BY ROBERT SPENCER | P J MEDIA
(Photo by Amy Harris/Invision/AP)
The killers of Ahmaud Arbery have been convicted of murder, demonstrating once again that
Leftists’ narrative of “systemic racism” and “white supremacy” is false, hollow
and divisive. After the Rittenhouse acquittal, numerous prominent people
made paranoid, hysterical claims that white people can
commit murder without penalty while black people are brutalized and framed for
crimes, ignoring the fact that a black man, Andrew Coffee IV, was acquitted of
murder on the same day Rittenhouse was also acquitted, and on the same grounds
of self-defense. The conviction of Arbery’s killers was another torpedo in the
establishment narrative, and then on Tuesday, Ahmaud Arbery’s father, Marcus
Arbery, made matters even worse by taking up what Leftists insist is that
notorious slogan of racists everywhere, “All Lives Matter.” Is Marcus Arbery a
white supremacist? The mind reels.
Arbery said: “For real, all lives matter. Not just black children,
we don’t want to see nobody go through this. I don’t want to see no daddy watch
his kid get shot down like that. It’s all our problem. It’s all our problem. So
hey, let’s keep fighting. Let’s keep doing it and making this place a better
place for all human beings. All human beings. Everybody! Love everybody! All
human beings need to be treated equally….Today is a good day.”
The best part of Arbery’s statement, however, wasn’t even
so much what Arbery said, as great as it was, but the fact that he said these
things while standing in front of the notorious race-hate entrepreneur Al
Sharpton. Sharpton’s wordless response to Arbery’s words is fascinating: he
first watches Arbery warily, and then begins to nod and mutter “That’s right,”
all the while looking slightly pained. At one point, Sharpton begins to look
directly at the camera, as if hoping against hope that maybe the moment wasn’t
being captured on video. But it was.
Sharpton struck back at those who affirmed that “All
Lives Matter” in June 2020 on English broadcaster Piers Morgan’s show.
Morgan asked him, “You see people, as they have been doing in
America and here, ‘Well, white lives matter, too. All lives matter.’ What is
the correct response to that?” It’s noteworthy that Morgan didn’t ask Sharpton
for his response to that, but for the “correct” one, taking
for granted that Sharpton was an impartial oracle dispensing the correct and
acceptable opinions that the masses were allowed to hold. Morgan also gave the
question a racist spin by focusing on the phrase “White Lives Matter,” which is
actually just as misleading as “Black Lives Matter” in singling out one group
at the expense of others.
Not surprisingly, Sharpton focused on the “White Lives
Matter” phrase, saying: “The correct response to that is that there has never
been any argument that White Lives Matter. There has never been any debate and
when a white life was taken, it is mitigated, prosecuted and, if convicted,
incarcerated. The problem has been that it has not been equal on the other
side. So, there has been no equal need to say ‘white lives matter.’ That has
been a given and the system has worked that way. It has not worked that way
around white lives. So, we’re not saying ‘Black Lives Matter more’. We are
saying Black Lives Matter as much, equally and should be treated the same.”
Sharpton’s claim that “the system” has favored whites over blacks was belied again by the Arbery verdict. Then Arbery’s words delivered an even more crushing rebuke, refuting the Left’s claim that to say “All lives matter” somehow undercuts concerns for the civil rights of blacks.
The career race-baiter has had a tough few months. In
September, he visited the border after false reports circulated of Border
Patrol officers using whips on migrants. But his race-hate message fell on deaf
ears: hecklers shouted Sharpton down, saying: “You’re a racist. Nobody wants you in Texas. Nobody
wants you in Texas. Why are you here? Why are you stoking racism where it
doesn’t exist? Nobody wants to hear your racist nonsense in Del Rio!”
And now Sharpton has even lost the father of a black man
who was murdered by whites. Michael Shellenberger, author of San
Fran-sicko: Why Progressives Ruin Cities, commented: “Marcus Arbery, father of Ahmaud, who was
senselessly murdered, had every reason to give an angry & vindictive
speech, & he would have been applauded for doing so Instead he affirmed his
faith in the Kingian vision of racial equality, and in so doing restores our
faith in America.”
That is true. And no one is farther from Martin Luther
King’s vision of racial equality and harmony than the veteran divider Sharpton.
On Wednesday, Marcus Arbery gave him a well-deserved rebuke, implicit but
unmistakable. Marcus Arbery is a man of clarity and vision who deserves to be
listened to and heeded far more than Al Sharpton does.
