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Written by Ann Brown

Feb 23, 2021

Black America is still experiencing a lot of firsts, including the first Black woman as vice president but civil rights activist Rev. Al Sharpton says hes tired of empty firsts. Now is the time to put aside Black symbolism. Its time for action, according to Sharpton.

Its a sign of our times that Black politicians cant simply acknowledge that debt. They are expected to actually repay it by addressing the vast and immediate needs of Black Americans, The Los Angeles Times reported.

Recently, several Black activists have developed a plan for the payback.

The Black to the Future Action Fund released its Black mandate for the Biden-Harris administration also known as theBuild Back Bolder plan, which is not to be confused with the administrations ownBuild Back Better plan.

This plan is being shepherded by the co-founder of the Black Lives Matter Global Network Alicia Garza. Other backers include Sharpton, the Rev. William Barber II of the Poor Peoples Campaign, as well as several of the activists who helped turn Georgia blue in the last election, including LaTosha Brown of Black Voters Matter, Ns Ufot of the New Georgia Project, and Deborah Scott of Georgia STAND UP,The Los Angeles Timesreported.

On Feb. 19, the backers of the plan held an online launch event for the Build Back Bolder.

America has consistently failed to deliver on its promise to Black communities, Garza said. But when we are focused, when we are organized, when we are determined, Black America has been successful in delivering on our promise to not rest until freedom comes. We pushed the Biden-Harris campaign to victory, not for them, but for us because we cant wait any longer.

We didnt elect them because we like them or, you know because theyre our friends, Brown added a few minutes later. This is about power.

Sharpton echoed the sentiments. We did not put you there for symbolism. We are past the Jackie Robinson days, Sharpton said during Fridays launch event. We dont want a Black in the game. We want to win the game.

So what debt does Harris owe to Black America?

According to her office, Harris is keen on pushing forward an agenda that will help Black America.

Already, the vice president has been touting her involvement forming a White House task force to address health inequities that have been exacerbated by the pandemic. She also has been using her voice to counter conspiracy theories about covid-19 and encourage skeptical Black people to get vaccinated, The L.A. Times reported.

Listen to GHOGH with Jamarlin Martin | Episode 73: Jamarlin Martin Jamarlin makes the case for why this is a multi-factor rebellion vs. just protests about George Floyd. He discusses the Democratic Partys sneaky relationship with the police in cities and states under Dem control, and why Joe Biden is a cop and the Steve Jobs of mass incarceration.

But theres more Harris can do. And Sharpton is expecting more from her.

What weve learned is that we only are going to get what we fight for, Sharpton said. And even though some [politicians] may be better mannered, it does not mean that theyre going to do what is right for our agenda. Were not fans. Were grown folks that have the power of our vote.

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Sharpton Goes Off On New Black Symbolism: We Didnt Put You In Office For Symbolism, We Dont Need A Black In The Game - Moguldom

Young conservative writer Helen Andrews is what the right usually accuses progressives of being shes a scold.

All cyclical, of course, because when I was a wee bairn it was indeed the Birchers and their buds who did the societal scolding. No rocknroll, no birth control for you, bohemians just redlined neighborhoods with segregated schools and then its off to fight the Commies in Vietnam, thank you very much. Gay? No youre not. One God, one country, love it or leave it.

I could never get how the reactionaries were allowed to pretend their views had anything to do with freedom. The conformity most in our parents generation sought for all Americans resulted, naturally, in rebellion by those who didnt want to grow up to be The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit.

But the premise of Andrews new book Boomers: The Men and Women Who Promised Freedom and Delivered Disaster is that the rebellion resulted in societal ruin, and that, thanks to those born between 1945 and 1964, were basically screwed, going forward: They inherited prosperity, social cohesion, and functioning institutions. They passed on debt, inequality, moribund churches, and a broken democracy.

I first heard Andrews interviewed on Left, Right and Center, on which she was funny and bright, and then read her book. That Andrews premise is wild and provocative doesnt mean its wrong. It turns out that on closer inspection it is wrong almost comically wrong. But she is such a good writer, so finely contrary, so ornery, that its worth taking a look at the world through her millennial eyes. If shes incorrect in the main in claiming we boomers have ruined the world forever, shes not at all wrong in skewering some of the pomposity of the hippies and their ilk, and in her worries about how the economy works for her generation: the cruelties of the real estate market, the disaster that is college debt.

An editor suggested the topic of popping the OK, boomer balloon to Andrews, saying she should base it on Lytton Stracheys Eminent Victorians, a vicious lampoon of four late leaders of the generation that brought Britain World War I. Youre like Strachey, the editor told her, because youre an essayist, and youre mean. Nice work if you can get it!

So Andrews, an editor at The American Conservative, chose six boomers Steve Jobs, Aaron Sorkin, Jeffrey Sachs, Camille Paglia, Al Sharpton and Sonia Sotomayor to blame for what she sees as the current unpleasantness. Stracheys subjects, including Florence Nightingale, being dead, never got to read about their degrading effect on their country. Andrews chooses mostly live ones because these boomers should not be allowed to shuffle off the world stage until they have been made to regret theirs.

I didnt read her chapter on Jeffrey Sachs, cause I didnt know who he is, and I am not interested in Al Sharpton. But Andrews is meanly masterful on Jobs how his ascetic purity drove him to serve terrifying unsweet vegan cake to his wedding guests. She is absolutely fixated on Sorkin and how his cast of ambitious strivers too wonky to be glamorous, and too young to have gravitas made The West Wing a fantasy balm for liberals during the W. years.

Where Andrews is entirely wrong is in her inability to admit that the biggest changes wrought during the heyday of the boomers are basic to human dignity. She claims we created a myth that America was a totalitarian nightmare before we forged that holy trifecta, civil rights, womens liberation and the gay movement. What galls her most is our smugness over those achievements. OK, touche. But, no, I dont want that nightmare back.

Larry Wilson is on the Southern California News Group editorial board. lwilson@scng.com.

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You blew it, boomers, says millennial writer Helen Andrews - The Daily Breeze

Because of offensive tweets posted by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., before she won office, House Democrats joined by 11 Republicans voted to strip her of her committee assignments.

If this is the new standard, can we apply this to the Rev. Al Sharpton, aka a Democratic kingmaker, whose support was solicited by every major 2020 Democratic presidential candidate?

About Sharptons power and stature, The Atlantic, in 2019, said: The 2020 Democrats courting of Sharpton is well under way. He says he expects his endorsement to make a difference when he makes it. ... Sharpton occupies a distinct space. Other than Barack Obama, there is no better-known Black leader in the country, nor one with bigger reach: The National Action Network has 100 chapters across America, and Sharpton himself hosts a radio show on 70 stations every weekday and a TV show on MSNBC on Saturdays and Sundays.

Once upon a time, normal people found Sharpton offensive. Take former Rep. Joe Scarborough, now a cozy colleague of Sharpton on MSNBC, where both host cable shows. How offensive did Scarborough once find Sharpton? When then-Republican Scarborough served as a House representative from Florida in 2000, he introduced the following resolution, entitled Condemning the Racist and Anti-Semitic Views of The Reverend Al Sharpton:

Whereas the Reverend Al Sharpton has referred to members of the Jewish faith as bloodsucking (J)ews and Jew bastards; ... referred to members of the Jewish faith as white interlopers and diamond merchants; ... was found guilty of defamation by a jury in a New York court arising from the false accusation that former Assistant District Attorney Steven Pagones, who is white, raped and assaulted a fifteen year-old Black girl; ... has refused to accept responsibility and expresses no regret for defaming Mr. Pagones; ... Sharptons vicious verbal anti-Semitic attacks directed at members of the Jewish faith, and in particular, a Jewish landlord, arising from a simple landlord-tenant dispute with a Black tenant, incited widespread violence, riots and the murder of five innocent people; ... Sharptons fierce demagoguery incited violence, riots and murder in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn, New York, following the accidental death of a Black pedestrian child hit by the motorcade of Orthodox Rabbi Menachem Schneerson; ... Sharpton led a protest in the Crown Heights neighborhood and marched next to a protester with a sign that read The White Man is the Devil; ... has insulted members of the Jewish faith by challenging Jews to violence and stating to Jews to pin down their yarmulkes. ...

Now, therefore, be it resolved by the House of Representatives (the Senate concurring), that the Congress --

(1) condemns the practices of the Reverend Al Sharpton, which seek to divide Americans on the basis of race, ethnicity, and religion;

(2) expresses its outrage over the violence that has resulted due to the Reverend Al Sharptons incendiary words and actions; and

(3) fervently urges elected officials and public servants, who have condoned and legitimized the Reverend Al Sharptons incendiary words and actions, to publicly denounce and condemn such racist and anti-Semitic views.

At the 1995 Million Man March, Sharpton said, O.J. is home, but Mumia Abu-Jamal aint home, and we wont stop till all our people that need a chance in an awkward and unbalanced criminal justice system can come home. Of course, O.J. Simpson, whose acquittal was celebrated by Sharpton, murdered two people. As for Abu-Jamal, a Black man, he was convicted in 1982 for the execution-style murder of a white Philadelphia cop. The prosecutor called the case the strongest I ever had. CNN host Michael Smerconish co-wrote, along with the slain officers widow, a book called Murdered by Mumia. Smerconish criticizes ignorant supporters of Jamal who, like Sharpton, call Abu-Jamal innocent. Smerconish also said that the cop killers multiple post-conviction appeals made a mockery of the judicial system.

Ladies and gentlemen, make way for Al Sharpton, Democratic kingmaker.

Follow Larry Elder on Twitter @LarryElder.

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If Rep. Greene is the standard, what about Dem 'kingmaker' Sharpton? - KeysNews.com

Stacy Lynch, the author (photo: @lynchfornyc7)

Growing up in Harlem as the daughter of Bill Lynch, the mastermind behind David Dinkins campaign to become the first Black mayor of New York, public service is in my DNA. Watching him put together coalitions, something he began working with farm workers in the potato fields of eastern Long Island, has stayed with me throughout my career in law and government.

That legacy carries with it the obligation to pay it forward in trying to improve the lives of all of our neighbors. It is why I reached out to the daughters of other pioneering Black activists to work together to create the Daughters of the Movement to build on that legacy.

Working with the daughters and granddaughters of so many of those pioneers Harry Belafonte, Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee, Percy Sutton, Diahann Carroll, Malcolm X, and Al Sharpton we have dedicated ourselves to continuing the never-ending struggle towards justice and equality in our city and our nation.

The need for coalition-building has been especially true at this moment, as we struggle with the impact of three devastating crises that individually would be intimidating and together confront us with unprecedented intensity, and which disproportionately affect Black and brown communities in New York City and beyond.

The COVID-19 pandemic, the economic dislocation it has caused with the loss of many thousands of jobs and small businesses, and the struggle for long-overdue racial and economic justice that erupted after the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Jacob Blake, and so many others tell us that our ancestors struggles are not ancient history but present day reality.

They persist in ways large and small, visible and less visible the lack of affordable housing, food deserts in vulnerable communities that are linked to high rates of diabetes, environmental racism evident in the groupings of high asthma rates and the location of bus garages and sewage treatment plants, and a digital divide that spans the generations, whether it is students trying to access the internet for remote learning or senior citizens wrestling with trying to register for a COVID-19 vaccine online.

As Daughters of the Movement, we have not been immune to the racism and misogyny that afflicted our foreparents efforts to seek justice. In some of our online programming, we have experienced cyberbullying including pornographic, racist, and threatening comments. But we know our foreparents carried on with grace, dignity, and determination in the face of psychological and physical bullying. They would not allow it to dissuade them from the struggle. We too are committed to that legacy of strength and dedication.

We continue to move forward, furthering their legacy and, rather than resting on their laurels, building upon it in a never-ending struggle.

That struggle requires coalition, since together we are stronger than when we stand alone. In my career, whether in law or government, that has meant reaching out to the New York Liberty to create a girls basketball league, working to create internships in the entertainment industry, pressing for the creation of thousands of city-supported summer jobs, or organizing the distribution of masks throughout NYCHA developments during the pandemic.

Growing up as the daughters of pioneers carries its own challenges, which is why in 2017 I first reached out to the daughters of so many of those pioneers who shared the pressures and opportunities our upbringing presented us.

Put simply, I needed a sisterhood.

We have launched a series of podcasts and speakers programs across multiple outlets to talk about our experiences and how they relate to developments in politics, the arts, sports, health and, of course, the continuing struggle against racism, injustice, and inequality.

And we talk about the personal aspects of that legacy in ways we hope those who hear us can relate to in their own struggles with growing up and fighting for what is right.

Our parents showed us the way, and we are fighting to open that door wider to welcome all who struggle with us. Were all in this together.

***Stacy Lynch, who lives in West Harlem, is running for City Council in Upper Manhattans 7th District. On Twitter @lynchfornyc7.

***Have an op-ed idea or submission for Gotham Gazette? Email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

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Daughters of the Movement, Carrying On - Gotham Gazette

Dr. Cornel West is an intellectual giant, one of a select group of academics who have recognition outside their field; he has published a wide range of books and has frequently appeared as a talking head on TV, and he is known for his fiery progressive politics and criticism of race in the U.S. He was also just denied consideration for tenure by Harvard University, where he currently teaches.

West implied, in a tweet, that Harvards decision is retaliation for his critical stance on Israel. Is Harvard a place for a free Black man like myself whose Christian faith & witness put equal value on Palestinian & Jewish babies like all babies & reject all occupations as immoral? he wrote.

Harvard contests these allegations; Wests appointment, a joint position between the Harvard Divinity School and the Harvard Department of African American Studies, was not a tenure-track role, so the committee which reviewed and renewed his position say they did not have the authority to evaluate him for tenure. They did offer him a 10-year contract and an endowed chair, the Victor S. Thomas Professorship of Public Philosophy.

But West says the issue was his work. What Im told is its too risky. And these are quotes. Its too fraught. And Im too controversial, he told the Boston Globe.

West is threatening to leave Harvard over what he refers to as disrespect. If he does so, it will not be the first time; West taught at Harvard from 1994-2002, and left over disagreements with then-president Lawrence Summers. Summers criticized Wests spoken word albums and involvement with Al Sharpton, as well as accusing him of contributing to grade inflation. Later, on NPR, West called Summers the Ariel Sharon of higher education.

Its also not the first time West has caught flak for his positions on Israel; the professor criticized President Obama harshly over his support for Israel, calling him a war criminal who is complicit in innocent deaths, to the dismay of many on the left.

However, West is not the first casualty of an opaque tenure process at Harvard; he is simply the professor with the highest profile to be rejected. He is part of a rising dispute with Harvards tenure system, which critics argue tends to deny tenure to women and people of color in particular. In the past few years, the university has denied tenure to several people of color, including those such as West who have activist ties, leading to calls for greater transparency from both students and the academic world.

Professor Ahmed Ragab was a professor of science and religion at Harvard, an Egyptian immigrant specializing in medieval Islamic history as well as an activist on issues of immigration as well as trans rights. He was the first Muslim professor to come up for tenure at the Divinity School, but was denied without a review from the tenure committee in 2019. (Full disclosure=: I was a student at the Divinity School during this time, and took a course with Ragab; I did not study with West. Hundreds of my fellow students signed a letter of protest, which also noted the universitys failure to retain women and people of color as faculty, citing two women in Asian studies who left Harvard after being denied tenure.)

In 2020, Lorgia Garcia-Pena, a professor of Romance Languages and Literatures who studied race and ethnicity, was also denied tenure despite an overwhelmingly positive faculty review; the ad hoc committee, which decides tenure at Harvard, still rejected her. Students and ethnic studies scholars signed letters criticizing the decision and excoriating Harvards supposed commitment to diversity and ethnic studies.

Universities cannot simultaneously pledge a commitment to diversity and inclusion, and not take seriously the knowledge produced by and for communities that have long been excluded from or marginalized within the academy, the faculty letter reads.

West is not overtly a victim of Harvards secretive, closed-door tenure process; his request for tenure was denied because his post was not tenure-track, not because a secretive committee found him lacking in some way. But elite universities often bend rules to lure famed thinkers to their hallowed halls, to continue a reputation of excellence and to draw students. West is an obvious candidate for such a choice, especially if Harvard is putting an emphasis on diversity the student body who is attracted by West naturally tends to be diverse.

West clearly feels that the denial of tenure is not truly a technical issue. If I cannot be put up for tenure, then it is clear they dont think Im worthy of tenure, he said.

Mira Fox is a fellow at the Forward. Get in touch at fox@forward.com or on Twitter @miraefox.

Harvard denied Cornel West tenure. Is Israel why?

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Harvard denied Cornel West tenure. Are his comments on Israel the reason? - Forward