White Man's Pilgrimage

I don't get it.

A white man makes a racial slur and then goes groveling to one of this country's most well-known racist? First it was Michael Richards, now it's Don Imus.

Will an apology no longer be accepted unless you prostrate yourself to the king of racism...Mr. Al Sharpton?

Don't get me wrong, Don Imus is a jerk and his statement in reference to the Rutgers women's basketball team was reprehensible and racist. He needs to apologize...but not to Al Sharpton.

Let's take a look at the black version of David Duke. His history is filled with race baiting and polarizing events. He has turned racism into a career path.

Did Imus ever go out of his way to share a stage with the likes of Khalid Muhammad -- a gay-bashing, Jew-hating, anti-Catholic racist -- or praise him as "an articulate and courageous brother?" Of course not. But Sharpton did.

Nor did Imus ever go on the radio to demand that a "white interloper" -- the Jewish owner of a Harlem clothing store -- be forced out of business, or whip up a racial protest that ended with seven people dead in a horrific arson attack. But Sharpton did.(1995)

Did Imus lead a vitriolic campaign to vilify the young white woman raped and viciously beaten in the Central Park "wilding" case in 1989 -- a campaign in which demonstrators chanted her name in public when most of the media refused to print it and accused her boyfriend of being the real assailant? Sharpton did.

Other key Sharpton missteps:
1987 Tawana Brawley hoax.
1991 Yankel Rosenbaum stabbed to death.

If Sharpton were a white skinhead, he would be a political leper, spurned everywhere but the fringe. But far from being spurned, he is shown much deference. Democrats embrace him. Politicians court him. And journalists report on his comings and goings while politely sidestepping his career as a hatemongering racial hustler.

I don't get it.