NOT THAT YOU ASKED

I have avoided writing anything about the death of Michael Brown at the hand of a policeman on purpose. There's nothing I could add to the national debate, and as a white man I can't begin to understand what it is like for a black male to deal with law enforcement. I just hope that once the truth comes out, everyone will be able to accept it.

There is one thing that I do know, and that is that I am sick of Al Sharpton. He's nothing but a publicity hound and opportunist who jumps into any racial issue the way some lawyers chase ambulances.

Sharpton first came to our attention during the Twana Brawley affair. That started when Brawley, an African American teenager was found in a dumpster where she said she had been left by a gang of white police officers who had gang-raped her. Just like with Michael Brown, Sharpton was on the scene immediately calling for swift and severe punishment for the officers.

There was just one little problem. It turned out that Brawley had lied. In fact, she made the whole story up. Now, most of us caught up in such an embarrassing situation like that would have slipped away quietly, never to be heard from again. Not Sharpton. Once he felt the warmth of the spotlight, he craved it like an alcoholic craves his next drink.

His next moment in the spotlight came when an elderly Jewish man struck and killed an African American man with his car. Again, there was Sharpton on the scene almost before the police or ambulance could get there. Again he stood in front of the cameras demanding swift justice for the victim and swift punishment for the driver. Again it turned out that what happened was not a crime, but instead was just what it seemed to be--a tragic accident.

By now, having been proved wrong twice, you would think that Sharpton would have been reduced to nothing more than a national joke, with no credibility, but that's not what happened. Instead, Sharpton was able to use his infamy to finagle himself a spot as a national spokesman for civil rights. The media, which should have exposed him for the cheap hustler that he is, meekly went along, giving him plenty of airtime to build a following.

Did I mention that Sharpton is also a hypocrite? Well, he is. Shortly after Barack Obama was inaugurated, CNN offered comedian D.L. Hughley a talk show, and he accepted. In a book he wrote later, Hughley said that at the time Sharpton criticized him for having the show on CNN instead of the Black Entertainment Television Network. Now fast forward to the present. Today Al Sharpton has a TV show of his own, but guess what? It's not on BET. Instead, it is on MSNBC.

There are some real heroes of the Civil Rights Movement. There was Emmett Till who was murdered by two rednecks for speaking to a white woman. There was Rosa Parks who chose jail over giving her bus seat to a white man. There's Congressman John Lewis whose skull was fractured at the Edumund Pettus Bridge. James Chaney, Michael Schwerner, and Andrew Goodman were murdered by the KKK for trying to register blacks to vote in Mississippi.

There were true leaders of the movement. Men like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Medgar Evers who were shot down for their beliefs. There was also Daisy Bates, who helped the "Little Rock Nine" get through their first very tough year at Central High School.

Those are the people that should have the respect of all Americans of every color. They did the hard work and the heavy lifting of changing the Jim Crow South, and the rest of the country at a time when a black American could be killed just for asking for the right to vote or even sit in a restaurant.

Al Sharpton is just cashing in on what they did. He doesn't deserve anyone's respect.