House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., boasted this month that there is “no taint” of anti-Semitism in the Democratic Party.
She may want to tell that to her colleagues, especially the 2020 presidential candidates, many of whom continue to kiss the ring worn by noted race hustler and anti-Semite, Al Sharpton.
On Monday, just two days after a gunman opened fire at a San Diego synagogue, killing one and injuring three others, South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg dined with Sharpton in New York. The two spoke at length about the upcoming presidential election and homophobia in churches and faith-based communities.
“We need to deal with homophobia in the faith and the black communities and you should be judged by your merits, and we can’t fight bigotry based on race, and we’re going to bigots based on sexual orientation,” Sharpton said.
He continued, complimenting Buttigieg’s courage in running as a gay candidate.
“My sister’s gay, and I grew up watching her having to navigate between being black and being gay at a time, I’m talking about the ’60s,” Sharpton said.
That is sweet and all, but are there really so few Democrats left who remember Sharpton’s despicable anti-Semitic exploits? Or do they remember and simply not care? For the record: The Sharpton is a loathsome human being with an equally loathsome past. In case you have forgotten, my Washington Examiner colleague Philip Klein explains why:
Sharpton first became a major public figure during the 1987 Tawana Brawley case, in which he claimed the black teenage girl had been abducted and raped by a white gang that included an assistant district attorney in Dutchess County, Steven Pagones. In numerous media appearances Sharpton pointed the finger at Pagones and declared a racist cover-up by law enforcement — with zero evidence to support his claims. In 1988, a grand jury cleared Pagones of any wrongdoing, finding that the alleged incident never even happened. But the damage was already done. Pagones’s career as a prosecutor was over, he and his family were under constant death threats and his marriage eventually broke up under the resulting stresses. In 1998, Pagones won a defamation suit against Sharpton, but Sharpton refused to pay the $65,000 in damages owed, claiming he didn’t have the money. After nearly three years of foot dragging, Sharpton supporters paid the debt on his behalf, but he has never apologized to Pagones.
In July 1991, a controversy erupted when Leonard Jeffries, a professor at New York’s City College gave a speech blasting 'rich Jews' for financing the slave trade and for controlling Hollywood so they could 'put together a system of destruction for Black people.'
Sharpton rushed to defend Jeffries, and in the middle of the swirling controversy, declared, 'If the Jews want to get it on, tell them to pin their yarmulkes back and come over to my house.'
A day after Sharpton made that comment, in August 1991, a Jewish driver accidentally ran over a 7-year-old black boy named Gavin Cato in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, and an anti-Semitic riot broke out in which Jewish rabbinical scholar Yankel Rosenbaum was stabbed to death. Instead of calling for calm, Sharpton incited the rioters, leading marches in the streets that included chants of 'No Justice, No Peace!' and 'Kill the Jews!' At a funeral for the boy who had been run over, Sharpton said, 'The world will tell us he was killed by accident. Yes, it was a social accident. … It’s an accident to allow an apartheid ambulance service in the middle of Crown Heights. … Talk about how Oppenheimer in South Africa sends diamonds straight to Tel Aviv and deals with the diamond merchants right here in Crown Heights.' For those unfamiliar, 'diamond merchants' was a thinly-veiled reference to Jewish jewelers.
After an investigation, no indictment was made of the driver who had accidentally run over Cato, and he left for Israel. Sharpton flew there in an attempt to 'hunt down' the driver and hand him a civil law suit. According to the Daily News, at Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion Airport, a woman spotted Sharpton and shouted, 'Go to hell!' Sharpton yelled back: 'I am in hell already. I am in Israel.'
In July 1991, a controversy erupted when Leonard Jeffries, a professor at New York’s City College gave a speech blasting 'rich Jews' for financing the slave trade and for controlling Hollywood so they could 'put together a system of destruction for Black people.'
Sharpton rushed to defend Jeffries, and in the middle of the swirling controversy, declared, 'If the Jews want to get it on, tell them to pin their yarmulkes back and come over to my house.'
A day after Sharpton made that comment, in August 1991, a Jewish driver accidentally ran over a 7-year-old black boy named Gavin Cato in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, and an anti-Semitic riot broke out in which Jewish rabbinical scholar Yankel Rosenbaum was stabbed to death. Instead of calling for calm, Sharpton incited the rioters, leading marches in the streets that included chants of 'No Justice, No Peace!' and 'Kill the Jews!' At a funeral for the boy who had been run over, Sharpton said, 'The world will tell us he was killed by accident. Yes, it was a social accident. … It’s an accident to allow an apartheid ambulance service in the middle of Crown Heights. … Talk about how Oppenheimer in South Africa sends diamonds straight to Tel Aviv and deals with the diamond merchants right here in Crown Heights.' For those unfamiliar, 'diamond merchants' was a thinly-veiled reference to Jewish jewelers.
After an investigation, no indictment was made of the driver who had accidentally run over Cato, and he left for Israel. Sharpton flew there in an attempt to 'hunt down' the driver and hand him a civil law suit. According to the Daily News, at Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion Airport, a woman spotted Sharpton and shouted, 'Go to hell!' Sharpton yelled back: 'I am in hell already. I am in Israel.'
There is more. Much more:
About four years after the Crown Heights affair, in 1995, Al Sharpton, through his National Action Network, injected himself in a landlord-tenant dispute in Harlem, which soon turned deadly. As recounted in Fred Siegel’s book Prince of the City, a black Pentecostal church raised the rent of its Jewish tenant, who owned the store Freddy’s Fashion Mart, so the Jewish owner in turn raised the rent on his black sub-tenant, who ran a record store. Sharpton immediately saw an opening for racial demagoguery, and went on radio, declaring, 'We will not stand by and allow them to move this brother so that some white interloper can expand his business on 125th Street.' His underling, Morris Powell, vowed, 'This street will burn. We are going to see to it that this cracker suffers.'
Protesters led by Sharpton’s National Action Network picketed outside the store day after day, referring to Jews as 'bloodsuckers' and threatening, 'We’re going to burn and loot the Jews.' The demonstrators also struck matches and threw them into the store’s doorway. Two months into the protest, one of the demonstrators stormed into the store armed with a gun, and burned the place to the ground, killing seven people, and shooting himself.
Protesters led by Sharpton’s National Action Network picketed outside the store day after day, referring to Jews as 'bloodsuckers' and threatening, 'We’re going to burn and loot the Jews.' The demonstrators also struck matches and threw them into the store’s doorway. Two months into the protest, one of the demonstrators stormed into the store armed with a gun, and burned the place to the ground, killing seven people, and shooting himself.
Seeking Sharpton's blessing is the Democratic equivalent of Republican presidential candidates seeking approval from Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, ahead of the first in the nation primaries. Yet, between Sharpton and King, only one is reviled universally by the press and polite society. Hint: It is not Sharpton. On the contrary, Sharpton is a welcome and sought-after fixture in elite media and political circles, despite his history as an anti-Semite.
One of the two political parties that run this country considers him an indispensable ally. Sharpton has a show on MSNBC. He appears at major political events, sometimes as the headlining speaker. In return, leading Democratic lawmakers appear regularly at Sharpton’s annual National Action Network conference to deliver barnburner speeches to the left-wing faithful. Presidential candidates even continue to seek out Sharpton’s blessing, even though his history of anti-Semitic, race-hustling outrages are not exactly closely guarded secrets.
A simple Google search will turn up any of the incidents documented by Klein, which brings me back to the two questions I asked at the beginning of this article: Are there really so few Democrats who remember what Sharpton has done? Or do they remember and just not care?
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