How Al Sharpton Went From Agitator to Parody

Sponsored by Curiosity Stream: http://curiositystream.com/melinapendulum

How did we get from being called a "race agitator" to Rollo Goodlove?

Note: I felt like I could have gone harder on discussing the anti-Semitic issue so I reached out to my friend and fellow creator @Ladyknightthebrave and they gave me some feedback so I wanted to just add this: The incident at Crown Heights was, by all accounts, an accident, and the rumors that the ambulances didn't stop to help the Black children are unfounded. Sharpton did not help the issue and while he has "apologized" it doesn't erase how he played a part in inflaming the scapegoating the Jewish community at large at that time. Explaining and discussing the issues that created his comments, do not excuse them and we can, and should, discuss these things without anti-Blackness and anti-Semitic language.

Table of Contents:

0:00 Intro
2:30 Who is Al Sharpton
4:19 Bernhard Goetz
11:08 The Murder of Yusef Hawkins
19:20 The Shooting of Amadou Diallo
22:32 The Crown Heights Riots
26:52 Tawana Brawley rape "hoax"
34:25 The Criticism Against Al Sharpton
53:02 Why does this matter?

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Links & Sources:

"Black Religious Intellectuals: The Fight For Equality from Jim Crow to the 21st Century" by Clarence Taylor

"Troubling the Waters: Black-Jewish Relations in the American Century" by
Cheryl Greenberg

- https://www.pewresearch.org/interactives/public-opinion-on-race-relations-1990-2016/
- https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2018/09/26/in-the-nineties-race-didnt-exist/
- https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2016/06/clinton-and-the-politics-of-90s-racial-backlash.html
- https://www.al.com/life/2020/11/race-in-america-on-90s-sitcoms-how-they-addressed-it-then.html
- https://www.nytimes.com/1991/11/30/us/in-a-90-s-quest-for-black-identity-intense-doubts-and-disagreement.html
- https://www.npr.org/2013/01/19/169734710/the-rev-al-sharpton-in-six-true-false-statements
- https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/31/opinion/al-sharpton-trump.html (note: author Glenn C. Loury is a Black Conservative
- https://www.thedailybeast.com/al-sharptons-long-bill-of-goods-from-tawana-brawley-to-primetime?ref=scroll (1991 crown heights riot)
https://web.archive.org/web/20190617114135/https://www.nytimes.com/1991/01/13/nyregion/sharpton-is-stabbed-at-bensonhurst-protest.html
- https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1989/08/25/332289.html?pageNumber=1
https://web.archive.org/web/20190704042652/https://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/21/the-death-of-yusuf-hawkins-20-years-later/
- https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1990-02-23-me-1220-story.html (decade of hate)
- https://jewishinsider.com/2019/05/al-sharptons-mea-culpa-i-should-have-done-more-to-heal-rather-than-harm/
- https://www.nytimes.com/1988/10/09/weekinreview/region-after-grand-jury-what-happened-tawana-brawley-s-case-attitudes-about-race.html

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