Sharpton, Romney, Imus and God

May 10th, 2007

Or When Whites Strike Back
By D. Yobachi Boswell

Al Sharpton, who led the charge last month in the ousting of radio talk show host Don Imus from MSNBC television and CBS radio over derogatory attacks on a group of young, mostly black women; is now in a tempest over words he’s used in reference to Republican Presidential Candidate and Mormon Mitt Romney.

In a debate on religion with Atheist Christopher Hitchens, Al Sharpton said, “As for the one Mormon running for office, those who really believe in God will defeat him anyway.” Of course that’s not all he said and there’s no context there, but that’s thet line the mainstream news media almost solely plays or reads in regards to this story.

In the Monday May 7th debate, Hitchens, previous to the comment introduced discussion of Mormonism into the conversation when speaking of the racist ban that existed against blacks as priest in the Mormon church until 1965, he’s said. Al Sharpton Wednesday night on Paula Zahn’s CNN show disputed that the ban wasn’t lifted until 1978 and my research would agree with’78 as the official year of the lifting of the ban as attested to in the book Neither White Nor Black*

Hitchens point in bring it up was that religion is evil, an example of it’s evil is that it for one it promotes racism, and an example of that was the Mormon Church’s ban.

When speaking with Paula Zahn, Sharpton attempts to make it know that he intended to respond to Htichens claim. He says on the show:

If prior to ‘65, ‘78, whenever it was, they did not see blacks as equal, I do not believe that as real worshippers of God, because I do not believe that God distinguishes between people. That’s not bigotry, that’s responding to their bigotry.

Romney’s response to it all has been to repeat that he thinks Sharpton is a bigot.“His comments were bigoted comments. And it shows that bigotry still exist in some corners”, he would say on Wednesday following a campaign event.

Sharpton points out that since Romney has now brought it up, the question is now did Romney prescribe to Mormonism as the church held as a precept of faith that blacks could not “fully” be apart of the “body of God”, as Sharpton termed it. Specifically the ban on blacks in the priesthood, which they justified by the Curse of Ham; a justification white supremacist of all types have roundly used for the brutal colonization of Africa, the inhuman transatlantic slave trade, for dehumanizing chattel slavery in the Americas, and for Jim Crow Segregation and Apartheid. .

Watching the Frontline documentary last Tuesday night on PBS about the Mormon church, one of the members of the Mormon high council who was in the room the day it was decide to overturn this ban, who’s name I cannot begin to recall (but it’s in the PBS documentary); described this change of heart by the Church leaders, in so many words, as a Pentecostal moment (this referring to The Day of Pentecost in the Bible in Acts Chapter 2) where he says that they all of a sudden had this epiphany that blacks are humans and receive equal favor of God.

One is not a bigot for thinking another’s religion is wrong. If Sharpton thought Mormonism was right, then he’d be a Mormon. The fact that he’s not already lets you know he doesn’t agree with it. But a tenant of Mormonism is that the Latter Day Saints way is the “only way”. That means they thinking everybody else’s religion is wrong. So then by this same charge Mormons by definitions are the same bigots. By that logic there religion is inherently bigoted and so is every other one.

In response to the controversy Sharpton has also told the news wires that his thoughts are that “A Mormon, by definition, believes in God. They don’t believe in God the way I do, but by definition, they believe in God.”

After the comments came to light, Romney and his people pounced. As Sharpton has said, it seems that the Romney camp is simply manufacturing a controversy for publicity. Likewise the media and in particular the normal white bobble head dolls are salivating at the mouth to paint this as an Imus moment by Sharpton, and highlight his supposed hypocrisy; because of course what Sharpton said, even if bigoted, then somehow justifies what Don Imus said.

Like Darth Vader and The Republic after their defeat to the Jedi’s, the obfuscators of racism return with a fierce attack. But unlike Obi-Wan Kenobi, Sharpton’s mentor Jesse Jackson isn’t going to sacrifice himself to slaughter, and this isn’t going to work because it doesn’t hold water. Nice try boys. We’ll see if you can do better in the third installment.

Foot Notes
* Neither White nor Black: Mormon Scholars Confront the Race Issue in a Universal Church. Edited by Lester E. Bush, Jr., and Armand L. Mauss. Signature Books; Midvale, Utah © 1984 by Signature Books.

Something of side interest: Sharpton illuminating the lunacy of comparing his defense of a rape victim to Imus’s sexist and racial attack:

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4 Responses to “Sharpton, Romney, Imus and God”

  1. Shayla on May 11th, 2007 3:46 am | link

    I didn’t hear about this. What Al Sharpton said IN NO WAYS compares to what Imus said. Are people sick?

  2. D. Yobachi Boswell on May 11th, 2007 4:41 am | link

    Of course it’s not. At best he need to make himself more clear and be cognisant of how making
    a quip as apposed to an articlated statement would play.

    But it’s clear what the real motivation behind this contreversy is. It’s just an attempt to attack
    the messenger for pointing out Imus’ racism, and an attempt by the fledging Romney campaign to
    garnish publicity any way it can.

  3. tress on May 21st, 2007 4:22 am | link

    The sad thing, from a purely political pundit position (how’s that for alliteration!), is that Romney’s campaign did not need a Sharpton scapegoat. In trying to use him as an easy lightening rod to prove his “rightness” to the far right he only succeded in making his religion’s craziness that much more well known. *smh*

    Anyway, all religions are exclusionary by their nature in that almost all of them say if you don’t believe what they belive you are doomed to hell. And they are charged with saving those who believe differently. Maybe Al was trying to show Romney the right way to Jesus. That’s what I woulda said.

  4. D. Yobachi Boswell on May 24th, 2007 2:19 am | link

    he only succeded in making his religion’s craziness that much more well known

    LOL, precisely.

    He’s too busy foaming at the mouth over Sharpton he can’t see the greater issue.

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  • D. Yobachi Boswell

  • Yobachi Boswell is creator and publisher of BlackPerspecitve.net. I’m a writer, activist and political watcher based in Nashville, Tennessee. I’ve also been know to do some spoken word and MCing in my day.

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