By Karu F. Daniels, AOL Black Voices
What kind of firestorm has the big "Town Hall" meeting on 'The Oprah Winfrey Show' caused in the black community this week?
It's crazy to even think that the hip-hop culture and SOME of its misogynist, homophobic and offensive lyrics are to blame for a 65-year-old Caucasian man from Riverside, California feeling comfortable enough to use racist and sexist slurs.
But I digress.
In the wake of all of the conflama (conflict + drama), there seems to be some scuttlebutt among New York City's black power brokers, now involving politicos rallying against the hip-hop establishment -- once again.
So much so that the good Rev. Al Sharpton, who was at the forefront of the Don Imus ouster, pulled the plug on honoring music industry mogul Antonio 'L.A.' Reid during last night's 'Keeper of The Dream Awards' ceremony at New York City's Sheraton New York & Hotel Towers.
Reid, who is the head of the newly re-structured Island Def Jam Records, would have been honored among a group that included CNN broadcaster Soledad O'Brien, Dallas pastor Reverend Dr. Frederick Haynes III, and business executives Richard Womack, Christopher J. Williams, Frank Fountain, Karen Boykin-Towns, and author Leo Hindery.
"We don't want to be inconsistent," Sharpton was quoted in a New York tabloid about Reid's dismissal. "We're going to target companies over the issue of lyrics. I'm not going to send mixed signals."
Unbeknownst to many, filmmaker Spike Lee was originally slated to receive an honor last night from the Sharpton-helmed National Action Network but was also canceled at the last minute.
During the height of the obsessive Imus media coverage, the two-time Academy Award nominated filmmaker's 1988 film 'School Daze' was thrust into the discussion -- for its storyline involving the terms Jigaboos and Wannabes.
When probed for the reason why Lee was cut from the festivities last night, Sharpton's longtime rep Rachel Noerdlinger didn't' deny whether or not it had anything to do with Winfrey's controversial "Town Hall" meeting (which demonized the hip-hop culture, in my opinion) but declined further comment.
Lee, who appeared on 'The TODAY Show' on April 11 along with Whoopi Goldberg, was not available for comment.
The $10,000 a table dinner was the opening night event for The National Action Network's 9th Annual Convention being held April 18 to April 21.
According to its website, the 'Keeper of The Dream Awards' "are given each year in April to mark the anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr's death, honor those who have continued to advocate for the principles for which Dr. King gave his life."
Laura Swanson, the record company spokesperson for Reid, did not respond to inquiries by press-time.
More Imus Controversy Coverage on AOL Black Voices:
- Rutgers Women Show Grace Under Fire.
- Editorial: Don Imus Must Go.
Comments: (8)
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By: boomer on 4/19/2007 10:53PM
How does a racial opportunist like Al Sharpton pass himself off as credible ?
Better to hear the voice of Clarence Page, Charles Rangel, Bill Cosby than listen to Mr. Sharpton, who interest in issues is based on their ability to create racial tensions.
"white interlopers", "diamond merchants" --- the checkered past is all here.
See below.
The Reverend Al Sharpton
by Larry Elder
TAX EVASION: In a 1988 interview, Sharpton said he saw no reason why blacks should pay taxes. “If we do not have a justice system that protects us, what are we paying for?” Sharpton has faced multiple charges—and one conviction—of tax evasion.
TAWANA BRAWLY: 1987. Al Sharpton, during the infamous Tawana Brawley case, falsely accused a former assistant district attorney of raping and sodomizing Ms. Brawley. Young Tawana stated that white racists abducted, raped, and sodomized her, scrawling the initials “KKK” on her in human feces. A grand jury later found the entire incident a complete hoax. Most likely, Ms. Brawley, afraid of punishment for staying out too late, fabricated the entire story. This did not stop Reverend Al Sharpton, who accused Pagones an assistant district attorney, of the crime. “We stated openly that Steven Pagones did it. If we’re lying, sue us, so we can go into court with you and prove you did it. Sue us—sue us right now.”
Pagones did. After receiving death threats, and threats against his child, Pagones sued Sharpton and two others for defamation. A jury unanimously concluded that Sharpton defamed Pagones, ordering Sharpton to pay $65,000 to Pagones. The Reverend promptly announced his intention not to pay. A couple years later, Sharpton’s buddies passed the hat and paid off Sharpton’s debt, which totaled $87,000 with interest and penalties. To this day, never having paid one penny of his own to Pagones, Sharpton refuses to apologize, “I did what I believed….They are asking me to grovel. They want black children to say they forced a black man coming out of the hard-core ghetto to his knees….Once you begin bending, it’s ‘did you bend today?’ or ‘I missed the apology, say it again.’ Once you start compromising, you lose respect for yourself.”
CENTRAL PARK JOGGER: In 1989 “the jogger,” a young white woman, was monstrously raped and nearly beaten to death in Central Park. Sharpton insisted—despite the defendants’ confessions—that her black attackers were innocent, modern-day Scottsboro Boys trapped in “a fit of racial hysteria.” Sharpton charged that the jogger’s boyfriend did it, and organized protests outside the courthouse, chanting, “The boyfriend did it!” and denouncing the victim as “Whore!” He brought Tawana Brawley to the trial, to show her “white justice” and arranged for her to meet the attackers. Sharpton appealed for a psychiatrist to examine the victim, generously saying, “It doesn’t even have to be a black psychiatrist….We’re not endorsing the damage to the girl—if there was this damage.” (While it doesn’t excuse his calling the victim a “whore” and denigrating any damage to her, or his accusations against the boyfriend, the convictions of the accused were eventually vacated, despite their taped confessions, after another man—whose DNA matched—confessed to the rape in 2002.)
CROWN HEIGHTS/ “DIAMOND MERCHANTS”: In 1991, Gavin Cato, a seven-year-old black child was killed in a traffic accident in Crown Heights (in Brooklyn), when a car driven by a Hasidic Jew went out of control. Sharpton turned it into a racial incident. Sharpton led 400 protesters through the Jewish section of Crown Heights, with one protester holding a sign that read, “The White Man Is the Devil.” There were four nights of rock- and bottle-throwing, and a young Talmudic scholar was surrounded by a mob shouting, “Kill the Jew” and stabbed to death. A hundred others were injured. Sharpton said, “The world will tell us that [Gavin Cato] was killed by accident….What type of city do we have that would allow politics to rise above the blood of innocent babies?…Talk about how Oppenheimer in South Africa sends diamonds straight to Tel Aviv and deals with the diamond merchants right here in Crown Heights….All we want to say is what Jesus said: If you offend one of these little ones, you got to pay for it. No compromise. Pay for your deeds.” Later Sharpton said, “If the Jews want to get it on, tell them to pin their yarmulkes back and come over to my house.”
ARAFAT: When Sharpton announced a 2001 trip to the Middle East, Rabbi Shmuley Boteach helped plan his itinerary. Sharpton, according to the Rabbi, promised not to meet with Yassir Arafat, yet only days later, Jewish New Yorkers opened the morning paper to see a smiling Arafat and Sharpton, meeting and shaking hands in Israel. Furious, Rabbi Boteach said, “Prior to our recent trip to Israel, U.S. black leader Reverend Al Sharpton and I discussed several times that there were to be no meetings with Arab or Palestinian leaders, not because I wished to set preconditions for our travel, but because the express objective of our mission was to show solidarity with Israeli victims of terror. The idea was to provide a magnanimous gesture of friendship and solidarity with the Jewish nation that would hopefully have strong reverberations for the relationship of the Jewish and black communities back home.”
FREDDY’S FASHION MART/”WHITE INTERLOPER”: 1995. A Jewish store owner in Harlem was accused of driving a black record store owner out of business, when the United House of Prayer, one of the largest black landlords on 125th Street, raised the rent on the Fashion Mart owned by a Jew, Freddy Harari, who then raised the rent on his subtenant, Sikhulu Shange, who ran a record store. At one of many rallies meant to scare the Jewish owner away, Sharpton said, “…There is a systematic and methodical strategy to eliminate our people from doing business off 125th Street. I want to make it clear…that we will not stand by and allow them to move this brother so that some white interloper can expand his business.” Following a demonstration three months later, one of the protestors, a black man, stormed Freddy’s Fashion Mart with a pistol, screaming, “It’s on now! All blacks out!” In addition to shooting, he set fire to the building, eventually killing himself and seven others. Initially, Sharpton denied having spoken at any rallies. When tapes surfaced, he said, “What’s wrong with denouncing white interlopers?” Eventually, he apologized—but only for saying “white,” not “interloper.”
CRIMINAL JUSTICE: During the “Million Man March” in Washington, civil rights “activist” Al Sharpton thundered, “O.J. is home, but Mumia Abu Jamal ain’t home. And we won’t stop till all of our people that need a chance in an awkward and unbalanced criminal justice system can come home.”
OUT OF THE KING MOVEMENT: Although he was 14 when Martin Luther King was assassinated, Sharpton claims he “came out of the King movement.” Sharpton once explained, “I was on some show this week, and people said, ‘Why don’t you just let it go? Why don’t y’all just get over it?’ Get over what? Get over Dr. King dying? Get over Medger Evers dying? Get over Goodman, Chaney and Schwerner dying? Get over those four girls in Birmingham dying? We are never gonna get over it, and we are never gonna let you forget it!”
FBI TAPES/COCAINE: In 2002, HBO aired a 19-year-old FBI surveillance of Sharpton with self-described mobster Michael Franzese and an undercover FBI agent posing as a Latin American businessman. The three were discussing promoting boxing matches and musical events. HBO’s “Real Sports” got a hold of a hidden camera video that shows undercover agent Victor Quintana posing as a drug dealer trying to convince Sharpton to play a middleman in a big cocaine buy.
Sharpton asks the undercover agent, “What kind of time limit are we dealing with?”
“Coke?” the agent asks.
“Yeah.” Sharpton says.
The phony drug dealer says, “Could be about the same time we have 4 million coming to us.”
Sharpton: “End of April?”
“End of April. Six weeks from now. Is that a good time you think?” the agent asks.
“Probably,” Sharpton replies.
Later on, the undercover agent offers Sharpton a finder's fee for help with the drug deal and says to Sharpton, “I can get pure coke for about $35,000 a kilo ... Every kilogram we bring in, $3,500 to you. How does that sound?” Sharpton nods in response.
The deal never went down, and Sharpton has said he was just playing along because he was scared of the would-be kingpin. “And I'm in his office. I don't know whether this man is armed. I don't know what's going on. So I kind of say, ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah,’ to get out of there,” Sharpton claimed the tape was leaked by law enforcement officials to disrupt his 2004 presidential run, and he sued HBO, its parent company AOL Time Warner, and several individuals who worked on the story. No charges were ever brought against Sharpton because of the tape, which was allegedly made to get Sharpton to act as an informant for the feds into an investigation into corruption by Don King and the boxing industry. The HBO report featured former Mafia captain Michael Franzese saying that the FBI was on the right track when it targeted Sharpton in a sting back in 1983 to try and root out corruption in boxing.
Sharpton admitted in 1988 that he informed for the government in order “to get rid of drugs and election fraud” in black neighborhoods. He denied informing on civil rights leaders and organized crime figures.
FBI TAPES/DONATIONS: After Sharpton’s name surfaced on wiretaps in an unrelated Philadelphia City Hall corruption case, the FBI launched a probe into Sharpton’s fund-raising for his failed 2004 presidential run. The FBI secretly videotaped Sharpton on May 9, 2003, pocketing campaign donations from two “shady fund-raisers” in a NY City hotel room, and then demanding $25,000 more. The two fund-raisers were La-Van Hawkins and the late Ronald White. Hawkins is currently on trial in Philadelphia on corruption charges. White was going to be indicted, but died before charges were brought. A later wiretap recorded Hawkins telling White that they had raised more than $140,000 for Sharpton the previous quarter, but Hawkins was concerned that Sharpton had only reported about $50,000 to the Federal Election Commission, as required by law. Sharpton said the allegations were a “politically motivated smokescreen” to hide the fact the Justice Department is out to get him. He ripped the probe and the secret videotaping, saying, “Can you imagine what would happen if it was a white presidential candidate?”
CALL TOLL FREE 1-877-99-LARRY
Laurence A. Elder & Associates, PMB 803, 10061 Riverside Drive, Toluca Lake, CA 91602
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By: PHYLLIS on 4/20/2007 10:19PM
OPRAH HAS PROVEN HERSELF TO BE A PATHETIC EXCUSE FOR A HUMAN BEING. SHE IS JEALOUS BECAUSE RAPPERS WON AN ACADEMY AWARD AND SHE DIDN'T FOR THE COLOR PURPLE.
Apr 04, 2007
ACADEMY-AWARD WINNERS THREE 6 MAFIA TAKE ON NEW ROLE AS CELEBRITY GUEST PHOTOGRAPHERS FOR PLAYBOY.COM
New York, NY, April 4, 2007 - Three 6 Mafia made history as the first hip-hop group to ever win an Oscar for Best Song and now they are breaking new ground again as Playboy photographers for an exclusive Playboy.com shoot. Memphis natives DJ Paul and Juicy J, whose misadventures are being documented on MTV's "Adventures in Hollyhood," hit Playboy's Santa Monica studio for an after-hours photo session as
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By: YVONNE on 4/20/2007 10:18PM
I AM VERY DISAPPOINTED THAT REV SHARPTON IS ALLOWING THE LIKES OF OPRAH IDIOT WINFREY TO INTERFERE WITH ANY PLANS TO HONOR OUR GREAT BLACK MEN. OPRAH WINFREY IS A MAN HATER AND I DON'T KNOW WHY STEDMAN HAS NOT TAKEN HIS HALF OF THAT MONEY AND GOTTEN AWAY FROM HER.
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By: boomer on 4/20/2007 10:51AM
Al takes a step away from Rappers -- will not honor L.A. Reid at Al's National Action Network Convention.
It's a start.
-------------------------
"Whether it's our sexism, our racism, our homophobia or our violence, the hip-hop community sometimes can be a good mirror of our dirt and sometimes the dirt that we try to cover up," Simmons said. "Pointing at the conditions that create these words from the rappers ... should be our No. 1 concern."
Common said criticism of rappers and their music should come with love. "When I talk to the cats, regardless of rap, when I talk to cats on the street, they don't wanna be in that situation," the rapper said. "We don't wanna be in this painful situation. We want it to heal. And we are apologizing for ... the disrespect that does come from the mouths of men to women whatever color."
Meanwhile, the Rev. Al Sharpton, who said he planned to challenge the recording industry on denigrating lyrics, announced he had suspended plans to honor Def Jam's L.A. Reid during this week's convention of his National Action Network in New York. Sharpton was among Imus' most vocal critics and demanded his firing.
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By: Elmo Jones on 4/21/2007 6:20PM
First let me say that my worries about free speech are probably unfounded. The powers that be in America will never allow a few dumb ass niggers to wreck the foundation of so far the greatest nation in the history of the world.
For all you detractors who are waiting to pounce, do not forget that only in a country with our type of constitutional foundation can we have a Martin Luther King Jr. Enough said.
There are a lot of setups and traps and pitfalls that are the very fabric of our society. But these can be navigated, with equal malice and forethought. When confronted with a dilemma, one should endeavor to solve it, brick by brick. There are no quick fixes, no curealls. The only turbo boosts are found on your video games. So quit looking for the easy way out.
What idiot black man would go on the Oprah Winfrey show with Oprah Winfrey as the mediator? Town Hall Meeting???
She put a title on that shit to make herself the last and most formidable word on the issue, and you putzes fell for it.
No I do not want to shut up rappers and comedians. They are entertainers and they are not one of them smart enough to speak for me. They speak for their own surroundings and upbringings and desires and futile hopes. Not for me. I am way to complicated to be explained by Young Fool and Lil Putz. Yes it is angry and the words are vile. But it is also thier right. And if we begin at home to help these people focus and direct these energies toward more socially viable ends, we will have some very creative folks that we can all be proud of.
"My chillun don't need no daddy" is going to fail us everytime. And maybe now we can all see how the stench waffs up from whench it came, to permeate the air we breathe as high up as we can attain.
Yes, some of these young men are rags to riches stories, but who taught them that "all money is good money". Or "Get Rich or Die Trying".
We are not going to solve the issue of self loathing among black men by destroying free speech. The job still lies where it always has. AT HOME!!!
We must begin to focus on balanced homes. Or we will remain an unbalanced people. And believe me, no matter how much that biologically illogical Oprah Winfrey and those who love her dearly wish it so, you cannot have a black people without the black man.
If too many homes in our community are without fathers, then they will send out sons who are not ready to be men.
Maybe you think something like Pac Man Jones is a man?
Guess again!!! Without the freedom of speech and expression in the arts we would never have had a Stevie Wonder.
The lyrics and expressions of these rappers and comedians is a good place to look at the temperature of the stew. The place where we are at. So we can begin to add those things to the mix that will get us to where we want to be.
Again I say, if you are going to be doing anything to denigrate the black man, YOU WILL GET TIME ON OPRAH!!!
And for those of you who are afraid to post to these sites because some highbrow house nigger writes notes putting down your spelling and sentence formations, we need to hear from you!!! We all bring something to the table in the form of experiences and personal insights that are unique to the individual. And these are more valuable to our people than your ability to spell correctly.
The young man in Virginia committed his acts against humanity becasue he allowed that same humanity, or lack thereof to act on him. And he decided to shut them up.
This one will not be a party to the mass murder of free speech. In this time of need, we need to hear from all our people.
POST UP!!!
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By: YVONNE on 4/27/2007 11:07AM
WHY ISN'T OPRAH TALKING ABOUT THE WORST ABOMINATION EVER IN MUSIC???
Stopping Jamaican Hate music
ANOTHER HATE SINGER PLANS CONCERTS IN THE US
Jamaican Reggae Star Looks for Bucks in a US Concert Tour
01/09/2004
US Attorney-General and Immigration Service should ban him from US Top Jamaican reggae music singer Capleton (real name, Clifton George) who advocates shooting, lynching and burning...
OUTRAGE!
North America
Beenie Man's homophobic lyrics
OutRage! writes to EMI and Virgin Records
23/08/2004
London, 16 August 2004 - EMI and Virgin Records are being condemned for signing and promoting Jamaican reggae star, Beenie Man, following his call for the "execution" of gay people. The...
Outrage!
Latin America and Caribbean
Major sponsor pulls the plug
Beenie Man concerts axed across the USA
23/08/2004
LONDON, 13 AUGUST 2004 - Beenie Man's US tour is falling apart as venues across the US axe his concerts in protest against his songs that encourage and glorify the killing of lesbian...
North America
SINGER MAY BE LINKED TO HOMOPHOBIC ATTACK
Amnesty confirms: Buju Banton accused of gay-bashing
20/08/2004
Human Rights Watch (New York) interviews victims "We can confirm that Amnesty International has received information from reputable national and international human rights organisations...
Outrage!
Latin America and Caribbean
Stopping Hate Songs
Another Homophobic Jamaican Reggae Singer Tries to Find a venue in the Netherlands
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By: zayid on 4/23/2007 8:42AM
Stop looking at all this tv people.through this media empire your being brainwashed an don't even know it.the comments i read on these pages are pitiful.most people react exactly how they want you to.its not popular to be righteous and to expose the stange and unusual truth about subjects dealing with race or the government or our appointed black leader ship.the country we are taught to believe is so great is a sespool ruled by a few sick families which also have control of all the tv you watch.if you don't hear me go take your zoloft support your war and take your viagra and hand over all your liberty to the government.they know best right!
stop being fools , see things for what they really are.know that the devil is real and has countless associates running the earth.get with the real struggle it's been going on since time began.
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By: Sick & tired on 5/03/2007 7:44PM
Any black AMERICAN with half a brain has more sense than to listen to the racist, ignorant, ramblings of the notoriously foolish "Rev", yeah right! Al Sharpton. This man must enjoy making a fool of himself!You can not blame EVERYTHING on the "evil white man"!
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