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08/15/2004:

"Sharp Tongues for Sharpton"

by Kimberle Williams Crenshaw The Nation
...The zeal to get beyond race will hasten efforts to drive wedges between black politicians--a move already afoot in the effort to hold up Barack Obama as "the good black" and Sharpton, Jackson and others as the "bad blacks." The New York Times published a review of the convention that declared, "Rather than positioning him within a black tradition, Mr. Obama's speech evoked, through his and his family's varied races, trades and professions, a diversity that aims at unity"--as though the failure to achieve unity on civil rights is the natural consequence of the black discursive tradition, "I Have a Dream" notwithstanding. Even the Republicans weighed in on the good black/bad black question--Bob Novak declared that "the kind of black [the Democrats] want out there representing the party is Senator Obama from Illinois and not Al Sharpton." Perhaps that's true, but any close reading of Obama's own testament--his autobiography, boxes of which languished in his basement no doubt because he didn't declare himself to be the raceless son of an African immigrant in a colorblind world--would reveal that the division that the media celebrate is far more a difference of style than of substance. full article

This is a classic:using 'diversity' to short-circuit the necessary historical conversation that needs to take place in this country: we are all one glorious rainbow of indeterminate color. Al Sharpton is accused of hijacking the Democratic convention for talking about race and history. Of all black spokespeople on the scene, Sharpton alone has been on-message for many years, whatever else one might think about him. See what happens to a black's credibility and rep if he or she insists on keeping race issues front and center.