Rev. Al Sharpton, longtime fighter for justice and civil rights, is used to virulent attacks from the right—and sometimes from the left—but a cartoon in the conservative publications National Review and Investor’s Business Daily, has invoked the ire of activists by using lynchings to attack him.
The cartoon by Michael Ramirez of Investor’s Business Daily, shows a lynching tree that has been labeled “Sharpton,” with four lynched bodies – each labeled “truth,” hanging from its extended limb. Underneath the four figures are captions reading “Tawana Brawley Hoax, Crown Heights, Freddie’s Fashion Mart” and “Zimmerman Trial,” which conservatives believe are four questionable causes Sharpton has been connected to over the years.
The right wing is upset with Sharpton for organizing the more than 100 marches in cities across the U.S. on Saturday through his National Action Network, pressing the U.S. Justice Department to file civil rights charges against George Zimmerman for killing Trayvon Martin.
The cartoon comes after commentators on Fox News referred to Sharpton and other leaders as “hustlers” and “racist” for leading the demonstrations and criticizing Zimmerman’s acquittal. A Fox commentator even compared Sharpton to former Klan leader, David Duke.
“It’s horrifying to think that the terror lynching would be so flippantly employed to try and shame and silence Rev. Sharpton,” Blair L.M. Kelley, an historian and associate professor at North Carolina State University, told The Grio. “How odd that an outspoken black advocate for justice would symbolize the lynching tree.”
“At the turn of the 20th century thousands of black men, women, and children were lynched specifically for speaking on their own behalf, and millions more lived in fear of racial terror,” Kelley said. “Rev. Sharpton, by exercising his own right to free speech, is no threat to anyone in a free and democratic society. It’s shameful to think that the real murders of thousands of American citizens should be trivialized for a political talking point.”
“How horribly ironic that this cartoonist and by association, the National Review would use the awful iconography of racial violence in order to mount an ad hominem attack against Reverend Sharpton,” said LeHigh University professor of African-American Studies and MSNBC contributor, James Braxton Peterson. “After hours organizing and leading a peaceful vigil across over 100 cities in honor of the modern-day lynching of Trayvon Martin, Sharpton spent the night in one of Harlem’s most dilapidated housing projects in order to spotlight the inhumane conditions there. I wonder how the editors of the National Review spent their weekend?”
Sharpton, who had no comment on the cartoon, was the frequent subject of horribly racist cartoons in the New York Post over the past three decades as he fought for justice for blacks in New York.
Yet the Sharpton attacks didn’t stop there. More condemnation came from Cornel West who, along with Tavis Smiley, has gone after Sharpton with increasing nastiness in recent years.
“It’s too humiliating. It’s too embarrassing. You see it with brother Sharpton,” West said of the question of blacks pushing the president to force the Justice Department to take action against Zimmerman. “Sharpton probably deep down wants to be critical of the president, but he can’t because he’s still on the Obama plantation.”
Have people gone crazy?
Now this takes the case! Now shocked, just appalled
My thoughts to this is that for one, say what you want about Al but when it goes down, you call him and he's on the first bus no question and what's really ashame is that he should be the only brother out there doing that and second, unless you're black, you can never understand the historical horror that has beplaged Africans since they came here against their will hundreds of years ago. Just speaking on what it is.
Isn't it about time you get over it, move on, and make something of yourself? Using a 150 years of history as an excuse to wallow in the ghetto is demeaning to the black community itself.
Great cartoon!
*shouldn't*
Although race relations have improved a great deal in this country over the last ten to twelve years Allan, and although there are many who are coplaceant using pseudo street culture and ignorance as an identity in life; still, to be disenfranchised to the extent that has been as such upon the blacks in the country is the closest thing to extinction. Out of fear of rebellion or retaliation, blacks have been systematically neutered to ensure this did not happen.
As I've said before, unless you're black you can not understand, nor would I expect you to do so. And I'm leaving it at that.
The hell with Racist propaganda. Shame on the obama and his goons. Using the Trayvon incident to get us blacks all fired up. His real agenda is to get our minds of the crimes he is committing against the supreme laws in our constitution. He don't care about our civil liberties anymore then anyone else. If anything it is an insult that he would even think we are that stupid but apparently many are.
"Rev. Al Sharpton, longtime fighter for justice and civil rights,".
Accurately: "Rev. Al Sharpton, longtime bigot, race baiter, rape faker, riot instigator, who has blood of numerous innocent people on his hands, and is used to kid glove treatment by Lame Stream Media; was finally correctly depicted by conservative cartoon.
Kelley said. “Rev. Sharpton, by exercising his own right to free speech,".
Well Kelley, exercising your right to free speech comes with limitations. For example: You don't have right to yell fire in a crowded theater when there is no fire. Nor do you have right to incite people to commit violent criminal acts by lying, spinning, and omission.
In case of Sharpton he has screamed Racism and Injustice when there was neither. Sharpton has recently incited black racial violence and hatred against whites and Hispanics by making false statements and/or covering up facts in Trayvon-Martin case.
Sharpton never bothered to tell his brother and sisters that Trayvon was shot while attempting to murder Zimerman. Never bothered to tell them Trayvon jumped Zimerman and threw first blow. Never bothered to tell them Trayvon was druggie and street thug who got off on fighting.
Sharpton in his personal quest fame wrongly called for protests until Zimerman was arrested. Sharpton deemed himself to be law giver by demanding an exception to our Laws and Legal system that Zimerman be wrongly arrested.
For those who think Sharpton did right, wait until the shoe is on the other foot. Sharpton's unjust actions have set a dangerous precedent that would allow whites and Hispanics to protest (in far bigger numbers) and demand arrest of black person who was defending his/her self.
Sharpton, Jackson, Holder, and Obama have set race relations back decades thanks to their lust for political power, personal gratifications, and ignorance.
Al Sharpton is a piece of garbage and the cartoon nailed it 100%.
You support this POS, you deserve whatever garbage he brings with it.