Sharpton Show Features Questionable Race-Based Language

'BLEACHING' THE VOTE

Hey Reverend, Racist Language Cuts Both Ways







A seemingly mundane effort to end Florida's notoriously-gerrymandered congressional districts has managed to bring out the worst from a few unhinged opponents. Amendments Five and Six would in theory restore natural boundaries and end the practice of manipulating lines to suit political parties.

Opposition comes from both Republicans (whose own plan was shot down in court) and African-Americans (yet the NAACP SUPPORTS it), with establishment Democrats and Hispanics in favor. The battle lines aren't terribly clear, it's more of a muddled mess as competing factions make grabs for power.

Leading the fight against Five and Six are Representatives Corrine Brown (D-FL), a black congresswoman from Jacksonville and Mario Diaz-Balart, a Hispanic Republican from South Florida.


Yes, that's a confusing political mix, but there's nothing ambiguous about the language Brown used during a radio interview with Al Sharpton earlier this week. Watch as Sharpton offers no objection to her assertion the initiatives would "bleach" her congressional district:

REP CORRINE BROWN (12:23): I want you know to that your Mayor (Michael Bloomberg) is coming to Miami this week Friday at eleven o' clock to speak about doing away with minority districts. So is that something that they’re starting in Florida and California and gonna bring on to New York?

AL SHARPTON: And that’s why we have you on cause that’s why I’m gonna be there cause we ran 'em out of NY and we’ve got to run 'em out of Florida and everywhere else. Explain what the vote is about.

REP CORRINE BROWN: Okay they’ve got initiative on the ballot and they call it "fair districts" and really, it’s the bleaching of the districts. Before I got elected to Congress in 1992 Florida didn’t have an African American in 129 years and it was because of the 1965 voters' rights act. That’s the why this is the only area that trickle-down does really work.

Because when you draw the congressional than you draw the House, the Senate, School Boards and all of the other districts. But they’ve got the United States Supreme Court this month that it is in the state constitution then the voters rights act don’t apply. This was a recent ruling.

The Strickland ruling, therefore they’re trying to put it in the Constitution that you can’t draw minority districts. And the confusion in Florida is that we’ve got people running around like from the NAACP saying that this is a good thing. I mean it’s ludicrous. Why would we take a step back?

SHARPTON: All right now, what they will vote on and it’s on the ballot is to eliminate districts that assure us (black community) representation.

REP CORRINE BROWN: No no, you don’t have no assurances.

Now, for just a moment, imagine the response from Sharpton, Jesse Jackson et al, were a conservative talker to use the term "darkening" or "blackening" of a political district. How long would that host remain on the air?

Remember, it was Sharpton that infamously denied Rush Limbaugh a chance at part-ownership of a NFL team over alleged "racism" that was made up out of thin air. And yet, here's a concrete example from his own camp of counter-productive language. Will they enjoy the media's standard free pass?