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 eware
of your opinions. They could be hazardous to your life.
That's not
from 1984, or a warning to the citizens of a tyrannical country.
It's more like a word of caution to any journalist who might consider
commenting on a black American.
Witness what
is happening to Rod Dreher, a columnist for the New York Post
and an occasional contributor to National Review Online.
Last week,
the spectacle outside a New York City church for the funeral of
R&B singer Aaliyah was Princess Di-like, to say the least. There
was a horse-drawn carriage, a release of doves, and a throng of
teenagers bawling away. Dreher said in print what most of New York
has been saying on the streets: Who was she, anyway?
Maybe you
know who she was. And, of course, as Dreher wrote, her death was
a tragedy. But the trappings of her funeral seemed out of proportion.
In a newspaper column in the city where all this happened, Dreher
made this point. And now, he's a "racist" — one who
fears for his life.
Dreher's column
appeared on August 31. Over the Labor Day weekend, Al Sharpton held
a press conference condemning Dreher for criticizing the scene around
Aaliyah's funeral. The Reverend categorized the column as "abysmal,
shocking and racist." He asked, "What do you mean horse
carriages shouldn't be used, doves shouldn't fly?" And he concluded,
"What you really mean is you should have a nice little Negro
funeral."
In the New
York Post's own news
story on the press conference, Sharpton is quoted as saying,
"We will bring down anybody who tells us how to mourn our own."
"We will
bring down anybody . . ." These are not words to be taken lightly.
They come from a man with presidential aspirations, and a master
demagogue. Sharpton's was a potent volley in a new war against a
respected writer who was caught telling it like it is. After Sharpton's
attack on Dreher, the New York Post phone lines reached a
near standstill. The legions, it seems, have been awakened. Sharpton's
corner of New York wants Dreher's head.
Dreher should
take these threats — and Sharpton — seriously. His incendiary
skills have proven fatal before. In an unrelated piece in Friday's
Post, Fred Siegel reminds readers of Sharpton's role in the
burning down of Freddy's Fashion Mart in Harlem a few years ago.
After describing a softball interview Chris Matthews held with Sharpton
this week, Siegel writes:
Matthews,
like some of the New York press, seems unaware of a far more egregious
example of Sharpton's malevolence and his skill at insulating
himself from the consequences of his demagoguery — the 1995
killing of seven people at Freddy's Fashion Mart on 125th Street.
Sharpton
and his National Action Network turned a dispute between a Jewish
tenant who rented the space for his store (Freddy's) from a black
church and his black subtenant into a racial hailstorm. Sharpton
set up pickets outside the store, led by his lieutenant in the
National Action Network, Morris Powell.
Powell was
an intimidating figure to many on 125th Street. An escaped mental
patient who had thrice been accused of attempted murder, he had
long threatened that "there will be war" against white
merchants and "this street will burn." His protesters,
sometimes joined by Sharpton, shouted racial epithets like "Jew
bastards" and "the bloodsucking Jews," while referring
to other whites as "crackers" and black customers as
"traitors."
One of the
protesters, a man who called himself "Shabazz," forced
his way into the store shouting, "I will be back to burn
the Jew store down." He didn't, but a man named Abubunde
Mulocko did.
Apparently
angered by the mistaken assumption that the store had hired Hispanics
instead of blacks, Mulocko, a man with a long criminal record,
his "paranoia goosed by the protests," burned the store
down.
Armed with
a .38, he shot three whites and a Pakistani in cold blood (he
had mistaken the light-skinned Pakistani for a Jew) and then set
the fire that killed five Hispanics, one Guyanese and one black,
the security guard who the protesters had taunted as a "cracker
lover."
A compliant
press never asked Sharpton tough questions in the wake of the
massacre. He denied that he knew what his own lieutenant was up
to. Instead, having thoroughly intimidated people in Harlem who
might criticize him, he was allowed to resume his pose as a "civil-rights
leader."
What makes
matters worse, for both Dreher and the cause of truth and justice,
is that the writer's own New York Post has taken a vow of
silence on the matter. Too bad Rod Dreher, whose mug appears alongside
each of his Post columns, can't hide as easily.
Before Dreher
joined the Post's cloister (he declined comment for this
piece), he told the New
York Observer that his editors requested a follow-up column,
one that would peek at the ridiculous and threatening responses
he's received. But the column did not run. The Post's one
comment on the Aaliyah matter has been from editor in chief Col
Allan, who wrote, "I stand by Rod Dreher. He had a right to
express an opinion."
Let's hope
so. Here is a writer who was doing his job — faithfully, accurately.
But the silence has turned damaging, for both Dreher and the Post.
If the newspaper truly stands by Rod Dreher, it should say so —
loudly. The threats he has received should be announced in headlines.
These are not critics, of course. These are thugs, Sharpton's thugs.
As has been
reported
elsewhere, one caller told Dreher in a voicemail: "Look,
white bitch, you're not answering your phone, but you can't hide
forever. One of us is going to be waiting for you outside your building,
and you're gonna be thinking you're going home. But we're gonna
step out and choke yo' muthaf***in' neck."
All this in
America. In Rudy Giuliani's New York. If the Sharpton regime is
this powerful now, just wait until it goes Mark Green.
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