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<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial">----- Original Message -----
<DIV style="BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4; font-color: black"><B>From:</B> <A
title=tanstl@aol.com href="mailto:tanstl@aol.com">David Sladky</A> </DIV>
<DIV><B>To:</B> <A title=undisclosed-recipients:
href="mailto:undisclosed-recipients:">undisclosed-recipients:</A> </DIV>
<DIV><B>Sent:</B> Friday, March 05, 2010 7:43 AM</DIV>
<DIV><B>Subject:</B> Smiley vs.Sharpton: A Potemkin Drama </DIV></DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV><FONT face=arial color=black size=2><FONT
face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"></FONT><BR><BR>
<DIV style="CLEAR: both">
<H1 class=western><A name=page-title></A>Smiley vs.Sharpton: A Potemkin Drama
</H1>
<DIV>Posted <EM>Wed, 03/03/2010 - 12:28</EM> by <EM>Glen Ford</EM></DIV>
<DIV
style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in">ttp://blackagendareport.com/?q=content/smiley-vssharpton-potemkin-drama-0</DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-TOP: 0.06in; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in"><IMG height=300
alt="tavis and sharpton" hspace=6
src="http://www.blackagendareport.com/images/stories/180/sharpton_and_tavis.jpg"
width=430 align=textTop vspace=6 border=0 name=graphics2><FONT
face="Arial, sans-serif"><B>by BAR executive editor Glen Ford</B></FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-TOP: 0.06in; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in"><FONT
face="Arial, sans-serif"><FONT size=2>Things are getting ugly in Black
misleadership circles, as Rev. Al Sharpton attempts to send Tavis Smiley into
permanent purgatory for being “notoriously anti the president.” But Smiley won’t
go quietly. He’s taking names of those who continue to give Barack Obama a
“pass.”</FONT></FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-TOP: 0.06in; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in"> </DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-TOP: 0.06in; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in"><FONT color=#280099><FONT
face="Arial, sans-serif"><FONT size=4><B>Smiley vs.Sharpton: A Potemkin Drama
</B></FONT></FONT></FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-TOP: 0.06in; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in"><FONT
face="Arial, sans-serif"><B>by BAR executive editor Glen Ford</B></FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-TOP: 0.06in; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in" align=center><FONT
color=#2323dc>“<FONT face="Arial, sans-serif"><I>Sharpton and his crowd have
devolved to meek and ridiculous access-seekers with no significant agenda to
‘ballyhoo.’”</I></FONT></FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-TOP: 0.06in; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in"><FONT
face="Arial, sans-serif"><FONT size=2>Last week’s live broadcast confrontation
between Tavis Smiley and Rev. Al Sharpton was a perfect window into the
incoherence and utter ineffectuality of what passes for African American
leadership. Smiley, the media entrepreneur, for ten years (2000-’09) staged an
annual electronic </FONT></FONT><FONT face="Arial, sans-serif"><FONT
size=2><I>facsimile</I></FONT></FONT> <FONT face="Arial, sans-serif"><FONT
size=2>of Black political life, purporting to represent, as spelled out in the
production’s title, the “</FONT></FONT><A
href="http://sobu2009.tavistalks.com/default2.htm"><FONT color=#0000ff><FONT
face="Arial, sans-serif"><FONT size=2><U>State of the Black
Union</U></FONT></FONT></FONT></A>” – <FONT face="Arial, sans-serif"><FONT
size=2>SOBU. Smiley choreographed the event, a ritualized “coming together” that
gave the illusion of Black “unity” and motion when, In fact, the showcase was
structurally incapable of effectively addressing – much less resolving – any
issue of importance. Nor was it meant to be anything but a media happening, a
kind of Black Potemkin Village where luminaries strutted, pandered and
pontificated on cue – a manufactured drama creating an aura of relevance and the
impression of movement: a substitute for a real Black people’s Movement.
</FONT></FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-TOP: 0.06in; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in"><FONT
face="Arial, sans-serif"><FONT size=2>Tavis sold lots of books along the way,
preaching a “</FONT></FONT><A
href="http://www.covenantwithblackamerica.com/"><FONT color=#0000ff><FONT
face="Arial, sans-serif"><FONT size=2><U>covenant</U></FONT></FONT></FONT></A>”
<FONT face="Arial, sans-serif"><FONT size=2>that would bind his show’s
performers and a hungry Black audience to a preached-at but not fought-for state
of being that could be achieved through presentation, alone.</FONT></FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-TOP: 0.06in; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in"><FONT
face="Arial, sans-serif"><FONT size=2>Smiley cemented his status as Grandmaster
of a holographic politics consisting of a soundstage, on which electronic icons
pushed the envelope of contention no farther than the theatrical constraints of
an agreed-upon “unity” would allow – never nearly enough to reveal any
contradictions demanding resolution for the sake of future of The
Race.</FONT></FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-TOP: 0.06in; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in" align=center><FONT
color=#2323dc>”<FONT face="Arial, sans-serif"><I>Black political theater was
bum-rushed by the Obama phenomenon.”</I></FONT></FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-TOP: 0.06in; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in"><FONT
face="Arial, sans-serif"><FONT size=2>Then came Obama, and the undoing of
Smiley’s skillfully crafted media diversion, trumped by the mega-show of a
serious (i.e. corporate-funded) Black presidential campaign. Black political
theater – even Smiley’s choreographed and meticulously casted all-Black format –
was bum-rushed by the Obama phenomenon, which plumbed the brass-ring aspirations
of an eternally marginalized people. All hands rushed to get on the Showboat,
where dreams rooted in at least one side of the Black brain might be realized –
and where the money surely was.</FONT></FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-TOP: 0.06in; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in"><FONT
face="Arial, sans-serif"><FONT size=2>Smiley attempted in two successive years
to lasso candidate Obama onto his stage set for a SOBU appearance. But such an
association was anathema to the politician who made his deepest impression on
the mass white psyche with his 2004 Democratic National Convention declaration
that there was “no Black America…only the United States of America.” Of course
Obama would not come to a “State of the Black” anything. Blacks were to be
neutered as a prerequisite of national unity – and Obama’s political fortunes.
</FONT></FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-TOP: 0.06in; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in"><FONT
face="Arial, sans-serif"><FONT size=2>Smiley protested on the righteous
political grounds that a candidate whose entire strategy was to lock up the
Black vote by virtue of his own ethnicity and then proceed outward, should at
least find time to appear in the Black political Potemkin Village. He might as
well have cursed God. After 11 years as commentator on the hugely popular Tom
Joyner Morning Show syndication, Smiley was </FONT></FONT><A
href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/11/AR2008041103056.html"><FONT
color=#0000ff><FONT face="Arial, sans-serif"><FONT size=2><U>forced
out</U></FONT></FONT></FONT></A> <FONT face="Arial, sans-serif"><FONT size=2>in
April, 2008, by "the hate he's been getting regarding the Barack issue – hate
from the black people that he loves so much," said Joyner, who had himself
joined the mob. Smiley held the last of his “State of the Black Union”
gatherings in 2009, although maintaining his public radio and TV programs.
</FONT></FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-TOP: 0.06in; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in"><FONT
face="Arial, sans-serif"><FONT size=2><B>Sharpton’s
Paymasters</B></FONT></FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-TOP: 0.06in; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in"><FONT
face="Arial, sans-serif"><FONT size=2>Rev. Al Sharpton had long been one of the
stock performers in the televised SOBU mini-spectacles. An acolyte of
entertainer James Brown and sports hustler/gangster Don King, Sharpton is
programmed to cut a deal – for himself. He keeps bad company and tends to wind
up, like most people who parlay with low-lifes, being captured by them. Or more
likely, he is himself hopelessly degraded. Thus it was not strange that his 2004
Democratic presidential campaign came under the control of Roger Stone, a
far-right Republican political hit man whom even polite GOPers find unsavory
(see </FONT></FONT><FONT face="Arial, sans-serif"><FONT size=2><I>The Black
Commentator</I></FONT></FONT><FONT face="Arial, sans-serif"><FONT size=2>,
</FONT></FONT><A
href="http://www.blackcommentator.com/76/76_cover_sharpton.html"><FONT
color=#0000ff><FONT face="Arial, sans-serif"><FONT size=2><U>February 5,
2004</U></FONT></FONT></FONT></A><FONT face="Arial, sans-serif"><FONT size=2>) –
an underground passage Sharpton has navigated so often it must be considered his
modus operandi. </FONT></FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-TOP: 0.06in; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in"><FONT
face="Arial, sans-serif"><FONT size=2>Following the scent of bottomless
corporate pockets, Sharpton in the Obama era made common cause with New York
billionaire mayor Michael Bloomberg’s vast political/financial network, a
capitalist empire fully enmeshed with Barack Obama’s own Wall Street lifeline.
With </FONT></FONT><A
href="http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2009/04/01/2009-04-01_rev_al_sharptons_500g_link_to_education_.html#ixzz0h3ljzDbC"><FONT
color=#0000ff><FONT face="Arial, sans-serif"><FONT size=2><U>$500,000
laundered</U></FONT></FONT></FONT></A> <FONT face="Arial, sans-serif"><FONT
size=2>through Bloomberg cronies’ accounts, Sharpton joined arch-racist Newt
Gingrich for a salt-and-pepper tour touting Obama’s campaign to replace public
schools with charters and break teachers unions, nationwide. He has graduated to
full-fledged operative of the White House/Wall Street nexus, and will advocate
nothing that might seriously upset his sugar daddies. Sharpton is finally
playing in the big casino.</FONT></FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-TOP: 0.06in; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in" align=center><FONT
color=#2323dc>“<FONT face="Arial, sans-serif"><I>Sharpton made common cause with
New York billionaire mayor Michael Bloomberg’s vast political/financial
network.”</I></FONT></FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-TOP: 0.06in; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in"><FONT
face="Arial, sans-serif"><FONT size=2>The National Action Movement leader joined
NAACP president Ben Jealous and National Urban League chief Marc Morial for a
snow-packed Black History Month meeting at the White House, February 13, from
which the trio emerged proclaiming that “we have a president who get’s it” about
the need to address Depression-level Black unemployment – albeit without
directly targeting the particulars of the Black condition or promising any
program adequate to the general crisis. (</FONT></FONT><A
href="http://www.blackagendareport.com/?q=content/sharpton-jealous-and-morial-make-small-talk-big-house"><FONT
color=#0000ff><FONT face="Arial, sans-serif"><FONT size=2><U>See
BAR</U></FONT></FONT></FONT></A><FONT face="Arial, sans-serif"><FONT size=2>,
“Sharpton, Jealous and Morial Make Small Talk at the Big House.”) Sharpton
volunteered that the Black “leaders” might be of use in persuading Republicans
to cooperate on the jobs issue. </FONT></FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-TOP: 0.06in; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in"><FONT
face="Arial, sans-serif"><FONT size=2>The president did not dignify the meeting
or his Black admirers’ analysis with a comment.</FONT></FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-TOP: 0.06in; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in"><FONT
face="Arial, sans-serif"><FONT size=2>The previous week, Sharpton was reported
to have told the </FONT></FONT><A
href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/09/us/politics/09race.html"><FONT
color=#0000ff><FONT face="Arial, sans-serif"><FONT size=2><I><U>New York
Times</U></I></FONT></FONT></FONT></A> <FONT face="Arial, sans-serif"><FONT
size=2>the president was “smart not to ballyhoo ‘a black agenda’” – the meaning
of which quote would become central to the radio throw-down between Tavis Smiley
and Sharpton.</FONT></FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-TOP: 0.06in; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in"><FONT
face="Arial, sans-serif"><FONT size=2><B>Smiley’s
Manifesto</B></FONT></FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-TOP: 0.06in; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in"><FONT
face="Arial, sans-serif"><FONT size=2>Tavis is not Mr. Smiley unless he is
building Potemkin Villages in the airwaves. Eager to get back in the center of
the magic circle, Smiley returned to his old forum, the Tom Joyner Morning Show,
to market yet another gathering of “leaders,” set for March 20 at Chicago State
University. This time, it would be a great debate over a Black agenda. Some
folks in the circle, </FONT></FONT><A
href="http://www.tavistalks.com/we-count-black-agenda-american-agenda"><FONT
color=#0000ff><FONT face="Arial, sans-serif"><FONT size=2><U>he tried to
convey</U></FONT></FONT></FONT></A><FONT face="Arial, sans-serif"><FONT size=2>,
were singing the wrong song:</FONT></FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-TOP: 0.06in; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in">“<FONT
face="Arial, sans-serif"><FONT size=2>The President doesn’t need a Black agenda,
they sing. He’s not the president of Black America, he’s the president of all
America, and he need not focus specifically on the unique challenges Black
America is facing, they sing.I know ‘What’s going on.’ I know ‘We shall
overcome,’ but I don’t know this new tune, ‘the president doesn’t need a Black
agenda.”</FONT></FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-TOP: 0.06in; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in"><FONT
face="Arial, sans-serif"><FONT size=2>Smiley called out the off-key performers,
and produced a list of others who, he vouched, had remained in tune with the
ancestors:</FONT></FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-TOP: 0.06in; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in">“<FONT
face="Arial, sans-serif"><FONT size=2>I say this lovingly, they’re all friends
and freedom fighters…but Al Sharpton, Ben Jealous, Charles Ogletree, Valerie
Jarrett, Marc Morial, Dr. Dorothy Height, will also be joined by some
</FONT></FONT><FONT face="Arial, sans-serif"><FONT
size=2><I>other</I></FONT></FONT> <FONT face="Arial, sans-serif"><FONT
size=2>crooners who I think do want us singing a </FONT></FONT><FONT
face="Arial, sans-serif"><FONT size=2><I>different</I></FONT></FONT> <FONT
face="Arial, sans-serif"><FONT size=2>song…Barbara Lee, Angela Glover Blackwell,
Cornel West, Michael Eric Dyson, Jesse Jackson, just for example.
</FONT></FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-TOP: 0.06in; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in">“<FONT
face="Arial, sans-serif"><FONT size=2>Other invited singers include Louis
Farrakhan who hasn’t been singing much of late, but who has a solo I’m told he’s
ready to share. Should be some kind of choir rehearsal to get us all singing the
same song, Saturday, March 20, in Chicago, on national
television.</FONT></FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-TOP: 0.06in; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in">“<FONT
face="Arial, sans-serif"><FONT size=2>Do we think that we can give President
Obama a pass on Black issues and somehow when he’s no longer in office, just
resurrect the moral authority to hold future presidents accountable to our
concerns? How does that work? You give one president a pass on Black issues, but
when he’s gone, you go right back to trying to hold the next president
accountable. I don’t get how we’re going to do that.” </FONT></FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-TOP: 0.06in; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in"><FONT
face="Arial, sans-serif"><FONT size=2>A great debate, or an attempt to
choreograph an exercise in false “unity?” Smiley appears to think he can pull
off both, simultaneously. But later that day Al Sharpton was in his junkyard,
howling.</FONT></FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-TOP: 0.06in; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in"><FONT
face="Arial, sans-serif"><FONT size=2>In the studio for his daily
</FONT></FONT><A href="http://www.sharptontalk.net/"><FONT color=#0000ff><FONT
face="Arial, sans-serif"><FONT size=2><U>radio show</U></FONT></FONT></FONT></A>
<FONT face="Arial, sans-serif"><FONT size=2>with his guest and buddy, Harvard
Professor Charles Ogletree, who taught both Barack and Michelle Obama, Rev.
Sharpton accepted Tavis Smiley’s call: </FONT></FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-TOP: 0.06in; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in"><FONT
face="Arial, sans-serif"><FONT size=2>SMILEY: How are you?</FONT></FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-TOP: 0.06in; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in"><FONT
face="Arial, sans-serif"><FONT size=2>SHARPTON: I was fine until you started
messing with me this morning. What’s wrong with you?</FONT></FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-TOP: 0.06in; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in"><FONT
face="Arial, sans-serif"><FONT size=2>SMILEY: We need a conversation about
whether or not there needs to be a Black agenda…. When there are certain African
American leaders…who are quoted [as saying] that this president doesn’t need to
have an African American agenda, given that Black folk are getting crushed, I
said we need to come together to have a conversation about what that means. I
think there’s a disconnect between those kinds of quotes and Black people
[interrupted]…</FONT></FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-TOP: 0.06in; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in"><FONT
face="Arial, sans-serif"><FONT size=2>SMILEY: No, I think there’s a disconnect
between what you’re saying and what was said. First of all, we never said that,
and the </FONT></FONT><FONT face="Arial, sans-serif"><FONT size=2><I>New York
Times</I></FONT></FONT> <FONT face="Arial, sans-serif"><FONT size=2>never said
we said that. [Smiley tries to interrupt] And if you </FONT></FONT><FONT
face="Arial, sans-serif"><FONT size=2><I>thought</I></FONT></FONT> <FONT
face="Arial, sans-serif"><FONT size=2>we had said that you should have picked up
the phone and asked us.</FONT></FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-TOP: 0.06in; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in"><FONT
face="Arial, sans-serif"><FONT size=2>Smiley read the relevant
</FONT></FONT><FONT face="Arial, sans-serif"><FONT
size=2><I>Times</I></FONT></FONT> <FONT face="Arial, sans-serif"><FONT
size=2>copy aloud, butSharpton’s awesome powers of obfuscation were in full
display:</FONT></FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-TOP: 0.06in; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in"><FONT
face="Arial, sans-serif"><FONT size=2>SMILEY: I said that if you were getting
ready to have an event then you’d be smart not to ballyhoo a certain segment of
the event. That does not mean I don’t think you should have the event or
emphasize something. What you just read is nowhere near what you said,
Tavis.</FONT></FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-TOP: 0.06in; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in"><FONT
face="Arial, sans-serif"><FONT size=2>And so it went, with Sharpton
characterizing Smiley’s challenge on the Tom Joyner show as “disingenuous” and
“lies.” But the </FONT></FONT><FONT face="Arial, sans-serif"><FONT
size=2><I>Times</I></FONT></FONT> <FONT face="Arial, sans-serif"><FONT
size=2>didn’t take Sharpton’s statement that Obama was “smart not to ballyhoo ‘a
black agenda’” out of context, and Smiley’s reading of the remarks was correct.
The Reverend and his fellow unrepentant Obamites have been giving the president
a “pass” since he first appeared on the national scene, allowing him to tack
further to the Right with every passing day. And they are demanding a pass for
themselves, as well, for wholly abdicating their responsibility as “leaders” to
formulate a Black agenda worthy of the name, and to confront power with demands
based on that agenda. Sharpton and his crowd have devolved to meek and
ridiculous access-seekers with no significant agenda to “ballyhoo” – except the
president’s own, corporate agenda.</FONT></FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-TOP: 0.06in; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in" align=center><FONT
color=#2323dc>“<FONT face="Arial, sans-serif"><I>The Reverend and his fellow
unrepentant Obamites have been giving the president a ‘pass’ since he first
appeared on the national scene.”</I></FONT></FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-TOP: 0.06in; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in"><FONT
face="Arial, sans-serif"><FONT size=2>These inert human objects cannot even be
described as annexes to the administration, since Obama finds it politically
inconvenient to recognize them as such. Their irrelevance is near
total.</FONT></FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-TOP: 0.06in; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in"><FONT
face="Arial, sans-serif"><FONT size=2>Although meek as a lamb with Obama,
Sharpton played by Don King rules in lashing out at Smiley, whom he would eject
from the inner sanctum for being “notoriously anti the president.” Tavis has no
right to call a leadership meeting in Chicago or anywhere else, said Sharpton.
“Some of the objective people who have not been pro or con the president should
convene it.” At any rate, “I’m not going to be there.” </FONT></FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-TOP: 0.06in; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in"><FONT
face="Arial, sans-serif"><FONT size=2>In truth, there is little point in
organizing a gathering of people who will not fight. No matter how huge the
herd, sheep are still sheep. Leadership is not to be found on a sound stage, but
in struggle. As we build a new movement, we will grow a new
leadership.</FONT></FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-TOP: 0.06in; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in"><FONT color=#280099><FONT
face="Arial, sans-serif"><FONT size=2><I>BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be
contacted at </I></FONT></FONT></FONT><A
href="mailto:Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com"><FONT color=#280099><FONT
face="Arial, sans-serif"><FONT
size=2><I><U>Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com</U></I></FONT></FONT></FONT></A></DIV></DIV></FONT><br />--
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