Talk:Al Sharpton

Fat Shaming
I'm not sure he's so much about "shaming fat people" as he's trying to motivate people to lose weight. It's a serious problem in the US, and the black community especially. CorruptUser (talk) 20:55, 11 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Go ahead and make the change you want to make. ikanreed You probably didn't deserve that 20:57, 11 March 2015 (UTC)
 * It's not so much the message but the method. Bongolian (talk) 07:27, 22 March 2015 (UTC)

Two issues
First off, the court records are what they are; a civil court found Sharpton defamed an innocent individual, and irreparably damaged his life. As to the second. KC Johnson is recognized as the authority on the matter, and documented the copious amount of race-baiting the Duke faculty engaged in. Search for Peter Wood, Karla Holloway, Wahneema Lubiano, Houston Baker, and Mark Neal for a demonstrative, but in no way exhaustive, show of people declaring that the lacrosse players should be punished due to their white male privilege. I'll get specific links as requested, there's also a lot more than just the five above. KC Johnson is absolutely no one's definition of a reactionary, as a cursory search of his work should demonstrate. His point was that racism of any kind is not OK, and noted the silence of purportedly "diversity-minded" people of all different backgrounds—including activists such as Al Sharpton. 24.186.49.177 (talk) 21:11, 21 March 2015 (UTC)
 * And here's a Duke faculty member calling Houston Baker out for his racist invective towards the white players on the Duke lacrosse team. 24.186.49.177 (talk) 21:44, 21 March 2015 (UTC)
 * A response would of course be appreciated. 24.186.49.177 (talk) 22:53, 21 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Oh, and this details one of the players getting death threats from the New Black Panther Party, Nifong talking with Malik Zulu Shabazz about the case, and then Nifong subsequently making a person strongly associated with Shabazz a large part of his campaign. To refer to Shabazz and the New Black Panthers as the worst kind of vile racists is hardly "reactionary", it's common sense. Furthermore, this details the blatant racism aimed at the players, which Sharpton has yet to take a stand against. 24.186.49.177 (talk) 04:52, 22 March 2015 (UTC)
 * 1. 1980s doesn't take an apostrophe. 2. I'm not taking a blogspot post too seriously as a source. UPDATE: 3. More importatly, there's nothing about Sharpton in either of the blog posts you linked to. Compeletely irrelevant to the article at hand. Peace. AgingHippie (talk) 15:11, 22 March 2015 (UTC)
 * The same things are in Until Proven Innocent, which has the same author, I'll cite that instead. It's not completely irrelevant, it shows a selective willingness to stand up to racism. Also, are you arguing that Sharpton didn't defame Steven Pagones?24.186.49.177 (talk) 15:30, 22 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Here, no less than Whoopi Goldberg called for Sharpton to apologize for his nastiness towards the Duke lacrosse team; perhaps predictably, he did not. Seems pretty straightforward, your take? 24.186.49.177 (talk) 15:51, 22 March 2015 (UTC)

Break
I've tried to hit the issues again in somewhat broader strokes. I'm an autistic who, when I get something in my head, can sometimes take a little while to get it into perspective, and I can freely admit that's probably what happened here. Hopefully the current text addresses his problematic attitude towards the case in a way that everyone can agree on, I suppose if we're going to talk about his ignoring other forms of racism it would need to be in a broader context. Thanks for your patience. 24.186.49.177 (talk) 18:02, 22 March 2015 (UTC)