FACT CHECK: Al Sharpton’s History of Racism, Antisemitism, Anti-Police Rhetoric
by OEL B. POLLAK
BREITBART.COM
29 Jul 2019
Al Sharpton has a long history of bigotry that includes anti-white racism, antisemitism, and demonization of law enforcement.
His record has become relevant for two reasons. First, Democratic presidential candidates have been courting his support — with no criticism of his past.
Second, President Donald Trump tweeted Monday morning that Al Sharpton is a “con man” who “Hates Whites & Cops.”
I have known Al for 25 years. Went to fights with him & Don King, always got along well. He “loved Trump!” He would ask me for favors often. Al is a con man, a troublemaker, always looking for a score. Just doing his thing. Must have intimidated Comcast/NBC. Hates Whites & Cops! https://t.co/ZwPZa0FWfN
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 29, 2019
He did so ahead of a press conference planned Monday in Baltimore where Sharpton and former Republican National Committee chair Michael Steele — a frequent Trump critic — were to object to Trump’s recent criticisms of the city. (which were nearly universally shared until Trump made them).
Sharpton’s record matches Trump’s claims.
As Breitbart News noted earlier this year (original links):
Sharpton has a long history of controversial racial rhetoric. In the notorious Tawana Brawley case in 1987, Sharpton backed a teenager’s false accusations of rape, stirring racial divisions in New York and across the country. When he was successfully sued for defamation [by a prosecutor whom Brawley falsely accused of being among her attackers], he refused to pay the judgement, and supporters had to step in on his behalf. Sharpton still refuses to apologize for his role.
In 1991, Sharpton helped incite riots against religious Jews in the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn after a black child was killed in a car accident. An enraged mob murdered a visiting Jewish religious student, Yankel Rosenbaum. Rosenbaum’s brother told Breitbart News in 2012: “I have never seen a person be able to avoid being held accountable in substantive terms for his various and significant serious otherwise well publicized misdeeds over such a prolonged period of time, as Sharpton. This is truly an indictment on all those who have done so in the past and continue to do so.” (Sharpton acknowledged some of his “mistakes” in Crown Heights, while protesting his innocence, in a 2011 op-ed in the New York Daily News.)
The Rest…HERE
