By Jeffrey Lord on 3.29.12 @ 6:08AM
If racism killed Trayvon Martin, why is Al Sharpton a television host?
"Race has no place in American life or law."
-- President John F. Kennedy
David Dinkins.… You wanna be the only n…. on television, the only n…. in the newspaper, the only n…to talk.… Don't cover them, don't talk to them, cause you got the only n… problem. Cause you know if a black man stood up next to ya they would see you for the whore that you really are.
-- MSNBC Host Al Sharpton
Is this becoming America's first televised lynch mob?
Hosted by Al Sharpton and brought to you by MSNBC?
Let's talk about Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman.
What are we really seeing here in the middle of this tragedy? And make no mistake this is a very real tragedy for Trayvon Martin's parents and family.
Is this becoming about race? Yes indeed. (See here, as Al Sharpton does his thing.)
But not the way the left-stream media wants you to think about race.
First?
History. Important history.
Let's start with a question about you and your doctor. And no, we're not talking health care here today.
So you have a doctor, and have had that doctor for years. You go into to see him/her for a regular physical, or maybe you have a particular ailment you want to get checked out.
What happens when the doctor walks in the door to the examining room?
Here's what doesn't happen. The doctor doesn't ask for your name -- because he/she knows it already. The doctor doesn't pull out a blank sheet of paper and start asking questions about your medical history. Why? Because, if this has been your doctor for years -- he/she knows your medical history already. What they open is your file, a file that contains that medical history. And whether you are getting a routine physical or checking out a particular problem, your life didn't start when you walked into the doctor's office that day. Whatever the doctor is going to say to you --he/she will say it based on an understanding of your personal medical history.
It is no different with a nation -- or a political party or philosophy. News events may look like something brand new -- but in point of fact, that is never the case. Ever. Nations have histories. Political parties have histories. Political philosophies have histories.
What in the world does this have to do with Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman?
More to the point, what does this have to do with MSNBC and Al Sharpton, Spike Lee, and the New Black Panthers?
It has this to do with all of the above.
What you are seeing played out in the middle of this tragedy is something that plays out repeatedly with progressives. Racism is in the progressive DNA.
As we have discussed in this corner many times (here and here, for example), the "medical history" of the American Left features a cold-blooded, much documented, right-from-the-get-go history of fusing progressivism with racism. As noted previously, they go together like ham and eggs.
In the beginning it was slavery and the founders of what became the modern Democrats. Party co-founders Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson absorbed the politics of race into the very bloodstream of what is the nation's oldest political party. As time went on and slavery gave way (after a small event known as the Civil War) to segregation, lynching and the Ku Klux Klan, the racial worm worked its way deeper and deeper into the soul of what was becoming the American Left.
By the time segregationist Woodrow Wilson became president, the progressive-racist partnership was set in stone. It continued and blossomed under Franklin Roosevelt.
Progressive programs familiar to everyone today were passed with the assistance of some of the most racist politicians in the nation's history. Social Security was championed by Senator Theodore Bilbo of Mississippi, a proud racist and member of the Ku Klux Klan. What Americans know as the school lunch program was named for its staunch segregationist sponsor Senator Richard Russell of Georgia. The much recently discussed Glass-Steagall Act was named for its sponsor, the vividly racist Virginia Congressman and Senator (and Wilson Treasury Secretary) Carter Glass.
And so on. And on.
But what does this have to do with MSNBC? With the black Al Sharpton? The Latino George Zimmerman (whose mother is, yes, a Latino)?
Answer: Progressive political philosophy is nothing more than a weak strain of Marxism. It disdains the individual in favor of the state.
And the very first premise of Marxism is denying that, as Ludwig von Mises noted, "logic is universally valid for all mankind and for all ages. Thought, it stated, was determined by the class of thinkers."
In its original form, this is what led to the progressive passion for class warfare. But in American terms, as the left began to take hold in America as a political movement, race was added to the mix -- with precisely the same premise. If your class was a permanent barrier to correct thought, then so too was race. And politically speaking, progressives like Bilbo the Klan member U.S. Senator and Social Security supporter tied themselves tightly to the concept.
Move ahead through history. After the civil rights legislation of the 1960's -- the 1964 Civil Rights Bill winning 82 percent of Republican votes and only 66 percent of the Democrats in Congress -- the racial picture began to change within the Democratic Party and in the American Left generally. But even as more blacks and minorities could now vote, they were approached by progressives not as individuals but as a collective -- a race.
Which is exactly why Al Sharpton, he of the scurrilous career discussed by Shelby Steele, is both sitting in the studios of MSNBC hosting a TV show on the left centered network -- and holding rallies in Florida that are supposedly to honor Trayvon Martin.
This is, once again, the ham and eggs combo of progressivism and racism on display. Had television existed for most of Bilbo's career, doubtless Theodore Bilbo would have been tapped by MSNBC president Phil Griffin to host his own show.
The key point here is that just as many in the American progressive movement of the day simply nodded and smiled at the idea of racists in their midst, so too now are some doing the same with Al Sharpton. In his classic book Wrong on Race: The Democratic Party's Buried Past, Bruce Bartlett notes that Franklin D. Roosevelt himself was quoted by his appointee to the Supreme Court, Alabama's progressive Senator Hugo Black -- a Klan lifetime "golden passport" holder -- that he, FDR said "some of his best friends and supporters he had in the state of Georgia were strong members" of the Ku Klux Klan.
In other words, nobody blinked.
Just as MSNBC isn't blinking today about having Sharpton, he of that infamous "n-word" expletive above, host a show on their network. Much less are they worried about seeing their host appear in Florida to do his latest racial rabble-rousing in between his television shows.
Indeed, just as progressive Presidents Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt tied their programs to the likes of Black, Russell and Bilbo, so too does the progressive President Barack Obama have not the slightest problem in giving a pass to Sharpton, accepting his support, meeting with him etc.
When Obama supporter Spike Lee goes after an innocent family by mistakenly tweeting their address as the home of George Zimmerman -- driving the family from their home as a result of threats -- well, hey. That's just that good ole Spike.
What would President Obama do without friends like Spike Lee and Bill Maher?
Has the President, upon hearing that the New Black Panthers had set a million dollar bounty (seen here) on the head of George Zimmerman, taken to television like JFK to say firmly that "race has no place" in American life and law?
Nah.
This is, after all, the administration whose Attorney General Eric Holder refused even to prosecute these Black Panthers seen here, one wielding a billy club outside a Philadelphia polling place.
But there is one interesting question here, even if nobody seems to want to ask it.
While we don't know yet exactly what happened in the shooting of Trayvon Martin, we know for a fact that George Zimmerman shot him.
And we know for a fact the reason why the progressives in our midst are saying George Zimmerman shot Trayvon Martin.
They tell us it is because George Zimmerman, as the New York Times artfully calls him a "white Latino" (hmmm, does this make President Barack Obama, himself the product of a mixed marriage, a "white Black" man?), saw Trayvon Martin only as a young black kid. Not as an individual, but as a black.
Interesting.
Might this be because for almost two centuries progressives like Theodore Bilbo, Hugo Black, Richard Russell and Al Sharpton and Spike Lee and the New Black Panthers got a pass from progressives because they divided Americans by race?
The irony?
Progressives are saying Trayvon Martin is dead because he was seen as a "N…".
And who is notorious for using that term?
That's right.
The MSNBC host who said:
David Dinkins.… You wanna be the only n….on television, the only n….in the newspaper, the only n…to talk.…Don't cover them, don't talk to them, cause you got the only n…problem. Cause you know if a black man stood up next to ya they would see you for the whore that you really are.
Quite a game, isn't it?
If the progressive argument is that Trayvon Martin is dead because he was seen as a "N…"…
It would seem that one television network has some explaining to do. Because in effect, they are admitting they are giving their airtime to a man who famously uses the language of the lynch mob.
Don't hold your breath.
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To read another article on the subject, click here.
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To read another article by Jeffry Lord, click here.
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