Al Sharpton and his National Action Network (NAN) on Monday held a breakfast to commemorate Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and two guests who stood out at the event were Former Vice President Joe Biden and former New York City mayor Mike Bloomberg, Breitbart reported on Wednesday. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) attended several Sharpton events, including two MLK rallies in NYC. Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) also attended a Sharpton event last November. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) addressed a Sharpton public event after the November elections. Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn) also attended Sharpton’s November event.
All the above political celebrities are declared or potential candidates for the Democratic ticket in 2020, and all of them, it appears, have decided to drop whatever reservations they may have had regarding the man who ran at least two anti-Semitic riots (of of them a bona fide pogrom) and one fraudulent lawsuit against the NYPD, recognizing that, like it or not, he, Sharpton, holds the key to the African-American voters.
That Black Americans would accept a reality in which they, who contend ably for leadership positions in society, are seen as being represented by a street thug is disheartening enough. That so many top Democrats are ready to carry his water ushers in a new era in which Jews are a little less safe in the United States of America where an anti-Semitic thug is her kingmaker.
Mind you, it is perfectly acceptable, even admirable, for Democrats to make explicit appeals to African-American voters on issues important to these voters: Senator Elizabeth Warren noted the impact of racism on the economy; Obama’s Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Julian Castro said that “for far too many people of color, any interaction with the police can become fatal.”; Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand raised the need to take on “institutional racism.”; Sen. Kamala Harris warns against racial inequality and often shares her parents’ experience in the civil rights movement. Those are issues that deem urgent discussion.
But doing it combined with deference to Al Sharpton?
In August 1991, in Crown Heights, Sharpton marched through Crown Heights and in front of the Lubavitch headquarters, leading a riot that ended with the stabbing murder of Jewish scholar Yankel Rosenbaum, as the black mob looted stores and beat Jews in the street, while chanting “Kill the Jew,” and “get the Jews out.”
In 1995, during a protest led by Sharpton in front of a Jewish operated store on 125th Street in Harlem, a Sharpton follower entered the store with a gun and flammable liquid, shot several customers and set the store on fire. Sharpton was outside, on the sidewalk, calling the store operator a “white interloper.”
The Sharpton redemption came in late August, 2011, when the pogromist Sharpton became the host of PoliticsNation, weeknights at 6:00 on MSNBC. The show was eventually demoted in 2015 to Sunday mornings, one hour a week instead of five. But Sharpton continues to be a regular contributor to Morning Joe. The thug was officially mainstreamed, and as such became completely legitimate in his role as leftist kingmaker.