"(President) Eisenhower protected the Little Rock Nine and sent the U.S. attorney general down South to integrate department store lunch counters. (Presidents) Kennedy and Johnson protected freedom riders and voting rights, but this federal government has done nothing for the Jena Six or to stem the rising tide of hate that includes a proliferation of nooses and swastikas," said the Rev. Al Sharpton, a well-known activist who was one of the celebrity participants [of this week's March on Washington]. "It is time that the federal government intervenes and offers protection against these injustices."
I absolutely cannot understand how he can compare the Jena six with the innocent and oppressed individuals who integrated the high school in Little Rock. It utterly baffles me. And I'm even more amazed that the older members of the black community do not reel at the comparison. It is the height of disrespect to those who fought tooth and nail for the right to an equal education to compare them to a group of teenagers who think they were somehow justified in beating a classmate bloody.
I know that it is tempting to blow off nonsensical rhetoric like this, but it is hard to ignore the number of people who trust and revere everything Sharpton says. Not to mention the political left that caters to him.
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