for itself.
Greek homos
Perhaps one of his most notable flubs, Sharpton was recorded in 1994 at a speech at Kean College. There, Sharpton referred to Socrates and other Greek philosophers as “greek homos.”
“White folks was in caves while we was building empires…We taught philosophy and astrology and mathematics before Socrates and them Greek homos ever got around to it.”
In a 2002 interview with James Carville and Tucker Carlson, Carson was cornered about his comment and claimed to be misquoted. He later deflected the issue of gay rights onto the Republican Party.
“Well, first of all, I don’t know that you’re quoting me properly or not. But let’s talk about the issue of homosexuality. Let’s talk about how many Republicans are not dealing with the problems that we’re even facing today with fellow churchmen of mine, who are trying to act as if homosexuals are the cause, rather than pedophiles are the cause,” Sharpton said.
“If I’ve got to use hate…”
In a 1992 report on Sharpton for “48 Hours,” Sharpton defended the need to use “hate,” to help end racial injustice.
“I would love to use love, but if I’ve got to use hate, I’ll do what my hand calls for.”
