Of course the poor state of race relations in America is not single-handedly down to Al Sharpton (or anyone else for that matter), but his kind of rhetoric is extremely toxic and the more influence people such as himself have the worse the racial situation will become.
A lot of anti-white progressives would otherwise be sympathetic to this were it not for their hatred of white people and their belief that white people are to blame for everything bad that happens to minorities. So to illustrate the toxicity of people like Sharpton, in addition to the violently tribalistic mindset of many black people, let us look at the Crown Heights race riots:
On Monday 8/19/91 a station wagon driven by Yosef Lifsh hit another car and bounced onto the sidewalk at 8:21 p.m. The station wagon was part of a 3-car motorcade carrying the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Menachem Schneerson. The Rebbe was in a different car. The station wagon struck two black children, 7-year-old cousins, Gavin and Angela Cato, who were on the sidewalk. Lifsh immediately got out of his car and tried to help the children, but the gathering crowd started to attack him.
Within minutes, an ambulance from the Hasidic-run ambulance service and two from the city's Emergency Medical Service arrived. The gathering crowd became more unruly. The police who showed up radioed for backup, reporting the station wagon’s driver and passengers were being assaulted. Police officer Nona Capace ordered the Hasidic ambulance to remove the battered Yosef Lifsh and his passenger from the scene.
The injured children went by separate city ambulances to Kings County Hospital. Tragically, Gavin Cato was pronounced dead; his cousin survived.
A false rumor began to spread that the Hasidic ambulance crew had ignored the dying black child in favor of treating the Jewish men. This falsehood was later used by Al Sharpton to incite the crowd.
Other rumors sprang up; some said Lifsh was intoxicated (breath alcohol test administered by the police proved his sobriety). More falsehoods circulated; Lifsh did not have a valid driver's license; he went through a red light; the police prevented people including Gavin Cato's father, from assisting in the rescue.
Charles Price, an area resident who had come to the scene of the accident, incited the masses with claims that, "The Jews get everything they want. They're killing our children." Price later pled guilty for inciting the crowd to murder Yankel Rosenbaum.
Ignited by the falsehoods, resentment exploded into violence. Groups of young black men threw rocks, bottles and debris at police, residents and homes. According to the New York Times, more than 250 neighborhood residents went on a rampage that first night, mostly black teenagers, many of whom were shouting "Jews! Jews! Jews!"
Three hours after the tragic crash, 29-year-old Australian Jewish scholar Yankel Rosenbaum was attacked by a gang of Black teens. He was stabbed four times. Cops quickly arrested Lemrick Nelson, who was identified by Rosenbaum as his attacker. Rosenbaum's wounds were not fatal; he was expected to recover. Mayor Dinkins visited Rosenbaum at the hospital. But Rosenbaum died at 2:30 a.m. Tuesday because the hospital staff missed one of his knife wounds. Despite some claims, Al Sharpton had nothing to do with the murder of Yankel Rosenbaum.
he next evening, according to the sworn testimony of Efraim Lipkind, a former Hasidic resident of Crown Heights, Sharpton started agitating the crowd.
“Then we had a famous man, Al Sharpton, who came down, and he said Tuesday night, kill the Jews, two times. I heard him, and he started to lead a charge across the street to Utica.”
With each passing hour the violence worsened. Jewish leaders began to desperately complain about the lack of protection to the authorities. They said the rioters were being allowed to rampage unchecked, too little force was being brought to bear, and too few arrests were being made. Area Jews felt the police were under orders by the City’s first black mayor to hold back, that the police were not allowed to fight against the black rioters, who continued to grow bolder in their anti-Semitic attacks as they sensed the appeasement.
New York City Mayor David Dinkins responded to the riot immediately by deploying 2,000 police officers and making a personal visit to the troubled neighborhood under a hail of rocks and epithets hurled at him by fellow blacks. Dinkins has spoken of his own mishandling of the riots, admitting he “screwed up Crown Heights.”
“I regret not saying to the police brass sooner whatever you guys are doing is not working.” It was then they altered their behavior and they were able to contain the ravaging young blacks who were attacking Jews … I will forever be accused of holding back the police and permitted blacks to attack Jews. However that did not happen; it is just inaccurate.”
In all, the street violence against the Crown Heights Jews lasted three days/four nights starting with the evening of the accident. On Thursday evening, the police finally restored order, although sporadic violence against Jews continued for weeks after the riot was contained.
Yankel Rosenbaum wasn't the only person murdered by the rioters. On September 5th, Italian-American Anthony Graziosi, was dragged out of his car, brutally beaten and stabbed to death because his full beard and dark clothing caused him to be mistaken for a Hasidic Jew. During the funeral of Gavin Cato on August 26th, Al Sharpton gave an anti-Semitic eulogy, which fueled the fires of hatred.
“The world will tell us he was killed by accident. Yes, it was a social accident. ... It's an accident to allow an apartheid ambulance service in the middle of Crown Heights. ... Talk about how Oppenheimer in South Africa sends diamonds straight to Tel Aviv and deals with the diamond merchants right here in Crown Heights. The issue is not anti-Semitism; the issue is apartheid. ... All we want to say is what Jesus said: If you offend one of these little ones, you got to pay for it. No compromise, no meetings, no kaffe klatsch, no skinnin' and grinnin'. Pay for your deeds."
Regarding the Mayor's call for peace, Sharpton pontificated:
"They don't want peace, they want quiet."
Sharpton and the lawyer representing the Cato family counseled them not to cooperate with authorities in the investigation and demanded a special prosecutor be named.
When Sharpton was asked about the violence, he justified it:
“We must not reprimand our children for outrage, when it is the outrage that was put in them by an oppressive system," he said.
The first Sabbath after the funeral Sharpton tried unsuccessfully to kick up tensions again by marching 400 protesters in front of the Lubavitch of Crown Heights, shouting “No Justice, No Peace." Sharpton called for the arrest of Lifsh, the driver of the station wagon. He stated this despite the fact that more than twenty similarly accidental vehicular deaths had occurred in Brooklyn since 1989 without a single arrest, several involving local Hasidim run down by blacks. The agitator’s pressure triggered Charles Hynes, the Brooklyn district attorney, to convene a grand jury.
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