Rev. Al Sharpton
"When the news broke last week that the rapper Nas intended to use a racial epithet for the title of his next album, it was no shock that a television reporter immediately thrust a microphone toward the Rev. Al Sharpton. ... In its recent puff piece on Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, '60 Minutes' needed only to unveil decade-old footage of Sharpton to represent the vast numbers of blacks who opposed Thomas's nomination. Some black intellectuals cried foul, arguing that the news magazine '60 Minutes' used a wild-eyed Sharpton to trivialize legitimate critique. But the black pundits are missing the point. To much of white America, and much more of the white media, Sharpton isn't a straw man for black America. He is black America."
Ta-Nehisi Coates, who has written frequently on race issues for Time, the Village Voice, Washington Monthly and other publications, will be online Monday, Oct. 29 at noon ET to tell the media to quit trying to depict the Rev. Al Sharpton -- whose resume is embarassingly lacking -- as the monolithic leader of African Americans everywhere.
WashingtonPost.com
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/discussion/2007/10/26/DI2007102601659.html
