Read Online The Rejected Stone: Al Sharpton and the Path to American Leadership by Al Sharpton - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Al Sharpton
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Snooki on Jersey Shore , five minutes with the ladies of the Real Housewives franchise in any of its many cities, and five minutes with Honey Boo Boo and her blissfully ignorant family. These shows and dozens of others provide a virtual dissertation on the modern failings of American culture. The dumber, more ignorant, and more anti-intellectual you are, the quicker your path to stardom. And that’s not even including the endless drumbeat of “niggas,” “bitches,” and “hos” on the radio airwaves.
This enthusiastic American celebration of decadence, debauchery, and ignorance transcends race—we’re all there now; no community is immune. In a classic illustration of American inclusiveness, we’ve even given a vehicle to the Arab community to parade its own unique brand of brainlessness on a reality show called Shahs of Sunset. Ah, the beauty of America. Let’s show our young people—hell, show the world—how low, irresponsible, undisciplined, and uneducated you can be in this great nation and still get paid.
Our children see the condition of their schools and understand what the society is telling them: You are notimportant. If you’re black, Latino, or poor white, and your school is falling apart—and the fancy public school across town is dripping with amenities—and you’re already inundated with videos and music that says you’re nothing but a nigga, a bitch, a spic, a ho, what are you supposed to think but that you’re nobody? You don’t have a sports team, you don’t have a pool, you don’t even have computers in your classroom.
It all matches the message you’re hearing on the radio: You ain’t shit.
But if each of us looks upon these children as our own, if we consider that we all have a responsibility to not only the young people in our families but also the ones in our neighborhoods, our communities, and across the nation, we will all feel it intimately when children in a particular community are forgotten or disrespected. That should be a requirement for citizenship in this country we profess to love: If you truly love America, you will also love Americans.
10
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DON’T GET HYPNOTIZED BY THE SHINY OBJECTS
I first met James Brown when I was a boy growing up in Hollis, Queens, not far from the big house where Brown lived. The kids on the block would stand by the gate outside his house, which loomed before our young eyes like an urban castle, and wait for him to come out and talk to us. He would tell us the sorts of things that older black people liked to tell kids: “Stay in school” or “Don’t do drugs.” He’d also say things you were not likely to hear from a lot of other black people at the time, such as “Be proud of being black.” He was already a towering figure in the music industry by then, the creator of both funk and soul music, with iconic hits such as “Cold Sweat,” “It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World,” “Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag,” and “Say It Loud—I’m Black and I’m Proud” (a song that many credit for making the African-American community begin to favor the descriptive moniker black instead of Negro ).
The relationship I had with James Brown turned out to be one of the most meaningful associations I’ve had in my life, one that shaped a lot of what I eventually became.
In 1973, when I was eighteen, James heard about my National Youth Movement and decided he wanted to help me raise money by doing a benefit concert. James seemed to really like me and took me under his wing. He started inviting me to his shows to help out, eventually bringing me all around the world with him and even appointing me as his manager because he knew he could trust me. Our relationship became like father and son. In fact, James’s father, Joe Brown, once said I brought out the best in James because he wanted to live up to my admiration of him.
Those years with James were a heady, glorious time for me. I learned a great deal about human nature, about
This enthusiastic American celebration of decadence, debauchery, and ignorance transcends race—we’re all there now; no community is immune. In a classic illustration of American inclusiveness, we’ve even given a vehicle to the Arab community to parade its own unique brand of brainlessness on a reality show called Shahs of Sunset. Ah, the beauty of America. Let’s show our young people—hell, show the world—how low, irresponsible, undisciplined, and uneducated you can be in this great nation and still get paid.
Our children see the condition of their schools and understand what the society is telling them: You are notimportant. If you’re black, Latino, or poor white, and your school is falling apart—and the fancy public school across town is dripping with amenities—and you’re already inundated with videos and music that says you’re nothing but a nigga, a bitch, a spic, a ho, what are you supposed to think but that you’re nobody? You don’t have a sports team, you don’t have a pool, you don’t even have computers in your classroom.
It all matches the message you’re hearing on the radio: You ain’t shit.
But if each of us looks upon these children as our own, if we consider that we all have a responsibility to not only the young people in our families but also the ones in our neighborhoods, our communities, and across the nation, we will all feel it intimately when children in a particular community are forgotten or disrespected. That should be a requirement for citizenship in this country we profess to love: If you truly love America, you will also love Americans.
10
----
DON’T GET HYPNOTIZED BY THE SHINY OBJECTS
I first met James Brown when I was a boy growing up in Hollis, Queens, not far from the big house where Brown lived. The kids on the block would stand by the gate outside his house, which loomed before our young eyes like an urban castle, and wait for him to come out and talk to us. He would tell us the sorts of things that older black people liked to tell kids: “Stay in school” or “Don’t do drugs.” He’d also say things you were not likely to hear from a lot of other black people at the time, such as “Be proud of being black.” He was already a towering figure in the music industry by then, the creator of both funk and soul music, with iconic hits such as “Cold Sweat,” “It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World,” “Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag,” and “Say It Loud—I’m Black and I’m Proud” (a song that many credit for making the African-American community begin to favor the descriptive moniker black instead of Negro ).
The relationship I had with James Brown turned out to be one of the most meaningful associations I’ve had in my life, one that shaped a lot of what I eventually became.
In 1973, when I was eighteen, James heard about my National Youth Movement and decided he wanted to help me raise money by doing a benefit concert. James seemed to really like me and took me under his wing. He started inviting me to his shows to help out, eventually bringing me all around the world with him and even appointing me as his manager because he knew he could trust me. Our relationship became like father and son. In fact, James’s father, Joe Brown, once said I brought out the best in James because he wanted to live up to my admiration of him.
Those years with James were a heady, glorious time for me. I learned a great deal about human nature, about
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