Jesse Jackson & Al Sharpton: Always on the Wrong Side of the Issues

By Correctamundo 

Have you ever noticed how often the Rev's Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton are on the wrong side of the issues? And I always wondered just what they are reverends of.

The latest for Jesse is the rogue cop, Christopher Dorner.  He made a tearful plea to the killer - he feels his pain.

I understand your feelings of hurt and pain. I make this plea to you to stop spreading the pain, the hurt, and the fear. Please stop. Don't take any more lives.

Christopher, your mother is distraught and deeply concerned for your safety. There are many good and credible people in Los Angeles who will help you. Danny J. Bakewell Sr. (The Los Angeles Sentinel's Executive Publisher/CEO), Bishop Noel Jones, Bishop Kenneth Ulmer and Rev. Charles Singleton are all individuals I know personally. I promise that they will gladly receive you.

Of course when asked about the cop's manifesto, Jesse says:

“I understand what he’s saying, but I don’t want to address that now,” he states.

Does Jesse understand the victim's pain and that of their families? How about addressing the black-on-black shootings that are turning Chicagoland into a veritable morgue? How about the families that are affected by BLACK perpetrators - do you not feel their pain? Or do you 'understand' the motives of the black perp and feel it's justified for social justice's sake?  

Another such case of being on the wrong side of the issue for Jesse was Stanley "Tookie" Williams, the leader of the Crips - a notorious street gang in LA. He was on death row at San Quentin for the deaths of 4 individuals. But forget about the deaths - let's talk about what an upstanding individual Tookie became in prison.

“Today I met with “Tookie” Williams, a man who is scheduled to be killed 17 days from today. We had prayer. At the conclusion of our one and a half hour visit I told him ‘We are going to fight for you and we are going to win.' He told me that his work here is not finished.

The State of California is gearing up its machinery of death based on the assumption of the certainty of this man's guilt. The State has a plan of certainty for his execution. Date certain. Time certain. But there is more uncertainty about his guilt than there is necessity for execution,” Jackson stated.

Beep, beep - back the truck up. 'Based on the assumption...of this man's guilt'? He was tried in a court of law and found guilty. Is it only justice when the verdict goes the way you want it to go, Jesse?

“What is certain is that since 1992, “Tookie” has been a voice reaching out to the voiceless. He has encouraged youth to lift themselves up so as not to end up locked up. His voice has reached impoverished and alienated youth in places police dare not tread. Through his personal transformation in prison, he has brought light to dark places because he knows where to look. He speaks truth to power with a sincere knowledge of what lies ahead for these youth and gives them a stark look at what their future could be if they don't renounce gang life and all that it stands for. And they listen, because he was one of them.

“Tookie Williams personifies what “Redemption” is all about. He has used his time in prison to reach others and save lives. We may not be able to quantify the number of children he has saved, but I am certain that there are children in this country and abroad that would not be here had they not received his powerful message.

And that is all great and wonderful, Jesse. I'm glad the man was able to turn his life around before meeting his Maker. His books and words can be passed down to others as an example of how not to live in the first place so that you don't find yourself on death row. I applaud him. But that doesn't negate the value of the 4 lives he took. That doesn't set aside his conviction. Actions have consequences that must be paid for. And here's a little something I'd like to ask you, Jesse: why haven't you been in the news and media, petitioning for the release of Charles "Tex" Watson? Remember him, Jesse? He's one of Charles Manson's minions who took part in the Tate/LaBianca murders.  Guess what, Jesse? He's reformed also.  He's a Christian and a pastor now. He's got his own Christian outreatch website, Abounding Love. Don't you think you two would have a lot in common, being pastor's and all? Oh wait, he's white...my bad.

And let's not forget Al Sharptongue, the race baitor.  It was just 5 years ago that he led a "Kill the Police" rally.

Hundreds of angry people marched through Harlem on Saturday after the Rev. Al Sharpton promised to “close this city down” to protest the acquittals of three police detectives in the 50-shot barrage that killed a groom on his wedding day and wounded two friends.

“We strategically know how to stop the city so people stand still and realize that you do not have the right to shoot down unarmed, innocent civilians,” Sharpton told an overflow crowd of several hundred people at his National Action Network office in the historically black Manhattan neighborhood. “This city is going to deal with the blood of Sean Bell.”

Sharpton was joined by the family of 23-year-old Sean Bell — a black man — and a friend of Bell who was wounded in the 2006 shooting outside a Queens strip club. Two of the three officers charged were also black.

The rally at Sharpton’s office was followed by a 20-block march down Malcolm X Boulevard and then across 125th Street, Harlem’s main business thoroughfare, where some bystanders yelled out “Kill the police!”

What's ironic is that 2 of the 3 policemen were BLACK. And let's not forget about Tawana Brawley.

On November 28, 1987, Tawana Brawley, who had been missing for four days from her home in, was found seemingly unconscious and unresponsive, lying in a garbage bag several feet from an apartment where she had once lived. Her clothing was torn and burned, her body smeared with feces. She was taken to the emergency room, where the words "KKK", "Nigger", and "Bitch" were discovered written on her torso with a black substance described as charcoal.

When civil rights activist Rev. Al Sharpton, with attorneys Alton H. Maddox and C. Vernon Mason, began handling Brawley's publicity, the case quickly took on an explosive edge. At the height of the controversy in June 1988, a poll showed a gap of 34 percentage points between blacks (51%) and whites (85%) on the question of whether she was lying.

Sharpton, Maddox, and Mason generated a national media sensation. The three claimed officials all the way up to the state government were trying to cover up defendants in the case because they were white. Specifically, they named Steven Pagones, an Assistant District Attorney in Dutchess County, as one of the rapists, and a racist, among other accusations.

On October 6, 1988, the Abrams Grand Jury released its 170-page report concluding Brawley had not been abducted, assaulted, raped and sodomized, as had been claimed by Brawley and her advisers. The report further concluded that the "unsworn public allegations against Dutchess County Assistant District Attorney Steven Pagones" were false and had no basis in fact. To issue the report, the Grand Jury heard from 180 witnesses, saw 250 exhibits and recorded more than 6,000 pages of testimony. 

In the decision, the grand jury noted many problems with Brawley's story. Among these were that the rape kit results did not indicate sexual assault. Additionally, despite her claim of having been held captive for days, Brawley was not suffering from exposure, was well-nourished, and appeared to have brushed her teeth recently. Despite her clothing being charred, there were no burns on her body. Although a shoe she was wearing was cut through, Brawley had no injuries to her foot. The racial epithets written on her were upside down, which led to suspicion that Brawley had written the words. Testimony from her schoolmates indicated she had attended a local party during the time of her supposed abduction. One witness claimed to have observed Brawley's climbing into the garbage bag. Brawley never testified.

In 1998, Pagones was awarded $345,000 (he sought $395 million) through a lawsuit for defamation of character that he had brought against Sharpton, Maddox and Mason. The jury found Sharpton liable for making seven defamatory statements about Pagones, Maddox for two and Mason for one. The jury deadlocked on four of the 22 statements over which Pagones had sued, and it found eight statements to be non-defamatory.  In a later interview, Pagones said the turmoil by the accusations of Brawley and her advisers had cost him his first marriage and much personal grief. 

Pagones had also sued Brawley. She defaulted by not appearing at the trial, and the judge ordered her to pay him damages of $185,000. The $65,000 judgment levied against Al Sharpton was paid for him in 2001 by supporters, including attorney Johnnie Cochran plus former businessman Earl G. Graves, Jr. 

And here's some other notable Sharpton antics:

1991: A Hasidic Jewish driver in Brooklyn’s Crown Heights section accidentally kills Gavin Cato, a 7-year-old black child, and antisemitic riots erupt. Sharpton races to pour gasoline on the fire. At Gavin’s funeral he rails against the “diamond merchants” — code for Jews — with “the blood of innocent babies” on their hands. He mobilizes hundreds of demonstrators to march through the Jewish neighborhood, chanting, “No justice, no peace.” A rabbinical student, Yankel Rosenbaum, is surrounded by a mob shouting “Kill the Jews!” and stabbed to death.

1995: When the United House of Prayer, a large black landlord in Harlem, raises the rent on Freddy’s Fashion Mart, Freddy’s white Jewish owner is forced to raise the rent on his subtenant, a black-owned music store. A landlord-tenant dispute ensues; Sharpton uses it to incite racial hatred. “We will not stand by,” he warns malignantly, “and allow them to move this brother so that some white interloper can expand his business.” Sharpton’s National Action Network sets up picket lines; customers going into Freddy’s are spat on and cursed as “traitors” and “Uncle Toms.” Some protesters shout, “Burn down the Jew store!” and simulate striking a match. “We’re going to see that this cracker suffers,” says Sharpton’s colleague Morris Powell. On Dec. 8, one of the protesters bursts into Freddy’s, shoots four employees point-blank, then sets the store on fire. Seven employees die in the inferno.

I don't know about you but with Reverend's like this, who needs religion?